The Heir of Redclyffe Part 82

'No; by men with minds in the right direction.'

'Very little you would leave us.'

'I don't think so,' said Amabel. 'Almost all the poetry we really care about was written by such men.'

'Shakspeare, for instance?'

'No one can doubt of the bent of his mind from the whole strain of his writings,' said Guy. 'So again with Spenser; and as to Milton, though his religion was not quite the right sort, no one can pretend to say he had it not. Wordsworth, Scott--'

'Scott?' said Philip.

'Including the descriptions of scenery in his novels,' said Amy, 'where, I am sure, there is the spirit and the beauty.'

'Or rather, the spirit is the beauty,' said Guy.

'There is a good deal in what you say,' answered Philip, who would not lay himself open to the accusation of being uncandid, 'but you will forgive me for thinking it rather too deep an explanation of the grounds of not making Childe Harold a hand-book for Italy, like other people.'

Amabel thought this so dogged and provoking, that she was out of patience; but Guy only laughed, and said, 'Rather so, considering that the fact was that we never thought of it.'

There were times when, as Philip had once said, good temper annoyed him more than anything, and perhaps he was unconsciously disappointed at having lost his old power of fretting and irritating Guy, and watching him champ the bit, so as to justify his own opinion of him. Every proceeding of his cousins seemed to give him annoyance, more especially their being at home together, and Guy's seeming to belong more to Hollywell than himself. He sat by, with a book, and watched them, as Guy asked for Laura's letter, and Amy came to look over his half-finished answer, laughing over it, and giving her commands and messages, looking so full of playfulness and happiness, as she stood with one hand on the back of her husband's chair, and the other holding the letter, and Guy watching her amused face, and answering her remarks with lively words and bright smiles. 'People who looked no deeper than the surface would, say, what a well-matched pair,' thought Philip; 'and no doubt they were very happy, poor young things, if it would but last.' Here Guy turned, and asked him a question about the line of perpetual snow, so much in his own style, that he was almost ready to accuse them of laughing at him. Next came what hurt him most of all, as they talked over Charles's letter, and a few words pa.s.sed about Laura, and the admiration of some person she had met at Allonby. The whole world was welcome to admire her: nothing could injure his hold on her heart, and no joke of Charles could shake his confidence; but it was hard that he should be forced to hear such things, and ask no questions, for they evidently thought him occupied with his book, and did not intend him to listen. The next thing they said, however, obliged him to show that he was attending, for it was about her being better.

'Who? Laura!' he said, in a tone that, in spite of himself, had a startled sound. 'You did not say she had been ill?'

'No, she has not,' said Amy. 'Dr. Mayerne said there was nothing really the matter: but she has been worried and out of spirits lately; and mamma thought it would be good for her to go out more.'

Philip would not let himself sigh, in spite of the oppressing consciousness of having brought the cloud over her, and of his own inability to do aught but leave her to endure it in silence and patience. Alas! for how long! Obliged, meanwhile, to see these young creatures, placed, by the mere fact.i.tious circ.u.mstance of wealth, in possession of happiness which they had not had time either to earn or to appreciate. He thought it shallow, because of their mirth and gaiety, as if they were only seeking food for laughter, finding it in mistakes, for which he was ready to despise them.

Arnaud had brought rather antiquated notions to the renewal of his office as a courier: his mind had hardly opened to railroads and steamers, and changes had come over hotels since his time. Guy and Amabel, both young and healthy, caring little about bad dinners, and unwilling to tease the old man by complaints, or alterations of his arrangements, had troubled themselves little about the matter; took things as they found them, ate dry bread when the cookery was bad, walked if the road was 'shocking'; went away the sooner, if the inns were 'intolerable'; made merry over every inconvenience, and turned it into an excellent story for Charles. They did not even distress themselves about sights which they had missed seeing.

Philip thought all this very foolish and absurd, showing that they were unfit to take care of themselves, and that Guy was neglectful of his wife's comforts: in short, establishing his original opinion of their youth and folly.

So pa.s.sed the first evening; perhaps the worst because, besides what he had heard about Laura, he had been somewhat over-fatigued by various hot days' walks.

Certain it is, that next morning he was not nearly so much inclined to be displeased with them for laughing, when, in speaking to Anne, he inadvertently called her mistress Miss Amabel.

'Never mind,' said Amy, as Anne departed--and he looked disconcerted, as a precise man always does when catching himself in a mistake--'Anne is used to it, Guy is always doing it, and puzzles poor Arnaud sorely by sending him for Miss Amabel's parasol.'

'And the other day,' said Guy, 'when Thorndale's brother, at Munich, inquired after Lady Morville, I had to consider who she was.'

'Oh! you saw Thorndale's brother, did you?'

'Yes; he was very obliging. Guy had to go to him about our pa.s.sports: and when he found who we were, he brought his wife to call on us, and asked us to an evening party.'

'Did you go?'

'Guy thought we must, and it was very entertaining. We had a curious adventure there. In the morning, we had been looking at those beautiful windows of the great church, when I turned round, and saw a gentleman--an Englishman--gazing with all his might at Guy. We met again in the evening, and presently Mr. Thorndale came and told us it was Mr.

Shene.'

'Shene, the painter?'

'Yes. He had been very much struck with Guy's face: it was exactly what he wanted for a picture he was about, and he wished of all things just to be allowed to make a sketch.'

'Did you submit?'

'Yes' said Guy; 'and we were rewarded. I never saw a more agreeable person, or one who gave so entirely the impression of genius. The next day he took us through the gallery, and showed us all that was worth admiring.'

'And in what character is he to make you appear?'

'That is the strange part of it,' said Amabel. 'Don't you remember how Guy once puzzled us by choosing Sir Galahad for his favourite hero? It is that very Sir Galahad, when he kneels to adore the Saint Greal.'

'Mr. Shene said he had long been dreaming over it, and at last, as he saw Guy's face looking upwards, it struck him that it was just what he wanted: it would be worth anything to him to catch the expression.'

'I wonder what I was looking like!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Guy.

'Did he take you as yourself, or as Sir Galahad?'

'As myself, happily.'

'How did he succeed?'

'Amy likes it; but decidedly I should never have known myself.'

'Ah,' said his wife--

'Could some fay the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as others see us.'

'As far as the sun-burnt visage is concerned, the gla.s.s does that every morning.'

'Yes, but you don't look at yourself exactly as you do at a painted window,' said Amy, in her demure way.

'I cannot think how you found time for sitting,' said Philip.

'O, it is quite a little thing, a mere sketch, done in two evenings and half an hour in the morning. He promises it to me when he has done with Sir Galahad,' said Amy.

'Two--three evenings. You must have been a long time at Munich.'

'A fortnight,' said Guy, 'there is a great deal to see there.'

Philip did not quite understand this, nor did he think it very satisfactory that they should thus have lingered in a gay town, but he meant to make the best of them to-day, and returned to his usual fashion of patronizing and laying down the law. They were so used to this that they did not care about it; indeed, they had reckoned on it as the most amiable conduct to be expected on his part.

The day was chiefly spent in an excursion on the lake, landing at the most beautiful spots, walking a little way and admiring, or while in the boat, smoothly moving over the deep blue waters, gaining lovely views of the banks, and talking over the book with which their acquaintance had begun, "I Promessi Sposi". Never did tourists spend a more serene and pleasant day.

On comparing notes as to their plans, it appeared that each party had about a week or ten days to spare; the captain before he must embark for Corfu, and Sir Guy and Lady Morville before the time they had fixed for returning home. Guy proposed to go together somewhere, spare the post-office further blunders, and get the Signor Capitano to be their interpreter. Philip thought it would be an excellent thing for his young cousins for him to take charge of them, and show them how people ought to travel; so out came his little pocket map, marked with his route, before he left Ireland, whereas they seemed to have no fixed object, but to be always going 'somewhere.' It appeared that they had thought of Venice, but were easily diverted from it by his design of coasting the eastern bank of the Lago di Como, and so across the Stelvio into the Tyrol, all together as far as Botzen, whence Philip would turn southward by the mountain paths, while they would proceed to Innsbruck on their return home.

Amabel was especially pleased to stay a little longer on the banks of the lake, and to trace out more of Lucia's haunts; and if she secretly thought it would have been pleasanter without a third person, she was gratified to see how much Guy's manner had softened Philip's injustice and distrust, making everything so smooth and satisfactory, that at the end of the day, she told her husband that she thought his experiment had not failed.