CHAPTER XII.
A sprained ankle takes mostly a tedious weary time in getting mended.Esther's, however, is but a slight sprain, and entails only a week'slying on a thoroughly comfortable, well-stuffed sofa close to one ofthe library's windows, where mignonette sends up continual presentsof the strongest and sweetest of all flower-perfumes to her gratefulnostrils--entails also being made a fuss with. If Miss Blessingtonhad had her will, the sofa would have been upstairs, and the beingmade a fuss with, save by a compassionate lady's maid, dispensed with.Miss Blessington desires sincerely, in her affectionate solicitudefor her welfare, to keep the young patient in a graceful and pleasingsolitude upstairs. The young patient, being of a gregarious turn ofmind, desires sincerely to be brought down: and the son of the house,although not particularly young, and in general not particularlygregarious, desires sincerely to bring her down. It is a case of Pull,Devil; Pull, Baker!--Baker being represented by Constance, Devil bySt. John and Esther. But two pull stronger than one, and they gaintheir point.
"Is Miss Craven ready to come down?" asks St. John, one morning,addressing the question to Miss Blessington as they stand togetherafter breakfast.
"I don't know, I'm sure. St. John?"
"Well!"
"If," she says, giving a little factitious cough, and speaking with herusual amiable smile, "it is any object to Miss Craven to get well----"
"I should imagine that there could be no doubt on that point," heanswers, picking up the _Pall Mall_.
"I don't know," she rejoins, with a certain air of doubtful reserve.
"It is generally considered pleasanter to have two legs to go uponthan one, isn't it? It is not many people that, like Cleopatra, can'hop forty paces through the public streets.' Have you any reason forimputing to Miss Craven a morbid taste for invalidhood?"
"No; but she is hardly an invalid, and to be made so much of as you,with your usual good-nature to the waifs and strays of humanity, makeof her, must be a sensation as pleasant as novel."
"I _am_ wonderfully good-natured, aren't I?" he says, laughing broadlyto himself behind the little yellowy sheets of the _Pall Mall_. "Thereis not one man in a hundred that, in my place, would do the same, isthere?"
She is silent; the resentment of a slow nature, that has a suspicion ofbeing laughed at, but is not sure of it, smouldering within her.
"Come, Conny, you began a sentence just now which you left unfinished,like a pig with one ear. 'If it is really an object to Miss Craven toget well'--what then?"
"If it is really an object to Miss Craven to get well, I should thinkthat she would be more likely to attain it by lying quietly upstairsthan by being continually moved from place to place; _that_ is what Iwas going to say."
"I am sorry you think me such an Orson as to rush up and downstairswith such tremendous violence as to run the risk of dislocating herlimbs."
Miss Blessington turns away pettishly.
"I wonder the girl likes to give you the trouble of perpetuallycarrying her about the house."
"She is well aware that trouble is a pleasure."
"Fully half her day is spent on the staircase and in the passages inyour arms."
"What a horribly immoral picture--vice stalking rampant through theFelton corridors in the shape of me carrying a poor lame child thatcannot carry herself!"
"It may be a pleasure to you," says Constance, harking back to herformer speech, "but it can hardly be so to her--to be haled about likea bale of goods by a total stranger like yourself. If you were herbrother, I grant you, it would be different."
"If I were her brother it _would_ be different," assents Gerard,blandly.
The sentence is Miss Blessington's own, and yet, by fresh accentuation,it is made exactly to contradict itself.
"You mean it good-naturedly, I don't doubt, but I am not at all surethat it is not mistaken kindness."
"That _what_ is not mistaken kindness?"
"You are very dull of comprehension this morning, St. John."
"I always am at these untimely hours; it requires the flame of eveningto light up the torch of my intellect. Be lenient to my infirmities,and explain; I am all attention."
"My meaning is sufficiently clear, I should imagine," she retorts,with lady-like, gentle exasperation. "If you had left the girl in heroriginal obscurity, it would have been all very well; but to be takenup and dropped again----"
"Like a hot chesnut!"
"Pshaw! to be taken up and dropped again is hardly pleasant."
"Hardly."
"And when you drop her----"
"Literally or metaphorically?--on the stone floor, or out of the lightof my favour?"
"When you drop her" (disdaining to notice the interruption)----
"Well, what then?" he says, laying down the paper, and turning hisface, kindled by a certain honest self-contempt, towards her--"To bedropped by me! what a prodigious calamity! Hitherto, Conny, your sexhas made, with regard to me, more use of the active than the passivevoice of the verb to drop."
"Nonsense!" she says, scornfully; "that _is_ the pride that apeshumility. Of course, so much notice as you lavish on her is likelyto turn the head of a girl who has hitherto probably received noattentions more flattering than those of some Welsh grazier; and whenyou drop her----"
"When I drop her," he repeats, impatiently, tired of the subject, andof the repetition of the phrase--"she will be no worse off than she wasbefore that misfortune happened to her."
So Esther lies all day long in lazy contentment upon the sofa, lookingout at the garden, and at the fountain where four bronze dolphinsspout continual showers of spray in the autumn sunlight; dips intoOwen Meredith's last poems; peeps between the crisp uncut leaves ofnew magazine or novel; and looks forward towards the ante-dinner hour,when St. John will come in from the day's amusement or occupation, andpassive content will be exchanged for active enjoyment.
Esther has, as you know, made but light of her accident in her lettersto her lover; fearing lest, in his eager anxiety on her account, hemight get into the train, and give her the unexpected pleasure ofseeing him arrive at Felton--seeing him arrive in his threadbareshooting jacket, through whose sleeves he always appears to have thrusthis long arms too far, and his patched, creaking, Naullan boots.Imagine St. John introduced to those boots! A cold shiver runs down herspine at the bare idea. St. John is no dandy, it is true, but coatsfrom Poole's are as much a matter of course to him as a knife and forkto eat his dinner with, or a bed to lie upon.
On the afternoon of the day on which the above-reported short dialoguetook place, St. John and his father, converging from different pointsof the compass to one centre, enter almost at the same moment thelibrary. Two canary-coloured Colossi have just deposited tea on a smalltable. St. John has neither neckerchief nor collar; his brown throat isbared in a _neglige_ as becoming to most men as the _a quatre epingles_exactitude of their park get-up is unbecoming.
A man in the loose carelessness of his every-day country clothes is aman: in the prim tightness of his Pall Mall toilette he is a little,stiff, jointless figure out of Noah's ark.
"Slops again!" says Paterfamilias, very gruffly. "I never come intothis room at any hour of the day or night without finding you womendrinking tea! Why on earth, if you are thirsty, cannot you drink beeror water, instead of ruining your insides with all that wash?"
At this courteous speech a silence falls on the company. Sir Thomasmostly brings silence with him; he is half-conscious that at his entryvoices are choked and laughter quenched, and it serves to exasperatehim the more.
"You sit with your knees into the fire in air-tight rooms all daylong," pursues he, in his loud, hectoring voice, "and destroy yourdigestions with gallons of hot tea, and then you are surprised athaving tallow in your cheeks, instead of lilies and roses, as yourgrandmothers had!"
"Perhaps," says St. John, drily, "the ladies deny the justice of yourconclusions; Sir Thomas; perhaps they do not own the soft impeachmentof tallowy cheeks which you so gallantly ascribe to
them."
As he speaks, his eyes involuntarily rest on the clear, rose brillianceof the young stranger's happy, beautiful child-face.
"I don't mind being called 'tallow face,'" says Esther, with a lowlaugh--"Juliet was; her father said to her, 'Out, you baggage! youtallow face!'"
"He must have been an ancestor of Sir Thomas's in direct male line,must not he?" says the young man, gaily stooping over her andwhispering.
Seeing them so familiarly and joyously whisper together, Constancelooks up with an air of astonished displeasure, which Gerardperceiving, instantly turns towards her.
"What are you making, Conny?"
"Braces."
"For me, no doubt? With your usual thoughtfulness, you recollectedthat my birthday falls next week, and you were preparing a littlesurprise for me. Well, never mind; though I have made the discoveryrather prematurely, I'll be as much surprised as ever when the day ofpresentation arrives."
"They are not for you, St. John; they are for the bazaar."
"The bazaar!" he repeats, a little testily. "For the last month allyour thoughts have tended bazaarwards; you neither eat, nor sleep, norspeak, nor hear, nor smell, without some reference to the bazaar."
"Bazaar! Humbug!" growls Sir Thomas, rising and walking towards thedoor. "A parcel of idle women getting together to sell trash and makeasses of themselves!"
Then he goes out, and bangs the door.
"I would not for worlds have given him the satisfaction of agreeingwith him while he was in the room," says St. John, insensibly speakingin a louder key now that the autocrat before whom all voices sinkhas removed himself; "but, for once in my life, I must confess tocoinciding in opinion with aged P.: to be pestered with unfeminine,unladylike importunity to buy things that one would far rather bewithout--to be lavishly generous, and get no credit for it--to beswindled without any hope of legal redress; this is the essence of acharitable bazaar!"
"Dear me!" says Esther, with a crestfallen sigh. "And I had beenlooking forward to it so much!"
He sits down on a low chair beside her sofa. "Looking forward to abazaar!" he echoes, with a half-incredulous smile. "My dear MissCraven, what a revelation as to your past history that one sentenceis! Why, I should as soon think of looking forward to a visit to thedentist, or to my mother's funeral!"
"No one expects to _enjoy_ it; it is a necessary evil," says MissBlessington, with resignation.
"Like dancing with married men, or going to church?"
"Conny! Conny!" shouts Sir Thomas from somewhere in the unseen distance.
Conny rises, though reluctantly, and leaves the other two _tete-a-tete_.
"Miss Blessington is going to have a stall," says Esther, presently,for the sake of saying something, catching a little nervously at thefirst remark that occurred to her.
"Yes."
"And I am to help her."
"Yes."
"But I will promise not to pester you with unfeminine, unladylikeimportunity to buy my wares."
"I am sorry to hear it."
"Miss Blessington has two friends coming to stay with her for it."
"Yes."
"Are you glad or sorry?"
"Glad is a weak word to express my feelings; I am in ecstasies!"
"They are beautiful, I suppose--refined, witty, as I always picture thewomen of your world?" she says, a little enviously.
"On the contrary, it would be impossible to find two more faded,negative specimens of Belgravian womanhood: they have not a singleangle in either of their characters."
"Do you think _that_ a recommendation?"
"I did not say so."
"But you implied it, by expressing such exaggerated joy at theircoming."
"So I did--so I do: and if they were to rise in number from two tofifty, like Falstaff's highwaymen, I should express greater joy still."
"And why?" raising herself from her cushions to get a straighter, truerlook into his bright, grave eyes.
"Because," he says, lowering his voice a little, and leaning closelierover her, "the larger the party the better chance there is ofundisturbed _tete-a-tetes_ between congenial spirits. Do you see?"
And Esther _does_ see, and thinking on Robert Brandon, is uneasilyjoyful.
* * * * *
Ere the arrival of the looked-for bazaar, Miss Craven's cure iscomplete. On the day preceding the one appointed for that philanthropicfestivity, she has been walking in the late evening about themoon-coloured garden, free from any remaining lameness, leaning onSt. John's arm. She does not need the slight stay, but it pleases himto give and her to receive it. It does not please Miss Blessington,however, watching them from an upper chamber--watching Esther dabbleher small hands in the opal water in the great bronze water-lily leafthat makes the basin of the fountain--watching St. John, rapt andabsorbed in her pretty foolish chatter. And yet their talk, if shecould but hear it, holds nothing obnoxiously fond or _flirtatious;_ itmight be proclaimed by the bellman in the streets.
"How nice it is to be no longer a devil upon two sticks!" the younggirl is saying, joyfully; and the man makes answer, "You will be up toanother gallop across the park to-morrow?"
"Never, _never!_" she cries, bringing together emphatically her twogleaming, wet hands. "You have witnessed my first and last equestrianfeat; with my own free-will I will mount never a horse again, unless itis the rocking-horse at the end of the north gallery: it is frisky, yetsafe; gallops and plunges, yet stands still: that is the horse for me."
He laughs, and then they are silent.
A star falls, hurling itself mysteriously down the sky, and into thedark; two bats glide past, dusky, noiseless. Bats always seem to melike the ghosts of dead birds, that haunt the green gardens and copsesthey used to love.
St. John speaks presently. "One forms mistaken estimates of people'scharacters; I should not have imagined you a coward."
"But I am one, physically and morally," she answers, sighing.
As the ladies retire to bed, Miss Blessington enters Esther's room--afamiliarity which somewhat surprises that virgin, as it is the firsttime that it has been accorded to her.
"I have come to congratulate you!" Constance says, civilly; "you havemade a wonderful recovery."
"Yes, wonderful!"
"You can walk perfectly well without assistance, cannot you?"
"Perfectly" (turning away her head, in the guilty consciousness ofhaving, despite her soundness of limb, not walked without assistance).
"St. John is very useful as a walking-stick, isn't he?" (playfully.)
"He thought it would tire me less," replies the other, flushing; "hehas been most kind!"
"He always is," answers Miss Blessington, quickly: "it is his nature;old beggarwomen, dogs, cats, dirty children in the gutter--it is allone to him."
"Really!"
"That universal geniality amounts almost to a weakness, though anamiable one; it has often been the cause of exciting hopes that, ofcourse, he had neither the wish nor the power to gratify."
"What! in old beggarwomen, dogs, cats, and dirty children in thegutter?" says Esther, smiling merrily, yet with scorn.
"If I did not take an interest in you," continued Constance, leaning ina graceful artistic pose against the mantelpiece, "I should, of course,not take the trouble to mention the subject; but, as I do, I thought itthe kindest thing I could do to you to set you on your guard againstattentions to which you, who do not know him, might, without vanity,attribute some importance, but which I, who know him so thoroughly,know to mean absolutely nothing, beyond a sort of general _bonhomie_towards the whole of the human race."
"I am deeply grateful," answers the young girl, with sarcasticemphasis; "but in my part of the world, girls are not in the habit ofcherishing vague hopes because a man has the civility to offer them hisarm when they are disabled by an accident from walking by themselves."
"Well, forewarned is forearmed, you know" (nodding and smiling); "andfrom some careless, slighting remarks that
St. John let fall the otherday, I thought I should not be acting the part of a friend by you if Idid not warn you against a snare into which I have seen others older,and knowing more of the world than you do, fall. Good night!"
"Stay!" cries Esther, springing up, and catching hold of hercompanion's gauzy dress in detention. "It is unfair to tell a personhalf, and not the whole. What were the slighting remarks that Mr.Gerard made _a propos_ of me?"
"Really, I--I--don't remember exactly," replies Constance, withreluctance, half-feigned, half-real; "I did not pay much attention atthe time; it was an admission that slipped out without my intending it."
"But now that it has slipped out," cries the other, authoritatively,"you must explain it fully, please."
"Well, really--please don't look so tragic, it can be of so very littleconsequence to you what he said or did not say about you----"
"Infinitesimally little! but still I mean to hear it."
"Well" (with rather an awkward laugh), "the situation is hardly worthsuch Mrs. Siddons' airs: it was only that, when I was remonstratingwith him the other day on his manner to you, he said, in his off-hand,abrupt way, something to the effect that _when_ he threw youover--never for a moment denying that sooner or later he would doso--you would get over it soon, or something of that description. Icannot recall the exact phrase. Good night."
But beautiful Esther, standing there stricken, credulous, with eager,angry eyes, forgets to make the answering greeting.