The Young Step-Mother Part 63

'I am only deputy for the Orange man,' he said; 'it is Hyder Ali who ought to be dining here! Yes, it is his doing, I'd back him against any detective!'

'What heroism have you been acting together?'

'We had just given Farmer Martin L120 in notes, when as he went out, we heard little Hyder growling and giving tongue, and a fellow swearing as if he was at the fair of Monyveagh, and the farmer hallooing thieves. I found little Hyder had nailed the rascal fast by the leg, just as he had the notes out of the farmer's pouch. I collared him, Johns ran for the police, and the rascal is fast.'

'What a shame to cheat Mr. Kendal of the committal.'

'The policeman said he was gone out, so we had the villain up to the Admiral with the greater satisfaction, as he was a lodger in one of the Admiral's pet public-houses in Tibb's Alley.'

'Ah, when Gilbert is of age,' said Albinia, 'woe to Tibb's! So you are a testimonial to the Tripod?'

'So I suspect, for I found an invitation when I came home, I would have run down to tell you, but I had been kept late, and one takes some getting up for polite society.'

There was a great deal of talk about Hyder's exploit, and some disposition to make Mr. O'More the hero of the day; but this was quickly nipped by his uncle's dry shortness, and the superciliousness with which Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy turned the conversation to the provision of pistols, couriers, and guards, for travelling through the Abruzzi.

The polysyllabic courage, and false alarms on such a scale, completely eclipsed a real pick-pocket, caught by a gipsy's cur and a banker's clerk.

Not that Ulick perceived any disregard until later in the evening, when the young Kendals arrived, and of course he wanted each and all to hear of his Tripod's achievement. He met with ready attention from Sophy and Gilbert, who p.r.o.nounced that as the cat was to Whittington, so was Hyder to O'More; but when in his overflowing he proceeded to Lucy, she had neither eyes nor ears for him, and when the vicar told her Mr. O'More was speaking to her, she turned with an air of petulance, so that he felt obliged to beg her pardon and retreat.

The Bayford parties never lasted later than a few minutes after ten, but when once Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy and Miss Kendal had possession of the piano and guitar, there was no conclusion. Song succeeded song, they wanted nothing save their own harmony, and hardly waited for Miss Goldsmith's sleepy thanks. The vicar hated late hours, and the Kendals felt every song a trespa.s.s upon their hosts, but the musicians had their backs to the world, and gave no interval, so that it was eleven o'clock before Mr. Kendal, in desperation, laid his hand on his daughter, and barbarously carried her off.

The flirtation was so palpable, that Albinia mused on the means of repressing it; but she believed that to remonstrate, would only be to give Lucy pleasure, and held her peace till a pa.s.sion for riding seized upon the young lady. The old pony had hard service between Sophy's needs and Maurice's exactions, but Lucy's soul soared far above ponies, and fastened upon Gilbert's steed.

'And pray what is Gilbert to ride?'

'Oh! papa does not always want Captain, or Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy would lend him Bamfylde.'

'Thank you,' returned Gilbert, satirically.

Next morning Lucy, radiant with smiles, announced that all was settled.

Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy's Lady Elmira would be brought down for her to try this afternoon, so Gilbert might keep his own horse and come too, which permission he received with a long whistle and glance at Mrs.

Kendal, and then walked out of the room.

'How disobliging!' said Lucy. 'Well then, Sophy, you must make your old hat look as well as you can, for I suppose it will not quite do to go without anyone.'

Sophy, like her brother, looked at Mrs. Kendal, and with an eye of indignant appeal and entreaty, while Albinia's countenance was so full of displeasure, that Lucy continued earnestly, 'O, mamma, you can't object. You used to go out riding with papa when he was at Colonel Bury's.'

'Well, Lucy!' exclaimed her sister, 'I did not think even you capable of such a comparison.'

'It's all the same,' said Lucy tartly, blushing a good deal.

Sophy leapt up to look at her, and Albinia trying to be calm and judicious, demanded, 'What is the same as what?'

'Why, Algernon and _me_,' was the equally precise reply.

In stately horror, Sophy rose and seriously marched away, leaving, by her look and manner, a species of awe upon both parties, and some seconds pa.s.sed ere, with crimson blushes, Albania ventured to invite the dreaded admission, by demanding, 'Now, Lucy, will you be so good as to tell me the meaning of this extraordinary allusion?'

'Why, to be sure--I know it was very different. Papa was so old, and _there were us_,' faltered Lucy, 'but I meant, you would know how it all is--how those things--'

'Stop, Lucy, am I to understand by those things, that you wish me to believe you and Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy are on the game terms as--No, I can't say it.'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Lucy, growing frightened, 'I never thought there could be such an uproar about my just going out riding.'

'You have led me to infer so much more, that it becomes my duty to have an explanation, at least,' she added, thinking this sounded cold, 'I should have hoped you would have given me your confidence.'

'O, but you always would make game of him!' cried Lucy.

'Not now; this is much too serious, if you have been led to believe that his attentions are not as I supposed, because you are the only girl about here whom he thinks worthy of his notice.'

'It's a great deal more,' said Lucy, with more feeling and less vanity than had yet been apparent.

'And what has he been making you think, my poor child?' said Albinia.

'I know it is very distressing, but it would be more right and safe if I knew what it amounts to.'

'Not much after all,' said Lucy, her tone implying the reverse, and though her cheeks were crimson, not averse to the triumph of the avowal, nor enduring as much embarra.s.sment as her auditor, 'only he made me sure of it--he said--(now, mamma, you have made me, so I must) that he had changed his opinion of English beauty--you know, mamma. And another time he said he had wandered Europe over to--to find loveliness on the banks of the Baye. Wasn't it absurd? And he says he does not think it half so much that a woman should be accomplished herself, as that she should be able to appreciate other people's talents--and once he said the Principessa Bianca di Moretti would be very much disappointed.'

'Well, my dear,' said Albinia, kindly putting her arm round Lucy's waist, 'perhaps by themselves the things did not so much require to be told. I can hardly blame you, and I wish I had been more on my guard, and helped you more. Only if he seems to care so little about disappointing this lady might he not do the same by you?'

'But she's an Italian, and a Roman Catholic,' exclaimed Lucy.

Albinia could not help smiling, and Lucy, perceiving that this was hardly a valid excuse for her utter indifference towards her Grandison's Clementina, continued, 'I mean--of course there was nothing in it.'

'Very possibly; but how would it be, if by-and-by he told somebody that Miss Kendal would be very much disappointed?'

'O, mamma,' cried Lucy, hastily detaching herself, 'you don't know!'

'I cannot tell, my poor Lucy,' said Albinia. 'I fear there must be grief and trouble any way, if you let yourself attend to him, for you know, even if he were in earnest, it would not be right to think of a person who has shown so little wish to be good.'

Lucy stood for a few moments before the sense reached her mind, then she dropped into a chair, and exclaimed,

'I see how it is! You'll treat him as grandpapa treated Captain Pringle, but I shall break my heart, quite!' and she burst into tears.

'My dear, your father and I will do our best for your happiness, and we would never use concealment. Whatever we do shall be as Christian people working together, not as tyrants with a silly girl.'

Lucy was pleased, and let Albinia take her hand.

'Then I will write to decline the horse. It would be far too marked.'

'But oh, mamma! you wont keep him away!'

'I shall not alter our habits unless I see cause. He is much too young for us to think seriously of what he may have said; and I entreat you to put it out of your mind, for it would be very sad for you to fix your thoughts on him, and then find him not in earnest, and even if he were, you know it would be wrong to let affection grow up where there is no real dependence upon a person's goodness.'

The kindness soothed Lucy, and though she shed some tears, she did not resist the decision. Indeed she was sensible of that calm determination of manner, which all the family had learnt to mean that the measures thus taken were unalterable, whereas the impetuous impulses often were reversed.

Many a woman's will is like the tide, ever fretting at the verge of the boundary, but afraid to overpa.s.s it, and only tempting the utmost limit in the certainty of the recall, and Lucy perhaps felt a kind of protection in the curb, even while she treated it as an injury. She liked to be the object of solicitude, and was pleased with Albinia's extra kindness, while, perhaps, there was some excitement in the belief that Algernon was missing her, so she was particularly amenable, and not much out of spirits.

The original Meadows character, and Bayford breeding, had for a time been surmounted by Albinia's influence and training; but so ingrain was the old disposition, that a touch would at once re-awaken it, and the poor girl was in a neutral state, coloured by whichever impression had been most recent. Albinia's hopes of prevailing in the end increased when Mrs. Dusautoy told her, with a look of intelligence, that Algernon was going to stay with a connexion of his mother, a Mr. Greenaway, with six daughters, very stylish young ladies.

Six stylish young ladies! Albinia could have embraced them all, and actually conferred a cordial nod on Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy when she met him on the way home.