Chapter V

CHAPTER V.

"THERE'S NOTHING HALF SO SWEET IN LIFE."

Four days had slipped away since Churchill's first arrival at Bissett Grange, and he had begun to acknowledge to himself that they had passed more pleasantly than any previous time in his recollection. The mere fact of getting out of business was a great relief to him; he revelled in the knowledge that he had nothing to do; and, in odd times and seasons,--as he lay in bed of nights, for instance,--he would chuckle at the thought that the coming morrow had for him no work and no responsibilities in store; and when he went up to dress himself for dinner, he would settle down into an easy-chair, or hang out of the open window, and delight in the prospect of a good dinner and delightful society, of music and conversation, from which no horrid clock-striking would tear him away, and send him forth to dreary rooms and brain-racking until the small hours of the morning. Society, music, and conversation! It is true that he enjoyed them all; and yet, when he came to analyse his happiness, he was fain to admit that they all meant Barbara Lexden. As in a glass darkly, that tall majestic figure moved through every thought, and sinuously wound itself round every impulse of his heart. At first he laughed at his own weakness, and tried to exorcise the spirit, to whose spells he found himself succumbing, by rough usage and hard exercise. There is probably nothing more serviceable in getting rid of a sharp attack of what is commonly known as "spooniness"--when it is accidental, be it remembered, not innate--than the eager pursuit of some healthy sport. Men try wine and cards; both of which are instantaneous but fleeting remedies, and which leave them in a state of reaction, when they are doubly vulnerable; but shooting or hunting, properly pursued, are thoroughly engrossing while they last, and when they are over necessitate an immediate recourse to slumber from the fatigue which they have induced. In the morning, even should opportunity offer, the "spoony" stage is at its lowest ebb; it is rarely possible to work oneself up to the proper pitch of silliness immediately after breakfast, and then some farther sporting expedition is started, which takes one out of harm's way. But in Churchill's case even this remedy failed; he was not much of a sportsman; not that he shot badly, but that he was perpetually distrait, and when reminded of his delinquencies by a sharp, "Your bird, sir!" from one of his companions, would fire so quickly, and with so much effect, as to mollify the speaker, and lead him to believe that it was shortsightedness, and not being a "Cockney"--that worst of imputations amongst sportsmen--that led the stranger to miss marking the rise of the covey. And yet Churchill displayed no lack of keen vision in making out the exact whereabouts of a striped petticoat and a pair of high-heeled Balmoral boots which crossed a stile a little in advance of the servants bringing the luncheon; but these once seen, and their wearer once talked to, sport was over with him for the day, and he strolled back with Miss Lexden, at a convenient distance behind Miss Townshend and Captain Lyster, who led the way.

"You are soon tired of your sport, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara; "I should have thought that you would have followed ardently any pursuit on which you entered."

"You do me a great deal too much honour, Miss Lexden," replied Churchill, laughing; "my pursuits are of a very desultory nature, and in all of them I observe Talleyrand's caution,--Point de zèle."

"And you carry that out in every thing?"

"In most things. Mine is a very easy-going, uneventful, unexcitable life; I live thoroughly quietly; da capo--all over again; and it is seldom that any thing breaks in upon the routine of my humdrum existence."

"Then," said Barbara, looking saucily up at him from under her hat--"then you do not follow the advice which your favourite Talleyrand gave to the ambassadors whom he was despatching, tenez bonne table, et soignez les femmes."

Churchill looked up, and for an instant caught her glance; then he laughed lightly, and said,

"Well, not exactly; though the dinners at the club, even the modest joint and the table-beer, are not by any means to be despised; and as for the rest of it, not being a diplomatist, Miss Lexden, I have no occasion to play the agreeable to any one save in my own house, and, being a bachelor, the only woman I have to see to as properly soignée is my old mother, and I do like her to have the best of every thing."

"Your mother lives with you?"

"Yes, and will, so far as I can see, until the end of the chapter."

"She--you must be very fond of her!" said Barbara, as by a sudden impulse, looking up at his kindling eyes and earnest face.

"I am very proud of her," he replied; "she is more like my sister than my mother; enters into all my hopes and fears, shares all my aspirations, and consoles me in all my doubts."

"More like your wife, then," said Barbara, with a slight sneer. "You have in her a rare combination of virtues."

"No," said Churchill; "not rare, I am disposed to think. I don't suppose that, in your class,--where maternity means nothing in particular to sons, and merely chaperonage, or the part of buffer, to ward off paternal anger for bills incurred, to daughters,--such characters flourish; but in mine they are common enough."--("A little touch of old Harding's Radicalism in that speech, by Jove!" thought he to himself.)

"I don't exactly fallow your reference to my class as distinct from your own. I suppose we mix amongst pretty much the same people, though as individuals we have not met before. But," added Barbara, with a smile, "now that that great occurrence has taken place, I don't think we need enter into lengthy disquisitions as to the charms and duties of maternity; indeed, we will not, for I shall ask you to observe the only conditions which I require from my friends."

"And they are--?" asked Churchill.

"Qu'on exécute mes orders, as Louis Napoleon said when asked what should be done on the Second of December. So long as my commands are obeyed, I am amiability itself."

"And suppose they were disobeyed?" asked Churchill again.

"Then--but I won't tell you what would happen! I don't think you'll ever have the chance of knowing; do you think you shall? Not that I like amiable people generally--do you? Your blue-eyed girls, with colourless hair like blotting-paper, and--but I forgot I was talking to an author. I suppose you're making fun of all I say?"

"On the contrary," said Churchill, struggling to keep his gravity, and producing a small memorandum-book, "I purpose making a note of that description for use on a future occasion. There is a spiteful simplicity in that phrase about 'blotting-paper hair' which is really worth embalming in a leader."

"Now I know you're laughing, and I hate to be laughed at--"

"By no means; I subscribe the roll. I am now one of the âmes damnées, sworn to obey the spell of the sorceress; and the spell is--?"

"Nothing. Never mind. You will know easily enough when it is once uttered. Now they're coming back to us, and I've lost my glove. Have you seen it? How very absurd!"

As she spoke, they came up with Lyster and Miss Townshend, who were waiting for them at a gate leading into the Grange lands.

"How slowly you walk, Miss Lexden!" said Lyster; "Miss Townshend thought you never would come up with us."

Miss Townshend, with much curl-tossing and laughter, declared she had never said any thing of the kind.

"Quite otherwise," replied Barbara; "from the earnest manner in which you were carrying on the conversation, there could be no doubt that it was you who were going ahead."

"I?--I give you my word I was merely talking of scenery, and telling Miss Townshend how much I should like to show her Rome."

"And promising, when there, to enter into the spirit of the proverb, and do as the Romans--eh, Captain Lyster?"

"Oh, ah,--yes! I see what you mean. That's not so bad, eh, Mr. Churchill? You might use that in some of your thingummies, eh? Though I don't know that there's much difference between Rome and any other place, after all. It's rather like London, I think."

"Is it?" said Churchill. "I confess my short sojourn there gave me a very different idea."

"Well, I don't know; it's mouldier and more tumbledown, certainly, but there are some parts of it that are uncommonly like the unfinished streets in the new part of Belgravia. And people walk about, and eat and drink, and flirt, you know, just as they do in town. There's a Colosseum at Rome, too, as well as in London, only the one in Rome isn't in such good repair."

This was said in perfect good faith; and the others shouted with laughter at it, in the midst of which they came to a stile, joining upon the Paddock, and here they parted into couples again, only this time Churchill and Barbara took the lead.

"I think she's made another coup," said Lyster, looking at them, as they immediately fell into earnest conversation. "She certainly is wonderful,--never misses fire!"

"If I were Barbara, I should be careful about any flirtation with Mr. Churchill. They're dreadful people, these poets, you know,--at least so I've always heard; and if you give them any encouragement, and then won't marry them, they cry out, and abuse you terribly in books and newspapers."

"That would be awful!" said Lyster; "as bad as having your letters read out in a breach-of-promise case, by Jove! Never could understand how fellows wrote such spoony letters to women,--never could fancy how they thought of all the things they said."

And yet I think, if Captain Lyster had been rigorously cross-examined, he must needs have confessed that he himself had never, throughout the whole course of his previous life, gone through so much actual thinking as since he knew Miss Townshend. There was, perhaps, no species of flirtation in which he was not an adept, for he had sufficient brains to do what he called the "talkee-talkee;" while his natural idleness enabled him to carry on a silent solitude à deux, and to make great play with an occasional elevation of the eyebrow or touch of the hand. He had run through a thorough course of garrison hacks, and had seen all the best produce of the export Indian market; he had met the beauties of the season at London balls and in country houses, and his listlessness and languor had hitherto carried him through scot-free. But now he was certainly "fetched," as his friends would call it, and began to feel an interest in Miss Townshend which he had never felt for any other person. There had been a two days' flirtation between him and Barbara Lexden; but they were so utterly unsuited, that, at the end of that time, they, as it were, showed their hands to each other, and then, with a laugh, threw up their cards. The flirtation was never renewed; but a curious, strange friendship,--exhibited in the conversation about the coming professor,--and always half raillery on both sides, existed between them. But "this little Townshend girl," as he thought of her in his dreamy reveries, was quite another matter; she was so jolly and good-tempered, and so approachable, and never gave herself any airs, and never wanted talking to or that sort of thing, but could amuse herself always, as chirpy as a bird, by Jove! And these attributes had an immense amount of weight with taciturn Fred Lyster, who, moreover, had recently discovered a bald spot about the size of a sixpence at the top of his back-parting, and who immediately perceived imminent age, determined on marriage, and even thought of making his will. And little Miss Townshend walks by his side, and prattles away, and laughs, saucily tossing her curls in the air, and is as merry as possible; save when, stealing an occasional glance from under her hat, she detects her companion's eyes very earnestly fixed upon her, and then a serious expression will settle on her face for an instant, and something like a sigh escape her.

We are a strange race! Here are two couples engaged in the same pursuit, and yet how different is the process! While Lyster is strolling idly by Miss Townshend's side, and listening to her little nonsense, Churchill and Barbara are stepping ahead, thoroughly engrossed in their conversation. He is talking now, telling her of a German adventure of his; how, with some other students, he made the descent of the Rhine on one of the timber-rafts; how they came to grief just below the Lôrely, and were all nearly drowned. He tells this with great animation and with many gestures, acting out his story, as is his wont; and throughout all he has a sensation of pleasure as he catches glimpses of her upturned earnest face, lighting up at the special bits of the narrative, always eager and attentive. His earnestness seems infectious. She has dropped all her society drawl, all her society tricks and byplay, and shows more of the real woman than she has for many a day. They talk of Germany and its literature, of Goethe and Schiller and Heine; and he tells her some of those stories of Hoffmann which are such special favourites with Bürschen. Thus they pass on to our home poets; and here Barbara is the talker, Churchill listening and occasionally commenting. Barbara has read much, and talks well. It is an utter mistake to suppose that women nowadays have what we have been accustomed, as a term of reproach, to call "miss-ish" taste in books or art. Five minutes' survey of that room which Barbara called her own in her aunt's house in Gloucester Place would have served to dispel any such idea. On the walls were proofs of Leonardo's "Last Supper" and Landseers "Shoeing the Horse;" a print of Delaroche's "Execution of Lady Jane Grey;" a large framed photograph of Gerome's "Death of Cæsar;" an old-fashioned pencil-sketch of Barbara's father, taken in the old days by D'Orsay long before he ever thought of turning that pencil to actual use; and a coloured photograph--a recent acquisition--of a girl sitting over a wood-fire in a dreamy attitude, burning her love-letters, called "L' Auto da Fé." On the bookshelves you would have found Milton, Thomas à-Kempis, David Copperfield, The Christmas Carol, a much-used Tennyson, Keats, George Herbert's Poems, Quarles' Emblems, The Christian Year, Carlyle's French Revolution, Dante, Schiller, Faust, Tupper (of course! "and it is merely envy that makes you laugh at him," she always said), The Newcomes, and a quarto Shakespeare. No French novels, I am glad to say; but a fat little Béranger, and a yellow-covered Alfred de Musset are on the mantelpiece, while a brass-cross-bearing red-edged Prayer-Book lies on the table by the bed. Barbara's books were not show-books; they all bore more or less the signs of use; but she had read them in a desultory manner, and had never thoroughly appreciated the pleasure to be derived from them. She had never lived in a reading set; for when old Miss Lexden had mastered the police intelligence and the fashionable news from the Post, her intellectual exercises were at an end for the day; and her friends were very much of the same calibre. So now for the first time Barbara heard literature talked of by one who had hitherto made it his worship, and who spoke of it with mingled love and reverence--spoke without lecturing, leading his companion into her fair share of the talk, mingling apt quotation with caustic comment or enthusiastic eulogy, until they found themselves, to Barbara's surprise, at the hall-door.

I am glad that it is my province as historian to discourse to my readers of the thoughts, impulses, and motives influencing the characters in this story, else it would be difficult for me to convey so much of their inner life as I wish to be known, and which yet would not crop out in the course of the action. In writing a full-flavoured romance of the sensational order, it is not, perhaps, very difficult to imbue your readers with a proper notion of your characters' character. The gentleman who hires two masked assassins to waylay his brother at the foot of the bridge has evidently no undue veneration for the Sixth Commandment; while the marchioness who, after having only once seen the young artist in black velvet, gives him the gold key leading to her secret apartments, and makes an assignation with him at midnight, is palpably not the style of person whom you would prefer as governess for your daughters. But in a commonplace story of every-day life, touching upon such ordinary topics as walks and dinners and butchers' meat, marrying and giving in marriage, running into debt, and riding horses in Rotten Row,--where (at least; so far as my experience serves) you find no such marked outlines of character, you must bring to your aid all that quality of work which in the sister art is known by the title pre-Raphaelitic, and show virtue in the cut of a coat and vice in the adjustment of a cravat. Moreover, we pen-and-ink workers have, in such cases, an advantage over our brethren of the pencil, inasmuch as we can take our readers by the button-hole, and lead them out of the main current of the story, showing them our heroes and heroines in déshabille, and, through the medium of that window which Vulcan wished had been fixed in the human breast--and which really is there, for the novelist's inspection--making them acquainted with the inmost thoughts and feelings of the puppets moving before them.

When Barbara went to her room that night and surrendered herself to Parker and the hair-brushes, that pattern of ladies'-maids thought that she had never seen her mistress so preoccupied since Karl von Knitzler, an attaché of the Austrian Embassy,--who ran for a whole season in the ruck of the Lexden's admirers, and at last thought he had strength for the first flight,--had received his coup de grâce. In her wonderment Parker gave two or three hardish tugs at the hair which she was manipulating, but received no reproof; for the inside of that little head was so busy as to render it almost insensible to the outside friction. Barbara was thinking of Mr. Churchill--as yet she had not even thought of him by his Christian name, scarcely perhaps knew it--and of the strange interest which he seemed to have aroused in her. The tones of his voice yet seemed ringing in her ears; she remembered his warm, earnest manner when speaking from himself, and the light way in which he fell into her tone of jesting badinage. Then, with something like a jar, she recollected his suppressed sneer at the difference in their "class," and her foot tapped angrily on the floor as the recollection rose in her mind. Mingled strangely with these were reminiscences of his comely head, white shapely hands, strong figure, and well-made boots; of the way in which he sat and walked; of--and then, with a start which nearly hurled one of the brushes out of Parker's hand, she gathered herself together as she felt the whole truth rush upon her, and knew that she was thinking too much of the man and determined that she would so think no more. Who was he, living away in some obscure region in London among a set of people whom no one knew, leading a life which would not be tolerated by any of her friends, to engross her thoughts? Between them rolled a gulf, wide and impassable, on the brink of which they might indeed stand for a few minutes interchanging casual nothings in the course of life's journey, but which rendered closer contact impossible. And yet--but Barbara determined there should be no "and yet;" and with this determination full upon her, she dismissed Parker and fell asleep.

And Churchill--what of him? Alas, regardless of his doom, that little victim played! When old Marmaduke gave the signal for retiring, Churchill would not, on this night, follow the other men into the smoking-room. The politics, the ribaldry, the scandal, the horsey-doggy talk, would be all more intolerable than ever; he wanted to be alone, to go through that process, so familiar to him on all difficult occasions, of "thinking it out;" so he told Gumble to take a bottle of claret to his room, and, arrived there, he lit his old meerschaum, and leant out of the window gazing over the distant moonlit park. But this time the "thinking it out" failed dismally; amid the white smoke-wreaths curling before him rose a tall, slight grateful figure; in his ear yet lingered the sound of a clear low voice; his hand yet retained the thrill which ran through him as she touched it in wishing him "good night." He thought of her as he had never thought of woman before, and he gloried in the thought: he was no love-sick boy, to waste in fond despair, and sicken in his longing; he was a strong, healthy man, with a faultless digestion, an earnest will, a clear conscience, and a heart thinking no guile. There was the difference in the rank, certainly--and in connexion with this reflection a grim smile crossed his face as he remembered Harding, and his caution about "swells"--but what of that? Did not good education, and a life that would bear scrutiny, lift a man to any rank? and would not she--and then he drew from his pocket a dainty, pearl-gray glove (Jouvin's two-buttoned, letter B), and pressed it to his lips. It was silly, ladies and gentlemen, I admit; but then, you know, it never happened to any of us; and though "the court, the camp, the grove" suffer, we have the pleasure of thinking that the senate, the bar, the commerce of England, and the public press, always escape scot-free.

Breakfast at Bissett Grange lasted from nine--at the striking of which hour old Sir Marmaduke entered the room, and immediately rang the bell for a huge smoking bowl of oatmeal porridge, his invariable matutinal meal--until twelve; by which time the laziest of the guests had generally progressed from Yorkshire-pie, through bacon, eggs, and Finnan haddies, down to toast and marmalade, and were sufficiently refected. Barbara was always one of the last; she was specially late on the morning after the talk just described; and on her arrival in the breakfast-room found only Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, who always lingered fondly over their meals, and who, so long as the cloth remained on the table, sat pecking and nibbling, like a couple of old sparrows, at the dishes within reach of them; Captain Lyster, who between his sips of coffee was dipping into Bell's Life; and Sir Marmaduke himself, who had returned from a brisk walk round the grounds and the stables and the farm, and was deep in the columns of the Times. But, to her astonishment, the place at table next hers had evidently not yet been occupied. The solid white breakfast-set was unused, the knives and forks were unsoiled; and yet Mr. Churchill, who had hitherto occupied that place, had usually finished his meal and departed before Barbara arrived. This morning, however, was clearly an exception; he had not yet breakfasted, for by his plate lay three unopened letters addressed to him. Barbara noticed this--noticed moreover that the top letter, in a long shiny pink envelope, was addressed in a scrawly, unmistakably female hand, and had been redirected in a larger, bolder writing. As she seated herself, with her eyes, it must be confessed, on this dainty missive, the door opened, and Churchill entered. After a general salutation, he was beginning a half-laughing apology for his lateness as he sat down, when his eye lit on the pink envelope. He changed colour slightly; then, before commencing his breakfast, took up his letters and placed them in the breast-pocket of his shooting-coat.

"This is horrible, Miss Lexden," he said, "bringing these dreadful hours into the country; here--where you should enjoy the breezy call of incense-breathing morn, the cock's shrill clarion, and all the rest of it--to come down to your breakfast just when the bucolic mind is pondering on the immediate advent of its dinner."

"Be good enough to include yourself in this sweeping censure, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara. "I was down before you; but I accepted my position, nor, however late I might have been, should I have attempted--"

"I congratulate you, sir," interrupted Mr. Vincent, dallying with a lump of marmalade on a wedge of toast,--"I congratulate you, Mr. Churchill, on a prudence which but few men of your age possess."

"You are very good, but I scarcely follow you."

"I saw you--I saw you put away your letters until after breakfast. A great stroke that! Men generally are so eager to get at their letters, that they plunge into them at once, before meals little thinking that the contents may have horrible influence on their digestion."

"I am sorry to say that I was influenced by no such sanitary precautions. My correspondence will keep; and I have yet to learn that to read letters in the presence of ladies is--"

"Pray, make no apologies, as far as I am concerned," said Barbara, with a curl of her lip and an expansion of nostril; "if you have any wish to read your doubtless important correspondence--"

"I have no such wish, Miss Lexden. Litera scripta manet; which, being interpreted, means, my letters will keep. And now, Mr. Vincent, I'll trouble you for a skilful help of that game-pie."

Churchill remained firm; he was still at breakfast, and his letters remained unopened in his pocket, when Barbara left the room to prepare for a drive with Miss Townshend. As they reëntered the avenue after a two hours' turn round the Downs, they met Captain Lyster in a dog-cart.

"I have been over to Brighton," he explained; "drove Churchill to the station. He got some news this morning, and is obliged to run up to town for a day or two. But he's coming back, Miss Lexden."

"Is he, indeed!" said Barbara. "What splendid intelligence! I should think, Captain Lyster, that, since the announcement of the fall of Sebastopol, England has scarcely heard such glorious news as that Mr. Churchill is coming back to Bissett." And, with a clear, ringing laugh, she pulled the ponies short up at the hall-door, jumped from the carriage, and passed to her room.

"She don't like his going, all the same,--give you my word," said Lyster, simply, to Miss Townshend.

And she did not. She coupled his sudden departure with the receipt of that pink envelope and the address in the feminine scrawl. Who was the writer of that letter? What could the business be to take him away so hastily? With her head leaning on her hand, she sits before her dressing-table pondering these things. It certainly was a woman's writing. Is this quiet, sedate, self-possessed man a flirt? Does he carry on a correspondence with-- And if he does, what is it to her? She is nothing to him--and yet--who can it be? It was a woman's hand! She wonders where he is at that moment; she would like to see him just for an instant.

If she could have had her wish, she would have seen him by himself in a railway-carriage, an unheeded Times lying across his knee, and in his hand a little pearl-gray kid-glove.

VI.

THE COMMISSIONER'S SHELL EXPLODES.

When the party assembled for dinner on the day of Mr. Churchill's hurried departure from the Grange, they found they had an addition in the person of Mr. Commissioner Beresford, who arrived late in the afternoon, and did not make his appearance until dinner-time. A man of middle height and dapper figure, always faultlessly dressed; slightly bald, but with his light-coloured hair well arranged over his large forehead; with deep-sunk, small, stony-gray eyes, a nose with the nostrils scarcely sufficiently covered, and a large mouth, with long white teeth. He had small white--dead-white--hands, with filbert nails, and very small feet. There was in the normal and ordinary expression of his face something sour and mordant, which, so far as his eyes were concerned, occasionally faded out in conversation, giving place to a quaint, comic look; but the mouth never changed; it was always fox-like, cruel, and bad. There was no better-known man in London; high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, all had heard of Charley Beresford. Citizen of the world, where was he out of place? When there was a tight wedge on the staircase of Protocol House on the Saturday nights when Lady Helmsman received; when at a foot-pace the fashionable world endured hours of martyrdom in procession to the shrine which, once reached, was passed in an instant, according as sole trophy the reminiscence of a bow,--Mr. Beresford was to be seen leaning over the stoutest of dowagers, and looking fresh and undrooping even when pressed upon by the pursiest of diplomatists. When the noble souls of the Body Guards were dismayed within the huge carcasses which contained them because it was whispered that the 180th Hussars intended to wear white hats on their drag to the Derby, and to deck their persons and their horses with blue rosettes--both which insignia had hitherto been distinctive of the Body Guards--it was Charley Beresford who was applied to on the emergency; and who, on the Derby morning, turned the tables completely by bringing the Body Guards from Limmer's straw-thatched and amber-rosetted to a man. The 180th and their blue were nowhere; and "Go it, yaller!" and "Brayvo, Dunstable!" were the cries all down the road. When Mr. Peter Plethoric, the humorous comedian of the Nonpareil Theatre, wanted some special patronage for his benefit, "Charley, dear boy!" was his connecting link with that aristocracy whose suffrages he sought. He went into every phase of society: he had an aunt the widow of a cabinet minister, who lived in Eaton Square; and an uncle a bishop, who lived in Seamore Place; and he dined with them regularly two or three times in the season, lighting his cigar within a few yards of the house, and quietly strolling down to the Argyll Rooms, or to the green-room of the theatre, or to the parlour of a sporting-public to get the latest odds on a forthcoming fight. He turned up his coat-collar of late when he visited these last-named places, and the pugilistic landlords had orders never to pronounce his name, but to call him "Guv'nor;" it would not do for an official high in her Majesty's service to be recognised in such quarters. Before his aristocratic friends obtained for him his commissionership, his name was one of the most common current amongst the Fancy; but since then he had eschewed actual presence at the ring, as he had blue bird's-eye handkerchiefs, cigars in the daylight, and nodding acquaintance with broughams in the park. "Il faut se ranger," he used to say; "it would never do for those young fellows down at the Office to think that I was or ever had been a fast lot; and those confounded Radical papers, they made row enough about the appointment, and they'll always be on the look-out to catch me tripping." He little knew that his fame had preceded him to the Tin-Tax Office; that all the old clerks were prepared to receive him with something between fear and disgust, all the young ones with unmingled admiration; that daily bulletins of his dress and manners were circulated amongst the juniors, and that those who could afford it dressed at him to a man.

He was four-and-thirty when he got his appointment, and he had held it about two years. There was even betting that the promotion would "go in the office;" that Mr. Simnel, the secretary, a very clever man, would get it; that the vacancy would not be filled up; and various other rumours. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer felt that Mr. Simnel had been going a little too much ahead lately, acting on his own responsibility; and as the widow of the cabinet minister (who owned a borough in Devonshire) and the bishop concurrently attacked the Premier, that nobleman gave way, and Charles Beresford exchanged the dreariness of Bruges, in which dull Belgian city of refuge he had been for some months located, for a seat in the board-room at Rutland House. His uncle and aunt, through their respective solicitors, bought up his outstanding debts, and settled them at a comparatively low rate (his Oxford ticks had been settled years ago out of his mother's income); and he came into a thousand a year, paid quarterly, free and unencumbered. A thousand a year, in four cheques on the Bank of England in January, April, July, and October, ought to be a sufficiency for an unmarried man; but with Charles Beresford, as with a good many of us, the mere fact of the possession of money gave rise to a wild desire for rushing into unlimited expense. To belong to three clubs--the Beauclerk in Pall Mall, aristocratic and exclusive; the Minerva (proposed thereat by the bishop), literary and solemn; the Haresfoot, late and theatrical;--to have capital rooms in South Audley Street; to keep a mail-phaeton and pair, with a saddle-horse and a hunter during the season; to give and join in Greenwich and Richmond dinners; to be generous in the matter of kid-gloves and jewelry; to have a taste (and to gratify it) in choice wines; to make a yearly excursion to Baden, and when there to worship extensively at the shrine of M. Benazet; to be a connoisseur in art, and a buyer of proofs before letters, and statuary, and tapestry, and antiques; to be miserable without the possession of an Opera-stall; all these vagaries, though pleasant, are undeniably expensive; and at the end of his second year of office Charles Beresford found that he had spent every farthing of his income, and owed, in addition, between three and four thousand pounds.

He could not compound with his creditors; he dared not go through the Court, for "those rascally papers" would then have been down on him at once, and his official appointment might have been sacrificed. The Government just then had two or three black sheep, about whom people had talked, among their subordinates; and Beresford might have been the Jonah, sacrificed to allay the storm of virtuous public indignation. Besides, though his great soul might have been won over to include in his schedule Messrs. Sams and Mitchell, Mr. Stecknadel, the tailor of Conduit Street, and Hocks, with whom his horses stood at livery, he could not inscribe the names of the Irrevocable Insurance Company, to whom for the money borrowed he had given the names of two substantial friends as sureties; or of Mr. Parkinson, solicitor, of Thavies Inn, who "did his paper," but required another signature on the back. So Mr. Charles Beresford was forced to confess himself "done up," "cornered," and "tree'd;" and only saw one way out of his difficulties--a good marriage. There was no reason why his final chance should not succeed, for he was a very pleasant, agreeable fellow when he chose; had a capital tenor voice, and sang French and German songs with sparkling effect and irreproachable accent; acted well in charade; talked all sorts of styles,--could be earnest, profound, sentimental, flippant, literary, or ribald, as occasion presented; waltzed with a gliding, long, swinging step, which was the envy of all the men who saw him; was sufficiently good-looking, and had something like a position to offer.

Behold him, then, seated at Sir Marmaduke's table next to Miss Townshend, and with Barbara Lexden immediately opposite to him. He has been rattling on pleasantly enough during dinner, but has never forgotten the object of his life; he is aware that Barbara for him is not an available parti, with position certainly, but without money, and with extravagant notions; but he has some recollection of having heard that Mr. Townshend was something approaching to a millionnaire, and he determined to satisfy himself upon the point without delay.

"Not at all," he says, referring to something that has gone before; "not at all. It's all very well for you, Sir Marmaduke, whose lines have been cast in pleasant places, to talk so; but for us poor fellows who have to work for our living, this rest is something delightful."

"Work for your living!" growls out the old gentleman. "A pack of lazy placemen. Egad! the fellow talks as though stone-breaking were his occupation, and he'd just straightened his back for five minutes. Work for your living! Do you call sticking your initial to the corner of a lot of figures that you've never read, work? Do you call scrawling your signature at the bottom of some nonsensical document, to prove that you're the 'obedient, humble servant,' of some idiot whom you've never seen, work? Do you call reading the--"

"Now stop, Sir Marmaduke," said Beresford, laughing; "I bar you there. You mustn't repeat that rococo old rubbish about reading the newspaper and poking the fire as the sole work in a Government office. That is slander."

"I am bound to say," said Mr. Townshend pompously, "that when, in my capacity either as one of the directors of the East-India Company, or Prime Warden of the Bottle Blowers' Company, I have ever had occasion to transact business with any of the Government establishments, I have always found myself well treated."

"I am delighted to hear such testimony from you, sir," said Beresford, with some apparent deference, and inwardly thinking that the two positions named looked healthy as regards money.

"God bless my soul!" bawled Sir Marmaduke. "Here's a man drives up in a big carriage, with a powdered-headed jackass to let down the steps, and then he 'testifies' that he gets a messenger to take in his name and that he isn't insulted by the clerks. I wish with all my heart, Townshend, that you were a poor man with a patent to bring out, or a grievance to complain of, or an inquiry to make, and you'd devilish soon see the reception you'd get."

"I hear," said Mr. Vincent, with a mind to turn the conversation "that a new system of refreshment-supply has recently been introduced into some of our public departments. I have a nephew in the Draft-and-Docket Office, whom I called upon about one o'clock the other day, and I found him engaged upon some very excellent cotelettes à la Soubise, which he told me were prepared in the establishment. That appears to me a most admirable arrangement."

"Very admirable," growled Sir Marmaduke "for the public, who are paying the young ruffians for eating their Frenchified rubbish. By heavens! a clerk at ninety pounds a year, and a made-dish for lunch!"

"Quite right, Mr. Townshend," said Stone; "they feed stunningly now, and don't drink badly either. By the way, Beresford, I'm agent for Goupil's house at Bordeaux, and I could put in a capital cheap claret into your place, just the thing for your fellows in the hot weather. The tenders are out now, and a word from you would serve me."

"But, surely," said Barbara, laughing, "if, as Sir Marmaduke says, you don't work now, Mr. Beresford, you'll be less inclined than ever after M. Goupil's claret."

"Sir Marmaduke is an infidel, Miss Lexden," said Charley. "Send in your tender, Stone, and Goupil's Medoc shall be a fresh incentive to the virtuous Civil Servants!"

"Let him rave, my dear!" said Sir Marmaduke; "let him rave, as your idol Mr. Tennyson says. What he calls work, I call make-believe humbug. What I call work, is what my godson--what's his name---Churchill (what the deuce has he gone away for?) does, night after night, grinding his headpiece--that sort of thing."

"What Churchill is that, sir?" asked Charley.

"Mr. Churchill is a literary man, I believe," said Miss Townshend; "wonderfully clever--writes, you know, and all that."

"Oh, Frank Churchill! I know him," replied Beresford. "Has he been down here?"

"Yes; he only left this morning."

"He seems a very good sort of fellow," said Lyster generously, for he didn't quite like the tone of Beresford's voice, and did not at all like the manner in which the Commissioner was paying quiet attention to Miss Townshend. "He's made himself a general favourite in a very short time."

"Yes, that he has," said Miss Townshend; "he's very clever, and not at all conceited, and--oh! he's so nice."

Barbara said nothing.

"I had a few words with him about the money-article yesterday," said Mr. Townshend; "but I must say his views were scarcely so defined as I could have wished."

Beresford had listened attentively to these remarks. He thought he perceived a certain tendresse in Miss Townshend's manner of speaking of Churchill, which did not at all accord with his present views. So he said,

"No, Mr. Townshend; that's not Churchill's peculiar line. He's a poor man, though, as you say, Miss Townshend, a clever one. And he has some object in working hard, for he's going to be married."

"To be married?" exclaimed Miss Townshend, looking across at Barbara.

"To be married?" exclaimed Barbara, flushing scarlet. The next instant she turned deadly cold, and could have bitten her tongue out for having spoken.

"Well, well!" said old Miss Lexden, who up to this time had been engaged in a confidential culinary chat with Mrs. Vincent; "that's always the way. Poor thing: I pity the young woman. These sort of persons always stay out all night, and ill-treat their wives, and all that kind of thing."

"Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Vincent; "leg-of-mutton ménage and batter-pudding, perhaps; no soup or fish. Dear, dear! what unwholesome things these love-marriages are!"

"But nobody said that it is a love match," said Miss Townshend. "Perhaps the lady is an heiress, whom Mr. Churchill has captivated by his talent."

"Yes," growled Sir Marmaduke, with a sardonic grin; "an heiress who has been struck with his articles on the Reformatory question, or has become completely dazzled by the lucidity of his views on the Maynooth Grant. A leader-writer in a daily newspaper is just the romantic youth that heiresses fall in love with."

"Now do be quiet, Sir Marmaduke, with your horrid sarcasm, and let us hear what the lady is like. Do tell us, Mr. Beresford," said Miss Townshend.

"Oh, I have no idea of her personal appearance," replied Beresford. "Every body says she's very nice, and that the marriage is coming off at once--that's all I know."

"Your curiosity will soon be gratified, with a very little trouble," interrupted Lyster. "You can ask Mr. Churchill himself--he's coming back to-morrow."

"Coming back!" exclaimed Beresford.

"Yes, to-morrow," replied Lyster, and added, between his teeth, "your little plot will soon be spoilt, my boy."

Shortly afterwards, when the ladies left the table, Barbara did not accompany the rest, but went straight to her own room. There she seated herself at the open window, which looked out upon the lawn and upon the high downs beyond, over which the yellow-faced moon was rising in solemn beauty. And Barbara nestled into the great easy-chair, which she had pulled forward, and rested her chin on her hand, and looked upon the grand picture of varied light and shade with eyes that saw nothing of the beauty, and with a heart that comprehended it not. Down in the hollow lay a little farm, gray and cold and stony, as are such buildings in Sussex, and containing at that time a sleeping, snoring family; for the farmer, a thrifty man, had to be up betimes, and candlelight might as well be spared, and hard-working folk must rest. He did not think much about the moon, this Sussex farmer, nor did his hinds, two of whom were then snoring in the red-tiled barn just on the shoulder of you hill; but the glorious lamp of night was as much in their thoughts as she was in those of Barbara Lexden, who had copied out "The moon is up, by Heaven! a lovely eve," from Childe Harold, and knew Alfred de Musset's wild lines on the same subject by heart, and had gone in for the romantic business about it, and done some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the goddess Luna was made good use of. But the moon was nothing now to Barbara, whose mind was full of a far more worldly object, and whose foot was tapping impatiently on the floor. Going to be married? Then it was all accounted for--that letter with the feminine griffe, which he had pocketed immediately and read apart, and his hurried departure for town. Going to be married! What business had he, then, to come down there, and talk and act as though no engagement fettered him--to talk, indeed, as though no notion of matrimony had ever crossed his mind? Could he--? No; that was impossible. He could not have been playing with her--making a fool of her? What was that he had said about difference of class in marriage? Ay, that settled the question; the fiancée was probably some dowdy woman, who could make a pie, and mend his clothes, and keep their maid-of-all-work in order. Well, the man was nothing to her--but she hoped he might be happy. It was getting very dull at Bissett, and she should suggest their departure to her aunt. They had invitations for several nice houses; and General Mainwaring's was not far off, and Boyce Combe was there, and Harvey Grenville; so that she should be sure of plenty of fun. She had not seen Boyce Combe since the last Woolwich ball, and then he had been so horribly absurd, and had talked such ridiculous nonsense. He was so amusing, Major Combe; and--and then Major Combe's handsome, vacuous, simpering countenance, which for a moment had risen in Barbara's mind, faded again, and in its place there came a genial, clever, sensible face, with merry eyes and laughing mouth, and Major Combe's "ridiculous nonsense" seemed wretched balderdash as contrasted with Frank Churchill's pleasant talk.

A knock at the door, following which promptly little Miss Townshend glides into the room. A nice little girl, as I have remarked; a charming little being, bright and winning, but not the sort of person for a companion when one is in that state so well described as "out of sorts." Who, I wonder, is pleasant company for us in a real or fancied trouble? Certainly not the enthusiastic gusher who flings his or herself upon our necks, and insists upon sharing our sorrow,--which is a thorough impossibility. Certainly not the pseudo-moralist who tells us that all is for the best, and quotes Scripture, and suggests that, though we have had to retire from Palace Gardens and live in Bedford Row, there are many outcasts then sleeping on the steps of Whitechapel Church; and that, though our darling's life may be trembling in the balance, there are fever-courts and pestilence-alleys, in no house of which "there is not one dead." Certainly not the lively friend who thinks that "rallying" is the best course for binding the broken heart and setting at rest the perturbed spirit, and who accordingly indulges in one perpetual effervescence of mild sarcasm and feeble teasing. Miss Townshend belonged to this latter class; and entered the room with a little skip and a long slide, which brought her to Barbara's side.

"Oh, ho! and so we're annoyed, are we, and won't come among our friends? We sit and sulk by ourselves, do we?"

"I cannot possibly imagine what you mean, Alice," said Barbara coldly. "Take care, please; you're standing on my dress."

"Oh, of course not, poor darling, she can't imagine! But, without any joking, Barbara, it is too bad."

"What is too bad, Alice?" asked Barbara, without moving a muscle. She had a tremendous power over her face, and, when she chose, looked as impassible as the Sphynx, "staring straight on with calm eternal eyes."

"Now, don't be silly, Barbara dear," exclaimed Miss Townshend, who was getting rather annoyed because her friend had not gone off into hysterics. "You know well enough what I mean; and it is a shame, a horrible shame! Who would have thought that that learned clever man could have been such an incorrigible flirt? There now," putting up her hands, "you know perfectly well who I mean. And he did carry on with you in the most shameful manner--and going to be married all the time! Not that I'm sure you're not rightly served, Barbara. It's just the sort of thing you've been doing all your life, you know; but, still, one doesn't expect it in a man, does one, dear? I wonder--"

"I wonder when you'll have common sense, Alice. It's time, if what you told me this morning be true."

"O Barbara darling! O Barbara! don't remind me of it. Oh, how miserable you've made me! And you--you don't care one pin, when you know I'm so wretched." And putting her handkerchief to her eyes, little Miss Townshend hurried out of the room.

And what of the girl who "didn't care one pin"? who had just been rallied upon having been made a fool of by a man--a man, moreover, for whom every hour of her life proved to her that she cared? Pride, love, vexation, doubt,--all these had influence on that throbbing heart; and she flung herself on her bed in a flood of tears.

VII.

TOUCHING A PROPOSAL.

When Captain Lyster rose on the following morning, he had made up his mind to the commission of a very serious deed. A long course of reflection as he lay awake in the watches of the night, and the discovery, real or imaginary, of a further diminution of hair on the crown of his head, had determined him upon asking Miss Townshend to become his wife without any further delay. There was something in her fresh, cheery, pleasant manner that specially appealed to this blasé cynic; she was so unlike the women he had been accustomed to mix with in society, who were generally weak imitations of Barbara Lexden, or opinionless misses, who held "yea" and "nay" to be the sole ingredients necessary in their conversation; in fact, this chattering girl, who said every thing uppermost in her mind, who had capital spirits perennially flowing, and who was natural without being either arrogant or "miss-ish," had completely enslaved him. He might have pottered on in silent admiration for some time longer, but that he had been greatly annoyed by Beresford's manner to Miss Townshend on the preceding evening; there was something in the Commissioner's easy familiarity, both during dinner and afterwards, which signally raised Lyster's wrath. He had towards Beresford that singular feeling, that compound of distrust, detestation, contempt, and fear, which we experience instinctively for any rival; and his love for this girl was far too serious a matter to permit any tampering with his plans. A good fellow, Fred Lyster; a kind-hearted, straightforward, honourable man, with very little guile; lazy, to a certain extent selfish, and considerably spoilt; but with an innate sense of right carrying him through many difficulties, and with a stout heart and a clear brain to support him under any trials.

He loved this girl, and he wanted to know whether his love was returned. To get at this information he saw but one way--a proposal. I have before said that he knew every trick and turn of flirtation; but this was something of far deeper import than a flirtation; means which he had previously used to ascertain "how he stood" with the temporary object of his affections, and which had elicited the satisfactory glance, hand-pressure, or word, he would have now deemed degrading both to himself and to her. His regard for her had been growing throughout the past season, and was rapidly culminating. He had watched her attentively, and studied all her movements, with a satisfactory result. He felt that she was a little fast, certainly; but that fastness he was convinced resulted from the mere overflow of animal spirits, and not from any desire to please in men's eyes by affectation of men's ways. That she was an heiress he didn't care one bit about--he had plenty for both; and if she came to him, any thing that she had should be settled on herself. But how to ask her? Ah, how long did that pair of hair-brushes remain suspended over his head, while he gazed vacantly into the dressing-glass before him as this question rose in his mind! How often did he fling himself on the ottoman, nursing his foot and biting his lip in a perplexity of doubt! He could not go down on his knees, and offer his hand and heart, as they did on the stage; he could not write to her, either formally or spasmodically--he had a wholesome horror of committing himself on paper; he could not arrive at the knowledge he required through any third person; in fact (here the hair-brushes went to work again), there was no way but to take advantage of an opportunity, and propose. He must know his position, too, at once. He could not bear to see that fellow Beresford hanging about her as he had been the previous night. He'd do it that very day. His whole frame, which had been pleasantly cooled by his shower-bath, tingled again at the mere thought; and a faint empty feeling, something like that which he experienced when insulted in the Engineers' mess-room at Salem by Poker Cassidy, came over him. Would he get as well out of this as out of that encounter? Then he held his own; and Cassidy, neatly drilled by a pistol-bullet through his ankle, limps with a crutch to this day. But this was a very different matter.

It was a dull breakfast that morning. Barbara sent down intelligence of a headache, and remained in her room; Miss Townshend had red rims to her pretty eyes, had no smile for any one, looked miserable, and sat silent; her papa had donned his very stiffest check cravat, and was, if possible, more pompous than usual; Sir Marmaduke had had his porridge early, had gone out, and not returned; old Miss Lexden always breakfasted in bed; and Mr. and Mrs. Vincent were utterly upset by a burnt omelette, about which they conveyed dismay to each other by eyebrow telegraph across the table. Only Major Stone was himself; and he bustled about, and made tea, and passed dishes, and joked and rallied in a way that ought to have been of service, but which signally failed. When Mr. Beresford entered the room, which was not until nearly all the others had finished their meal, he seemed for a few moments staggered by the gravity of the assemblage; but gliding into a vacant seat by Miss Townshend's side, he soon recovered his spirits, and commenced a conversation in his accustomed bantering tone. His neighbour seemed to brighten at once, and responded in her usual cheery manner, greatly to the disgust of poor Fred Lyster, sitting opposite, who, over his cold partridge, was still hard at work on the same problem which had occupied him when over his hair-brushes, and who knew as little how to attain his end as ever. He was glad when he heard Beresford say that business would require him to ride into Brighton before luncheon, and that he must afterwards go round to the stables and see whether his hack was all right after her journey down. His joy toned down a little when Miss Townshend asked if said hack had ever carried a lady, but rose again when Beresford declared that he should be sorry to see any female friend of his on Gulnare's back.

"It isn't that she's vicious," he explained; "there's not an ounce of vice in her. But there are so many things she can't bear--dirty children, and puddles, and stone heaps in the road; and when she sees any of these she stands bolt upright for two minutes on her hind-legs, and then starts off with her head between her forelegs, and nearly pulls your arms out of their sockets."

So Miss Townshend declared with much laughter, and with many shoulder-shrugs and exclamations of fright, that she could never think of mounting "any thing so dreadful;" and Lyster, to his immense delight, saw Beresford leave the room, light a big cigar on the steps, and clear off in the direction of the stables. Stone had already departed on his various errands; Mrs. Vincent had fetched a cookery-book from the library, and with her husband had retired to study it in the embrasure of the window; and Miss Townshend, left the last at table, was playing with a fragment of toast. Lyster knew her habits--knew that she was in the habit of skimming the Post to learn the whereabouts of her friends; and accordingly retreated quietly to the library.

Such a pleasant room, this! Not a bit of the wall to be seen for the dark oak bookshelves, which, crammed with books, extended from floor to ceiling on every side. A capital collection of books, in sober calf bindings (Sir Marmaduke once said that brilliant bindings and glazed book-cases always reminded him of a man with his hair parted down the middle, and could not understand what Barbara meant by asking hi Mrs. Nickleby had been a Wentworth): theology, politics, books of reference, poetry, drama, and history, all regularly ranged and properly catalogued. Fiction had a very moderate compartment allotted to it; but the round table in the middle of the room, and the ottoman at the far end, were liberally strewn with volumes bearing the omnipresent yellow ticket of Mudie. Immediately in front of the big bow-window, which was shaded by a sun-blind, and through which you gazed over a lovely expanse of down, stood a huge writing-table, on which was an inkstand that might have held half a pint, a large blotting-pad, an oxydised-silver owl with ruby eyes erect on a paperweight, and a bundle of quill pens, half split up, and all very much bitten at the tops; for Sir Marmaduke, who was the principle occupant of the cane writing-chair, was apt to get very energetic in his correspondence. Here, too, the old gentleman indulged in the one literary occupation of his life--certain translations of Horace, which he altered and polished year after year, intending some time or other to show them to an old college friend, and then have a gorgeous edition printed on toned paper for private circulation. Here, in a huge iron safe, were kept big ledgers, and account-books of rents, rates, and expenditure on the estates which gave three days' solemn investigation every quarter to Sir Marmaduke and Major Stone; whereat there was much head-rubbing, many appealing looks to the ceiling, and much secret checking of fingers under the table, and reference to a ready-reckoner on the part of both gentlemen. And here in a secret draw of the writing-table, lay a little packet, which the old man would take out occasionally, would open, and sit gazing for half an hour together at the contents. They were not much,--a faded blue ribbon, once worn, with a little locket attached to it, round the throat of his old love at the Bath Assemblies, where he first met her; a curl of hair, cut from her head after death; and an ivory miniature, by Stump, of a dark girl, with big brown eyes, and her hair banded tight to her forehead, and gathered into a large bow at the top of the head. After an inspection of this drawer the old gentleman would walk to the looking-glass, and glaring at his own reflection therein, would shake his head in a very solemn manner; he would be very mild and quiet, and, as Gumble noticed, would drink an extra bottle of claret during the evening.

When Lyster entered the room, he was annoyed to see that it was occupied. Old Mr. Russell, the lawyer, was at the writing-table; and Mr. Townshend was seated in an easy-chair close by, listening to the narration of some thick parchment deed which the lawyer was going through. Their business was apparently at an end, though; for Mr. Townshend said, "Then it's satisfactory, Mr. Russell?" to which the old gentleman, with nothing but his finger-tips visible below his cuffs, replied, "I think we may assume so;" and both gentlemen rose and left the room. Being in a highly nervous state, Lyster did not like these proceedings a bit. He wondered what that portentous-looking parchment was about--whether it had any reference to old Townshend's testamentary disposition; whether it had any thing to do with Miss Townshend. He thought he rather hated that old Russell, though he had not much idea why. His time was coming on now; he wondered how much longer before Miss Townshend would fetch the Post. Here it was, on the round table, with the other papers. He took one up and looked at it; but the type all ran together before his eyes, so he laid it down again, and walked up to the mantelshelf, and glared at the big black clock in the middle, and pulled the spear through the perforated fist of the bronze Diana on the top, and pushed it backwards and forwards; and then walking to the writing-table, lit a Vesta-match and blew it out. He plunged his hands into his pockets, and looked down at his boots, apparently intently scrutinising their make, in reality not seeing them in the least; then he took up a hare's-foot-handled paper-knife and tapped his teeth with it, threw it down, and commenced a Polar-bear-like promenade of the room.

The clock ticked solemnly on, and Captain Lyster was still pacing up and down, when the door opened and Miss Townshend entered. She seemed surprised to see any one in the room, and declared that she would not remain a minute, and that she would take the greatest care not to disturb the Captain, who, she said with a smile, was evidently, from his perturbed expression, engaged upon the composition of an epic poem or other intense literary effort. At this remark the Captain grinned feebly, and besought the young lady not to mind his eccentricities, as he was full of them, though he was bound to confess he had never been mad enough to contemplate writing a poem. And then Miss Townshend smiled again, and seated herself at the round table, and taking up the Post turned to the "Fashionable intelligence," and was at once engrossed in the study of who was where, and at what country seats "select circles" were being "hospitably entertained." Lyster went to the writing-table, and began ornamenting the blotting pad with many spirited sketches, wondering all the time whether he should get any better chance for his contemplated announcement, or whether he should plunge into it at once. At last he thought he had an opportunity. Miss Townshend suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Captain Lyster, here's news for you! You recollect Mary Considine? Yes, I should think you did. Those private theatricals at the Fenton's, where you and she--oh, I haven't forgotten it. Well, there's something about her here; listen: 'We understand that a matrimonial alliance will shortly take place between the Honourable Mary Considine, youngest daughter of Lord Torraghmore, and Major Burt, of the Life Guards.' That's Harry Burt, the straw-coloured one, isn't it? Poor Captain Lyster! doomed to wear the willow."

The chance, the chance at last!

"Surely, Miss Townshend," he commenced, "you cannot imagine that I ever seriously entertained any regard for Miss Considine. A very pleasant young lady, full of spirits, and highly amusing, but not possessing the qualities which one would look for in a wife. And you--can you imagine that in a house where you were--where I was in the habit of seeing you--. Done, by Jove!"

The last sentence, uttered under his breath, was evoked by the opening of the door, and the entrance of Mr. Townshend, who looked more like the Ace of Clubs than ever when he saw the couple in apparently close conversation. He at once approached his daughter, and asked her if she had "written that letter?" She said, with some tremulousness, "No." Mr. Townshend then raised his voice, and said he must beg--and with him "beg" sounded marvellously like "insist"--that she would do it at once. So the young lady, albeit with tears in her eyes, went dutifully off to obey her father's behests; the old gentleman sat down to the Times, while Lyster glared at him from behind a book, and wondered whether one could possibly call a man to account for interrupting one's conversation with his daughter.

VIII.

TOUCHING ANOTHER PROPOSAL.

Mr. Beresford meanwhile had strolled round to the stables, ascertained that, with the exception of the loss of a little hair from her off-hock, Gulnare seemed none the worse for her journey (horses never travel by rail without a something), ordered his groom to bring her round in half an hour's time, and made a cursory inspection of the other horses while finishing his cigar. At the time appointed he mounted and rode away into Brighton, starting at first over the Downs in a brisk canter, but gradually subsiding into a checked walk, which ill suited Gulnare's fiery disposition, and made her rider break the current of his thoughts by several behests of "Steady now!" "Quiet, old lady;" and such like. Indeed, Mr. Beresford had quite enough subject-matter for reflection. He, too, had been turning over in his mind the expediency of proposing to Miss Townshend, and had almost determined upon its being the right thing to do. The objection which he had urged in his discussion with Kate Mellon, that money and ugliness generally went together, would not hold good here. Miss Townshend was pretty and presentable; she was not clever, certainly; but so long as she was able to talk about Shakespeare and the musical glasses, that was all which the world would require of her in the way of conversation, and that sort of jargon would be easily picked up. She knew passably sufficient of the accomplishments of society, and was, as times went, in a very good set. Her people belonged to the plutocracy; but Beresford liked that rather than otherwise, recollecting how far pleasanter than the sham state and starveling magnificence of some of his aristocratic friends were the town-houses and country places of City magnates and merchant princes, where every thing, from the sleek porter in the hall to the new and massive salt-spoons on the table, spoke of wealth. To ascertain whether his venture was a safe one was the object of Beresford's visit to Brighton. He had known so many mushroom magnates, who, after a couple of seasons of full-blown pride, had collapsed and tumbled into the mud from which they sprung, that he took no man's monetary position on hearsay. He had met Mr. Townshend at capital houses, and had seen his name in many apparently excellent City ventures; but, then, had he not met at the Duke of Banffshire's Mr. Poyntz, the great railway contractor, who two months afterwards smashed for a million and a half? and did not half the peerage welcome as a friend and respect as a banker the great Mr. Shoddy, who was at that moment engaged in oakum-picking in expiation of his fraudulent practices? There must be no mistake on this head; it would be a pretty thing if he, Charles Beresford, were not merely to find himself after a year or two with a penniless wife upon his hands, but were also to have the world talking about his mésalliance. As to the idea of rejection, that had scarcely entered his head. He was generally liked by women, and thought Miss Townshend no exception to the rule. Her father perhaps might look for money, and then he should have to square him as best he could. But Beresford argued to himself: these nouveaux riches generally look for position; and if they cannot get rank for their girls, they like a good official connexion. Did not Petter marry the daughter of old Dunkel, the West-India merchant (by the by, she was a little woolly, though), simply through his being Secretary to the Lakes and Fisheries Department? And a Commissioner at the Tin-Tax ranked higher than that. Walbrook delighted to talk of "my son-in-law's connexion with the Government;" and Dowgate Hill rejoiced in seeing a fourth-rate Cabinet Minister or occasional Secretaries of Foreign Legations, much beribboned, at his daughter's drums. As to whether he cared for the girl, it scarcely entered into his mind to inquire; they would get on well enough; he would let her have her own way, so long as she did not interfere with him; he should keep up his hunting, but cut play of every kind; and if he got at all bored, why then he would go into Parliament. Fortunately, he thought, he was not like most men: he could get married without its interfering with any body; there was no "establishment" to break up; no inhabitant of a Brompton villa to tear her hair and use strong language until a liberal settlement was made; no jealous girls to upbraid and-- As the thought of Kate Mellon and the recollection of his last interview with her flashed into Beresford's mind, he started involuntarily, and touched the mare with his spur. Gulnare jumped into the air, and started off like an arrow. By the time he pulled her up, he was at the top of St. James's Street, Brighton; and as he leisurely rode down the hill, he revolved in his mind the means of arriving at an immediate knowledge of his intended father-in-law's stability.

He was not long in arriving at his determination. Of all the men he knew, Simnel, the secretary at the Tin-Tax Office, was the most knowing; and he and Beresford were on the most intimate terms. Had Beresford been in town, he would have consulted Simnel personally about this marriage business; as it was, he thought that the secretary was the likeliest man to get for him the information he required. This information must be had at once; as, once satisfied, he would not give another evening's chance to Lyster or that man Churchill, in whose wheel he had put so neat a spoke, but would commence immediately to clear the course on which he hoped to win. So he turned into the Old Steine, and leisurely dismounting at the door of the telegraph-office, resigned Gulnare into the hands of a passing boy, to whom he was so intent on giving instructions as to walking her gently up and down, that he did not observe "that man Churchill" pass him in an open fly, the driver of which must have been stimulated by the prospect of a large reward, as his horse was proceeding at a pace very rarely undertaken by Brighton fly-cattle. But perfectly ignorant of the propinquity of the gentleman with whose family history he had recently manifested so intimate an acquaintance, Mr. Beresford entered the telegraph-office, and taking up one of the printed slips, wrote the following message:

"C. B., Brighton to Robert Simnel, Tin-Tax Office, Rutland House, London.

"Non olet pecunia. Whether a round game with Townshend of Queensbury Gardens would repay the necessary illumination. Reply; figures, if possible."

The clerk counted the words and grinned. When Beresford, after saying that he would call for the answer, paid and walked out, the clerk carried the paper into the inner room where the manipulator was busy with his ever-clicking needles, and read the message out to him, grinning again; whereupon they both expressed opinion that it was a "rum start," and another of those "games" which supplied the interesting youths employed by the Electric Telegraph Company with so many topics of conversation.

Mr. Beresford put up his horse at a livery-stable, and then walked down towards the sea to while away the time until the answer should arrive. He knew Brighton thoroughly. He was a regular visitor from Saturday till Tuesday during November and December, when he stayed at the Bedford, and generally dined at the cavalry mess; but he had never seen the place in its autumnal aspect. Those who only know Brighton in the winter would scarcely recognise her in September, when she has more the aspect of Ramsgate or Margate. In place of the dashing carriages, flys at half-a-crown an hour crawl up and down the King's Road, the horses, perfectly accustomed to the dreary job, ambling along at their own sleepy pace; the riding-masters are still to the fore, but for pupils, instead of the brilliant écuyères, they have heavy, clumsy girls in hired habits and hideous hats. All the officers of the cavalry regiment who can get leave, take it; and those who cannot, devote themselves to tobacco in the solitude of their barrack-rooms. The Esplanade is thronged with fat people from the metropolitan suburbs, gorgeous Hebrews with their families from the Minories, and lawyers' clerks with a week's holiday. The beach is covered with children stone-digging and feet-wetting; with girls who have just bathed, with their hair down their backs, and girls who are waiting for machines; with men selling shell-toys, and women imploring purchase of crochet-dolls; with hilarious men throwing sticks for their dogs to swim after; with contemplative men reading books, and gazing off them vacantly across the sea; with drowsy men, supine, with their hats shading their faces from the sun. The whole place is changed; the rich hotel and shopkeepers have gone inland (Tunbridge Wells is a favourite place of theirs) for relaxation, and their substitutes, goaded into madness by the unchanging blue sky and burning brick pavement, are bearish and morose; men wear plaid shooting-coats of vivid patterns in the afternoon, and women, in flapping hats with draggled feathers, promenade in the Pavilion; Brill's swimming-bath shuts up for painting and decoration; and there are people seen walking on the Chain Pier.

In this abnormal state of affairs Mr. Beresford found himself any thing but happy. He went to Mutton's and had some soup, and to Folthorp's and read the papers; he strolled down the King's Road, and inspected the evolutions of various young ladies who were disporting in the waves, and indulging the passers-by with the gambols of Bloomsbury-super-Mare. Then he put his legs up on a bench on the Esplanade, and smoked a cigar, and stared at the passers-by; and then, after the lapse of a couple of hours, he walked back to the telegraph-office, where he found a reply waiting for him. It was from Mr. Simnel, and merely said:

"Olet. Three stars in Leadenhall Street and Director of L. B. and S. C. meaning ten thou. Plated heavily. If with good hand, play game."

IX.

"A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PITY.*"

(*Ben Jonson.)

Although only twenty-four hours absent from Bissett, Frank Churchill during that short period had undergone more mental conflict than is often suffered by many men in a course of years. He had had full time for reflection, and had availed himself of it to the utmost. While within the charmed circle he was necessarily under fascination; but now, although the witch was any thing but exorcised, he felt sufficiently himself to collect his thoughts, and he saw the absolute necessity of coming to some fixed determination as to his future conduct before he returned. Often before had he had occasion to weigh matters almost as important as this, though of course of a different character; and he was not the man to blink one jot of the attendant difficulties, or to over-persuade himself as to the feasibility of his designs simply because he wished them carried out. He was in love with this girl, then; he supposed that must be granted? at all events, by analysis and comparison, that was easily ascertained. Though, as the world goes, his life had been tolerably pure, he had in his student-days, and in the time immediately subsequent, had his amourettes and flirtations like the rest; but when he remembered what had been his feelings for Gretchen, the fat and fair daughter of Anton Schütz, the beery saddler; for Ernestine, the sentimental heiress of the Graf von Triebenfeld; for Eugénie and Olympe, vestals of the Quartier Latin; or for any of the half-hundred young ladies with whom during the earlier portion of his London career he had gone through the usual bouquet-sending, cotillon-dancing, Botanical-Fête-meeting flirtation,--he recognised at once that this was a very different matter. Breakers ahead and all round! As for Barbara, he felt conscious of no vanity in avowing to himself his perception of having excited her interest, but whether sufficiently to induce her to listen to an offer he could not imagine. Possibly, probably, she looked to making a brilliant marriage: her beauty and accomplishments were her capital, and should be turned to good purpose; and yet, as this idea passed through his mind, he had an instinctive feeling that Barbara's proud spirit would revolt from any such match, however much it might be pressed on her by her relations. Her relations! ay, even granting the girl's acquiescence, there would be one of the grand sources of difficulty: old Miss Lexden, rich, selfish, and narrow-minded, would doubtless oppose such a marriage in every possible way; and how would Sir Marmaduke look upon him, having come an invited and a welcome guest, and then brought this discord into the family? And even suppose it arranged somehow, she consenting and her friends satisfied, what was to be done with his mother, with whom and in whose house he then resided? how and where was the rest of her life to be passed? He could not live far from the office, where, thrice a week always, and occasionally more frequently, he was engaged till past midnight; and how would the brilliant beauty of the West be able to exist in the dreary fastnesses of Great Adullam Street, or the arid desert of Tiglath-Pileser Square? And then the narrow income--competence for one, a bare sufficiency for two! His horse must be given up, but that he would not so much mind; his Club (the Retrenchment) must be kept on, for business purposes, though he should of course never spend any money there; and he must take to sixteen-shilling trousers, and that sort of thing; all easy enough. But for her?--no brougham (and fancy those tiny high-heeled bottines over the villanous Mesopotamian pavement!), only an occasional Opera-box obtained from the Statesman (situation high, surroundings queer, claqueurs and amis des artistes), two or three balls in the season, and perhaps one dinner-party at home, with the inevitable side-dishes and attendant carpet-beater. Ay, and worse beyond!--children born and reared in that dingy atmosphere, further expenditure to be met, perhaps sickness to be struggled through, and all the household gods dependent on him,--on the soundness of his health and the clearness of his brain, which failing, what had they to look to? Aïe de me! that last thought settled the question. Let it fade out, pleasant dream that it was; or rather let him crush it for ever! It was impossible, and so let it pass. Down go the Spanish castles, away melt the aerial estates; Duty's foot kicks away Alnaschar's basket, and there is the hard, dry, unsympathetic, work-a-day world before him! He will go back to Bissett, but only for a day, just to get his traps together and to make some plausible excuse, and then will start off. This first week of his holiday has been any thing but rest, and rest he requires. He will go to Scarborough--no! not there, for reasons; but to some watering-place, and pitch pebbles into the sea and lie fallow until he is compelled to return to work. Yes, that is the right course--he determines on it finally as the train nears the Brighton station; hopes must be crushed, and Duty must be obeyed. Duty has won the day for once--and where is the pearl-gray glove now? At his lips, of course! Frank Churchill has resolved upon doing his duty, and, like the drunkard in the old story, is "treating resolution."

Anxiety to test his newly-farmed determination must be strong, for he ordered the flyman to drive as hard as he could to Bissett; but, cooling a little, dismissed the man at the lodge-gates, and strolled through the avenue towards the house. The leaves yet held their own; scarcely the slightest autumnal tint had fallen on them; and the grand old avenue looked magnificent. The weather was splendid; the sun shone brightly, while the air was clear and bracing; deer bounded in the brushwood; and as Churchill stood rejoicing in the lovely view, a cart laden with game, and driven by little Joe Lubbock, the head-keeper's boy, emerged from the Home Copse, and made a pleasant feature in the landscape. All around told of wealth and peace and English comfort; and as Churchill surveyed the scene, he felt (as he had often felt) how great were the enjoyments of those born to such heritage, and (as he had never felt) how well-disposed he should be for the sake of those enjoyments to undertake the necessary responsibilities. His Radicalism was of the very mildest nature; the free and independent electors of Brighton or of Southwark would have scorned the feebleness of his ideas as to the requirements of the people; he had no wish to alter the laws of primogeniture, nor to see the furniture designed by Gillow or Holland emblazoned with the "swart mechanic's bloody thumbs;"--indeed, it must be confessed that he thought the "swart mechanic," when out of his place and wrong-headed through false leading, a very objectionable person. But he was in love, and wanted money and position to enable him to forward his suit; and as the thought of some who had both and did good with neither flitted across him, he stamped impatiently on the gravel, and the fair view and all the sweet excellence of nature faded out before his eyes.

He walked hurriedly on for a few paces, and then bethought him that somewhere close in the neighbourhood was the gate leading to the fir-plantation in which he had recently walked with Barbara on their return from the shooting-party. He had the whole afternoon to do nothing in, and it would be pleasant to renew the remembrance of that happy jesting talk. Memory, he thought rather bitterly, was a luxury which it did not require either rank or riches to enjoy. He struck across the dry crisp turf, and arrived at the gate; it opened on a short gravelled walk, with low palings on either side, terminating in a rustic stile, on the other side of which lay the fir-plantation. As Churchill entered the path he saw a figure seated on the stile at the other end, and in an instant knew it to be Barbara Lexden. Her head was bent, and she was leaning forward, idly tracing figures on the turf with the point of her parasol. Churchill advanced with a strange fluttering of his usually regular-beating heart; but she did not appear to hear his footstep until he was close behind her, when she suddenly turned round, and their eyes met. It was a trying time for both, but Barbara was the first to speak.

"So soon back, Mr. Churchill? We--that is, Sir Marmaduke was led to believe that you would not return until the end of the week."

"Fortunately, Miss Lexden, my business in town was soon finished" ("Question of settlement with the lawyer, or naming the day with the lady," thought Barbara), "and I got back as quickly as I could. How lovely this place looks! Perhaps it seems doubly beautiful after twenty-four hours in London; but it appears to me even fresher, calmer, and more peaceful than when I left it."

"That, I suspect, is your poetic imagination, Mr. Churchill. You were raising Dryden the other night, and can now quote him to your own purposes. You know he says:

'Winds murmured through the leaves his short delay, And fountains o'er their pebbles chid his stay; But, with his presence cheered, they cease to mourn, And walks seem fresher green at his return.'"

"Aptly quoted, though the lines were addressed to a lady, and for 'his' read 'your.' I don't think that even the fountains in Trafalgar Square would be weak enough to 'chide my stay.' But, apropos of poetic imagination, I am afraid I disturbed you from some deep reverie."

"You never were more mistaken," said Barbara, with a short laugh. "I--I came out on a much more unromantic expedition. I lost a glove a day or two ago, and--and fancied I might have dropped it somewhere here."

"Is this it?" asked Churchill suddenly, taking from his pocket a morocco-leather case, and producing from it the much-prized pearl-gray.

"Yes," said Barbara, glancing quickly at him from under her drooping eyelids; "that is it. How very fortunate!"

"I picked it up," said Churchill, "as we returned from the shooting-party the other day, and intended restoring it sooner, but forgot it. I am glad to be able to do so now." He handed her the glove, looked her straight in the face, and walked on silently by her side.

"We have had a new arrival here since you left," said Barbara, after a pause, swinging the glove slowly to and fro; "a Mr. Beresford. You know him?"

"Beresford? Oh, of the Tin-Tax Office! I have met him."

"You are on intimate terms?"

"I--I have not that honour. Mr. Beresford moves in a different set to mine."

"That question of 'sets' seems to be one of paramount importance with you, Mr. Churchill. How frequently you harp upon it!"

"It is a question which we must necessarily bear in mind, Miss Lexden," said Churchill, with emphasis; then smiling, added,--"Suum cuique, which is Latin, and unintelligible; 'the cobbler and his last,' which is English and vernacular. But why did you ask?"

"Simply because he seems amusing, and likely to be popular here. I am sorry we shall not have the opportunity of profiting by his high spirits, as aunt and I will probably be leaving on Thursday."

One quick glance told her that this shot, if intended for mischief, had signally failed. With perfect calmness Churchill replied,

"And I also must manage to survive the loss of Mr. Beresford's conversation, as I go to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" exclaimed Barbara; then, in her ordinary tone, "Ah, to be sure, you have of course so much to do."

"Well," said Churchill, smiling, "for a month I hope to do little beyond mooning on the beach and throwing pebbles into the sea."

"Yes," said Barbara quickly; "that is, I believe, the usual thing under the circumstances. And the place? the Isle of Wight, or Devonshire, of course?"

"Under the circumstances!" he echoed. "I beg your pardon, Miss Lexden, but I fear we are at cross purposes. Under what circumstances?"

("He braves it out to the last," thought Barbara; "who would have thought that he could have stooped to a shuffle, or degrade the woman he was engaged to, by tacitly ignoring the fact?") Then she said, curling her lip, and tossing the glove with a lightly contemptuous gesture,

"Good news travels fast, Mr. Churchill. The fact of your forthcoming marriage is known at Bissett."

"My forthcoming marriage? It's a joke, Miss Lexden?"

"We have heard it as a fact."

"And you believed it?" said Churchill, turning white, while his lip trembled visibly as he spoke.

"Why should I not?" After a pause, and in a low voice, "Then you are not going to be married?"

"Married, no! Miss Lexden, you must now listen patiently to what I should otherwise have kept secret, knowing the folly I have been guilty of. If ever I marry, Barbara Lexden will be my wife!"

She started, and seemed about to speak.

"One moment more," said he. "You know how completely I understand the difference in our position?" (An impatient gesture from Barbara.) "My sensitiveness, pride--call it what you will--would have kept me silent. Now I have spoken, and--Barbara--you must not keep me in suspense. Could it ever be possible?"

Perfectly colourless, she leant against the stile, but said nothing.

"Miss Lexden, you must end this doubt."

Silently she placed the little glove in his hand.

"Barbara! my Barbara!" and she was folded to his heart.