The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 7

"I should so much like to go with Nola," pleaded Lucy.

"Oh, I shall be delighted if Lucy will go," Minola said, not well knowing how to put into words her sense of all their kindness. It was really a great relief to her to have Lucy's companionship in such a visit. Mary Blanchet did not like to go back even for a few days to Keeton. The poetess objected to seeing ever again the place where she considered that art and she had been degraded by her servitude in the court-house. So the conditions of the visit were all settled.

But there arose suddenly some new conditions which Minola had never expected. The long looked-for vacancy at length occurred in the representation of Keeton. The sitting member announced his determination to resign his seat as soon as the necessary arrangements for such a step could be put into effect. It was imperative that Victor Heron should lose no time in throwing himself upon the vacant borough.

Mr. Money and Lucy rattled up to Minola's door one breathless morning with the news. Lucy's eyes were positively dancing with excitement and delight.

"It seems to me that there's going to be a regular invasion of your borough, Miss Grey," Mr. Money said. "We're all going to be there. You see that you are under no manner of compliment to me. I must have gone down to Keeton in any case; it's one of the lucky things that don't often befall a busy man like me to be able to kill the two birds with the one stone. I must take care of our friend Heron as well as of you.

He would be doing some ridiculous thing if there were no elder to look after him. He is as innocent of the dodges of an English election as you are of the ways of English lawyers. So we'll be all together; that will be very pleasant. Of course we'll not interfere with you. You shall be just as quiet as you like while we are doing our electioneering."

What could Minola say against all this arrangement, which seemed so satisfactory and so delightful to her friends? It was not pleasant for her to be brought thus into a sort of companionship with Victor Heron.

But it would be far less pleasant, it would indeed be intolerable and not to be thought of, that she should in any way raise an objection or make a difficulty which might hint of the feelings that possessed her.

"After all, what does it matter?" she asked herself as Mr. Money was speaking. "I shall have to suffer this kind of thing in some way for half my life, I suppose. It is no one's fault but my own. Why should I disturb the arrangements of these kind people because of any weaknesses of mine? If women will be fools, at least they ought to try to hide their folly. This is as good practice for me as I could have."

So she told Mr. Money and Lucy that any arrangement that suited them would suit her, and that she would be ready to go the moment he gave the word. Then Mr. Money hastened away to look after other things, and Lucy remained behind "to help Nola with her preparations," as she insisted on putting it, but partly, as Minola felt only too sure, to talk with her about Victor Heron.

Since Heron had offered her his advice in the park, and she had put it aside, Minola and he had only met once or twice. Then he had attempted, the first time of their meeting, to renew his apologies, and she had put them lightly away, as she already had done the advice, and had given him to understand that she wished to hear no more of the matter.

She had hoped that by a.s.suming a manner of indifference she might lead him to forget the whole affair. But he did not understand her, and really believed that he had lost her friendship for ever by the manner in which he had spoken against Herbert Blanchet. He was troubled for her much more than for himself, believing, or at least fearing, that she had set her heart on a man unworthy of her. He kept away from her therefore, a.s.suming that his society was no longer welcome, and resolute not to intrude on her.

Minola had hoped that the worst was over, and that he and she were likely to settle gradually and unnoticed by others into a condition of ordinary acquaintanceship. This melancholy hope, to her a cruel necessity in itself, but yet the best hope she could see now left for her, was likely to be disturbed for a while by this ill-omened visit to Keeton.

Minola was busy making her preparations for going to Keeton, and with a very heavy heart. Everything about the visit was now distressing to her. The occasion was mournful; she dreaded long talks and discussions with Mr. Saulsbury; she dreaded meeting old acquaintances in Keeton; she shrank from the responsibilities of various kinds that seemed to be thrust upon her. When she left Keeton she thought she had done with it for ever. Where was the free life she had arranged for herself? Nothing seemed to turn out as she had expected.

Meanwhile Mary Blanchet and Lucy Money were both delighted, and in their different ways, at the prospect of Minola's visit to Keeton. Mary saw her leader and patroness come back rich, and ready to be distinguished and to confer distinction. Lucy Money had the prospect of variety, of a holiday with Minola, whom she loved, and of being very often in the society of Victor Heron. Minola was, if anything, made additionally sad by the thought that it was not in her power to share their feelings, and the fear that she might seem a wet blanket sometimes on their happiness.

Lucy had been with her all the morning, helping her with Mary to make preparations for the journey. Minola was glad when it was found that some things were wanting, and Lucy and Mary offered to go out and buy them in Oxford street.

Minola was enjoying the sense of being alone, and was, at the same time, secretly accusing herself of want of friendship because she enjoyed it, when a card was brought to her, and she was told that the gentleman said he wanted to speak to her, if she pleased, "rather particular." The card was that of Mr. St. Paul. He had never visited Minola before, nor was she even aware that he knew where she lived. She was surprised, but she did not know of any reason why she might not see him. She hastened down to her sitting-room, and there she found Mr. St.

Paul, as she had found Mr. Blanchet once before. Mr. St. Paul looked even a stranger figure in her room than Mr. Blanchet had done, she thought. He seemed far too tall for the place, and had a heedless, lounging, half-swaggering way, which appeared as if it were compounded of the old manner of the cavalry man and the newer habits of the western hunter. Nothing, however, could have been more easy, confident, and self-possessed than the way in which he came forward to greet Minola. If he had been visiting her every day for a month before, he could not have been more friendly and at his ease.

"How d'ye do, Miss Grey? Just in time to see you, I suppose, before you go? I've been down to Keeton already. I'm going down again--I mean to make my mark there somehow."

Minola thought, with a certain half-amused, half-abashed feeling, of the remarks she had heard concerning herself and Mr. St. Paul; but she did not show any embarra.s.sment in her manner. Indeed, Mr. St. Paul was not a person to allow any one to feel much embarra.s.sed in his presence.

He was entirely easy, self-satisfied, and unaffected, and he had a way of pouring out his confidences as though he had known Minola from her birth upward.

"I hope you found a pleasant reception there?"

"Yes, well enough for that matter. I find my brother and his wife are not anything like so popular as I was given to understand that they were. I saw my brother in London--didn't I tell you?--before I went down to Keeton, you know."

"No, I did not know that you had seen him; I hope he was glad to see you, Mr. St. Paul?"

"Not he; I dare say he was very sorry I hadn't been wiped out by the Indians. Do you know what being wiped out means?"

"Yes, I think I could guess that much. I suppose it means being killed?"

"Of course. I mean to teach you all the slang of the West; I think a nice girl never looks so nice as when she is talking good expressive slang. Our British slang is all unmeaning stuff, you know; only consists in calling a thing by some short vulgar word--or some long and pompous word, the fun being in the pompousness; but the western slang is a sort of picture-writing, don't you know?--a kind of compressed metaphor, answering the purposes of an intellectual pemmican or charqui. Do you know what these things are, Miss Grey?"

"Oh, yes; compressed meats of some kind, I suppose. But I don't think I care about slang very much."

"You may be sure you will when you get over the defects of your Keeton bringing up. But what was I going to tell you? Let me see. Oh, yes, about my brother and his wife. The honest Keeton folks seem to have forgotten them. But I was speaking, too, about my going to see my brother in town. Oh, yes, I went to see him; he didn't want me, and he made no bones about letting me know it. He thinks I have disgraced the family; it was quite like the scene in the play--whose play is it?--I am sure I don't remember--where Lord Foppington's brother goes to see him, and is taken so coolly. I haven't read the play for more years than you have lived in the world, I dare say, but it all came back upon me in a moment. I felt like saying, 'Good-by, Foppington,' only that he would never have understood the allusion, and would think I meant to say he was a 'fop,' which he is not, bless him."

"Then your visit did not bring you any nearer to a reconciliation with your brother?"

"Not a bit of it--pushed us further asunder, I think. The odd thing was that I told him I wanted nothing from him, and that I had made money enough for myself in the West. You would have thought that would have fetched him, wouldn't you? Not the least in life, I give you my word."

And Mr. St. Paul laughed good-humoredly at the idea.

"I am sorry to hear it," said Minola. "I think there are quarrels and spites enough in the world, without brothers joining in with all the rest."

"Bad form, isn't it--don't you think? But I don't suppose in real life brothers and sisters ever do care much for each other--do you think they do? I haven't known any such cases--have you?"

Minola could not contribute much from her own family history to demonstrate the affection and devotion of brothers, but she had no idea of agreeing in the truth of Mr. St. Paul's philosophic reflections for all that.

"I believe what you say is true enough as regards the brothers, but I can't admit it of the sisters."

"Come now, you don't really believe that nonsense, I know."

"Believe what nonsense? That sisters may be fond of their brothers sometimes?"

"No, I don't mean that; but that there is any real difference between men and women in these ways--that men are all bad and women all good, and that sort of thing. One's as bad as the other, Miss Grey. When you have lived as long in the world as I have you'll find it, I tell you.

But I don't find much fault with either lot. I think they are both right enough all things considered, don't you know?"

"I am sure Mary Blanchet is devoted to her brother," Miss Grey said warmly.

"That little old maid? Well, now, do you know, I shouldn't wonder.

That's just the sort of woman to be devoted to a brother, and, of course, he doesn't care twopence about her."

"Oh, for shame!" said Minola, not, however, feeling quite satisfied about the strength of Herbert Blanchet's affection for his sister, even while she felt bound, for Mary's sake, to utter her protest against his being set down as wholly undeserving.

"But, I say," Mr. St. Paul observed, "what a fool he is! I don't think I ever saw a more conceited cad and idiot."

"He is a very particular friend of mine, Mr. St. Paul," Miss Grey began. "At least, his sister is one of my oldest friends."

"Yes, yes; just so. The good old spinster is a friend of yours, and you try to like the cad brother on her account. All quite right, of course.

I should say he was just the sort of fellow to borrow the poor old girl's money, if she had any."

"Oh, Mary has no money, and I am sure if she had she would be only too glad to give it to him."

"Very likely; anyhow he would be only too glad to take it, you may be sure. But I don't want to say anything against your friends, Miss Grey, if you don't like it. Only women generally do like it, you know--and then you may say anything you please, in your turn, against any of my friends or relatives. I shan't be offended one bit, I can a.s.sure you."

Minola had nothing to say, and therefore said nothing. Her new acquaintance did not allow any silence to spring up.

"Talking of friends," he said, "there is one of your friends who politely declines any helping hand of mine in the election business at Keeton, although I think I could do him a good turn with some of the fellows who are out of humor with my brother. Our quixotic young friend will have none of the help of brothers who quarrel with brothers, it seems. Easy to see that he never had a brother."

"Mr. Heron is a man of very sensitive nature, I believe," Minola said; "he will not do anything that he does not think exactly right, Mr.

Money says."

"Yes, so I hear. Odd, is it not? Heron always was a confounded young fool, you know. He got into all his difficulties by bothering about things that oughtn't to have concerned him one red cent. Well, he won't have my disinterested a.s.sistance. There again he is a fool, for I could have done something for him, and Money knows it--it was partly on Money's account that I thought of taking up Heron's side of the affair, because, so far as I am concerned, anybody else would do me just as well so long as he opposed my brother's man."

"I can quite understand that Mr. Heron would not allow himself to be made a mere instrument to work out your quarrel with your brother. I think he was quite right."