Thereby Hangs a Tale Part 48

"Old girl's warm, I know," said Vanleigh to himself.

"We must keep in with the old nymph, Van," said Sir Felix to him at the end of the day; just about the same time that Tiny was crying silently in her bedroom; and Fin striding up and down like a small tragedy queen.

"He's a born idiot, Tiny!" she exclaimed; "and what pa can mean by making such a fuss over him, and telling me it's a proud thing to become a lady of t.i.tle, I don't know. Ahem!--Lady Landells--fine, isn't it? I don't see that dear ma's any happier for being Lady Rea."

"Papa seems infatuated with them," said Tiny, bitterly.

"Yes; and when he found that black captain paying you such attention, I saw him smile and rub his hands."

"Oh, don't Fin!" exclaimed Tiny, shuddering.

"I believe he's a regular Bluebeard. Look at the little blue-black dots all over his chin. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he's got half a dozen wives in a sort of Madame Tussaud's Blue Chamber of Horrors, preserved in waxwork."

"Pray don't be so foolish, Fin."

"Foolish? I don't call it foolish to talk about our future husbands."

"Fin!" cried her sister.

"Well, you see if that isn't what pa means! I saw Aunt Matty smirking about it and petting the captain; and ma was almost in tears about their goings on."

"Oh, Fin! don't talk so," said Tiny, sadly; "I shall never marry."

"Till you say Yes at the altar, and the bevy of beauteous bridesmaids dissolve in tears," laughed Fin. "I say, though, Tiny, I'm not going to be bought and sold like a heroine of romance. I wouldn't have that Sir Felix--no, not if he was ten thousand baronets; and if you listen to Bluebeard, Tiny, you are no sister of mine."

"Do you think papa seriously thinks anything of the kind?"

"I'm sure of it, dear, and--and--and--oh! Tiny, Tiny--I do feel so very, very miserable!"

To the surprise of her sister, she threw herself in her arms, and they indulged in the sweet feminine luxury of a good cry, ending by Fin declaring that she shouldn't go back to her own room; and more than once, even in sleep, the pillows upon which the two pretty little flushed faces lay, side by side, were wet with tears that stole from beneath their eyelids in their troubled dreams.

And now the day of the dinner had arrived, and Lady Rea had had such a furiously red face that Sir Hampton told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, and made the poor little woman, who had been fretting herself to death to do honour to his guests, shed tears of vexation.

Next there was a furious ringing of Sir Hampton's bell, about six o'clock, and a demand whether the house was to smell of cabbage like that.

As the odour did not pa.s.s away, Sir Hampton sought his lady, who had gone to dress, and again made her shed tears by exclaiming against his mansion being made to smell like a cookshop.

"It's that dreadful prize kitchener, Hampton, dear," said poor Lady Rea.

"The smell comes into the house instead of going up the chimney."

"It's nothing of the sort--its your stupid servants!" exclaimed the knight, and he bounced off to his room to prepare for the banquet.

"I've a good mind to make myself ugly as sin, Tiny," said Fin, pettishly. But she did not, for she looked very piquante in her palest of pale blue diaphanous dresses, while her sister looked very sweet and charming in white.

"Why, Tiny, you look quite poorly," cried Fin, in alarm. "Pray, don't look like that, or that wretch Trevor will see that you've been fretting. If he prefers little servant-girls to my dear sister, let him have them."

"Fin, dear, you hurt me," said Tiny, simply; and there was such a tender, reproachful look in her sweet eyes that Fin gave a gulp, and, regardless of her get-up, threw herself on her sister's breast.

"I'm such a thoughtless wretch, Tiny; I won't say so any more."

"Please, Miss, your par says are you a coming down?" said the maid sent to summon them; and they went down, to find Sir Hampton in so violently stiff a cravat, that the wonder was how it was possible that it could be tied in a bow, and the spectator at last came to the conclusion that it had been starched after it was on.

Aunt Matty had, in her Irish poplin, a dress that was fearfully and wonderfully made, and dated back to about a quarter of a century before.

It was of the colour of the herb whose perfume it exhaled--lavender; and every time you approached her you began to think of damask--not roses, but table-cloths and household linen, put away in great drawers, in a country house.

This is not a wardrobe style of story, but we must stay to mention the costume of Frances, Lady Rea, who came into the room with her cheeks redder than ever, although she had tried cold water, hot water, lavender water, and every cooling liquid she could think of. She was in peony red--a stiff silk of Sir Hampton's own choice, and she sought his eye, trembling lest he should be displeased; but as he emitted a crackle, produced by his cravat, as he bent his head in satisfactory a.s.sent, a bright smile shot across the pleasant face, dimpling it all over, and she exclaimed--

"Lor', my dears, how well you look. There, they may come now as soon as they like."

"Mind your dress, f.a.n.n.y," said Aunt Matty, austerely, as she sat minding her own. "Sh!"

She held up her fan to command silence, as Sir Hampton cleared his throat, chuckled violently, and spoke--

"Er-rum, I think our guests will not find our circle much less attractive than--er-rum!--Ah, here they are!"

Volume 2, Chapter XIV.

AFTER DINNER.

Sir Hampton was right--the visitors had arrived; and almost directly after the ordinary greetings, during which Tiny never raised her eyes, and Fin was so short that Sir Hampton darted an angry glance at her, the dinner was announced. Trevor took in Lady Rea; Vanleigh, Tiny; Landells, Fin; and Pratt, Aunt Matty--Sir Hampton bringing up the rear.

The dinner was good, and pa.s.sed off with no greater mishaps than a slight distribution of the saccharine juices in a dish in the second course down the back of Aunt Matilda's poplin--Edward being the offender; but the sweetly gracious smile with which the lady bore her affliction was charming, and Fin looked her astonishment at her sister.

But the dinner was not a pleasant one, even if good; there was too much, "Thompson, that hock to Sir Felix Landells;" "Thompson, the dry champagne to Captain Vanleigh"--it was hard work to Sir Hampton not to add "of the Guards;" "Thompson, let Mr Trevor taste that Clos-Vougeot;"

and it was a relief when the ladies rose.

"If he will talk about his cellar, Felix, punish it," whispered Vanleigh, as they drew closer; but Sir Felix Landells's thoughts were in the drawing-room, and though Sir Hampton persisted in talking about his cellar--how many dozens of this he had laid down, how many dozens of that; how he had been favoured by getting a few dozens of Sir Magnum O'pus's port at the sale, and so on ad infinitum--Sir Felix refrained from looking upon the wine when it was red; and as soon as etiquette allowed they joined the ladies in the drawing-room, where Trevor had the mortification of seeing Vanleigh resume his position by Tiny, while Landells loomed over Fin like an aristocratic poplar by a rose-bush.

Trevor consoled himself, though, by sitting down by pleasant Lady Rea, while Sir Hampton crackled at Pratt, talked politics to him, and his ideas of Parliament, and Aunt Matty fanned herself, as she treated Pepine to the sensation of lavender poplin as a couch.

"What a nice little man your friend is, Mr Trevor," began Lady Rea; "I declare he's the nicest, sensiblest man I ever met."

"I'm glad you like him, Lady Rea," said Trevor, earnestly; "but I want to talk to you."

"There isn't anything the matter, is there?" said Lady Rea, anxiously.

Trevor looked at her for an instant, and saw that in her face which quickened his resolve, already spumed into action by the markedly favoured attentions of Vanleigh to the elder daughter of the house.

"Lady Rea," he said, "I'm in trouble."

"I'm so sorry," she said, with simple, genuine condolence. "Can I help you?"

"Indeed you can," said Trevor; and he proceeded to tell her what he had discovered respecting Mrs Lloyd's designs.

"Well, I never knew such impudence!" cried Lady Rea, indignantly.

"You will sing now to oblige me," said Vanleigh; but for the time, Tiny declined, and Fin was carried off to the piano by Sir Felix.