Chapter XVIII · FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

Fortunately for his mother's peace of mind, Cyril arrived even before his cousin descended from her rooms, where her own maid, Zillah, and Lady Wedderburn's abigail had begun to unpack the huge overland and portmanteaus, which were filled with Indian marvels in the form of Delhi needlework and Champac jewellery of miraculous fabric; Dacca muslins, ivory fans and puzzle-balls; inlaid boxes of ivory and silver from Bombay, for essences and perfumes; and now, with memory of the sad and tender kiss of Mary Lennox lingering on his cheek—a kiss all the sadder and perhaps foreboding, as she had heard of the arrival of this terrible Indian heiress—he had to welcome and salute his cousin, to whom he tendered many "apologies for an absence that was so perfectly unavoidable;" and then came coffee, with a little repast for the fair traveller, who, though conscious that she was an object of undisguised interest, and as such, undergoing inspection, never betrayed the slightest confusion; for the mode of life in India, and the nearly total want of privacy peculiar to it, together with the number of persons, faces, places, and scenes she had met on the long route overland, rendered her perfectly self-possessed, without, however, the least over-confidence.

Gwendoleyne Wedderburn was more than a pretty girl. Though colourless—even pale—she was in fact remarkably beautiful, with a vast quantity of fine dark hair, and very dark hazel eyes, with long black lashes, which she inherited from her Welsh mother, "Gwendoleyne Ap-Rhys of Llanchillwydd," as Lady Wedderburn frequently reminded her. Her hands and feet were beautifully formed; she carried her head perhaps a little too haughtily; but she was conscious of her own appearance, and had been petted and treated with extreme deference in the sunny land she had come from. Her mouth was very perfectly curved, and when in repose and not smiling—which was seldom—the upper lip resembled a little Cupid's bow, while the under was like a tiny cherry.

She formed, Cyril thought (and he was no bad judge), a perfect picture, as she sat a little apart from all at a small tripod table, with a little hastily-prepared dinner before her, served on Dresden china. Her figure, slight and graceful, clad in a crape dress, the blackness of which contrasted so powerfully with the dazzling whiteness of her shoulders as they gleamed in the light of the gaselier which fell in a flood about her. Her dress was cut low about the neck and bust—Lady Wedderburn thought a little too low, especially when her black lace shawl fell off. A necklet of jet beads encircled her delicate and slender throat, and, save it and one magnificent ring of pearls and diamonds, other ornament she had none but her beautiful hair, which was dressed to perfection.

"Heavens! if that should be an engagement ring!" thought Lady Wedderburn, as she glanced nervously at the girl's hand.

Her face was expressive of innocence and sweetness, just suggestive a little of pride; and every moment she became more and more radiant as she became more familiar with those about her, and jested and chatted with her "three newly-found cousins," as she called them. Her manner and voice were sweet, and the girl was full of pretty ways; thus every action of her head or hands was graceful.

"Suppose all these three young fellows fall in love with her, my Lady Wedderburn will be in a nice dilemma then! And what is more likely to happen in a country house, where people have so little to do, and are so much thrown together?" thought Sir John Wedderburn, who was regarding her with a fond and fatherly smile, and seeking to trace out some memory of his brother, the Willie of other days—the days of rambling, riding, and bird-nesting in Renton Woods and Willowdean—but save a phrase or two which escaped her, he found none for a time.

Lady Wedderburn claimed nearly all the good points of Gwendoleyne, as inherited from the Wedderburns; but Sir John saw that the girl was more like what her beautiful Welsh mother had been when first she came to Willowdean on her happy bridal tour, ere she went to India, the land of splendid exile; and Cyril, while he hung over her chair, while he conversed with her and looked into the bright depths of her dark and liquid eyes, was thinking how different was the lot of this wealthy and beautiful cousin as contrasted with that of the lonely girl he had lately quitted, and who at that moment was probably hanging about her father's sick bed; and he felt that his genuine and growing admiration of Gwendoleyne's beauty was a species of treason to Mary Lennox.

Will he always think so? We shall see.

Though the death of her father was a recent event comparatively, Gwenny was neither sad nor sorrowful now, save when she spoke of him, and then would her voice become tremulous and her eyes suffuse with tears, for she was soft and, by nature, impressionable.

Since leaving Madras, she had been nearly six weeks on the route home, in a splendid Peninsular and Oriental liner, crowded with gay cabin passengers, officers of the Queen's and East Indian armies, Civil Service men, &c.—happy fellows, all coming home on leave or to retire altogether, as the case might be.

She had seen many marvels that were even glories to her Indian eyes, since she had watched with tears, from the lofty poop of the Rajah, the low, flat, sandy shore of Madras, so long her home, with the Castle of St. George and all the white minarets and gilded pagodas sinking into the blue sea, as the vessel steamed out of the roads. She had seen Aden, with its splintered rocks and arid shore of sand and ashes, where, according to Mohammedan fable, once the rose-garden of Irem bloomed; and she had seen the sun's rays shining like the Scriptural column of fire through the Gate of Tears, as she sailed past Perim into the Red Sea. Then she spoke of Suez, with its mosques and bazaars, and the exciting journey through the desert; and she clasped her pretty hands at the memory of some of the scenes she had witnessed there: its occasional horrors—camels, even men, lying dead, partly decayed or wholly skeletons, and half buried in the shifting sand, with the black vultures hovering over or perching on them, and for a background to the whole, the Pyramids rising in the distance, like purple cones against a sky of fire and amber. And then there was the awful thirst endured there—a thirst that rendered bitter beer, potass, and sherry, veritable nectar, however homely they may be deemed elsewhere.

Then came the Mediterranean, where she had encountered one of those sudden storms peculiar to that sea, when its waves changed from dark blue to pale green, and from thence to purple and silver, while the rain descended as if the windows of Heaven had been opened again. But old Gibraltar, its rock and town, its terraces and batteries, had filled her with delight, and so did everything else.

By that time, most of her compagnons du voyage were married ladies, old officers, or invalids—a statement which soothed some of Lady Wedderburn's fears—and so, chatting merrily, she told of all she had seen; and, in the energy of her manner, and full of her narrative, which, somehow, she addressed chiefly to Horace Ramornie—but then he too had recently come home by the P. and O. route—when she laid, quite involuntarily, her soft ungloved hand, with its white modelled fingers, on his arm, the young man felt a thrill run through him, though he was not "a cousin"—a circumstance on which their mutual Aunt Wedderburn placed so much weight.

Did this new friend, this lovely girl, possess some magnetic power, or what was it? for Horace felt himself grow giddy with delight whenever she touched him.

She heard Cyril's thrilling story of his late terrible adventure, which was so keenly fresh in his mind and in the minds of all the household, but while she listened, it seemed to Lady Wedderburn, who was nervously observant, that her eyes, "whose lids seemed to be fringed with feathers from a bird's wing rather than with ordinary lashes, so thick and soft lay their shadows on her cheek," from time to time sought, not those of Cyril, but of Horace Ramornie.

Gwenny was soon found to be generous to a fault, and, by the suitable presents she lavished on all sides, she made friends with all. Her poor papa's magnificent hookah, with its snaky coil of silk and gold, and its pure amber mouthpiece, she had brought carefully home, with many other mementos, for her uncle Wedderburn. To Lady Wedderburn she gave a beautiful diamond ring, and made poor little Miss Flora M'Caw radiantly happy by a set of gold Champac ornaments, necklace, rings, and bracelets, that the Begum Sumroo, or even the terrible Queen of Delhi, might have worn with credit.

Three days saw her perfectly domesticated and at home in her new abode; but many things there excited her surprise.

"How few servants you have, dear Auntie!" said she one day, "only the Kitmutgar Asloane—such a droll name he has!—a few bheesties, syces, and ayahs, a butler, coachman, two valets, and a few women. How on earth do you contrive to do with so few? We had nearly fifty at our house in the Choultry, besides six punka-wallahs."

"Fifty! where did you find beds for them all, Gwenny?"

"Oh, they slept on mats, everywhere or anywhere—on the stairs, in the corridors, on the roof, or in the verandahs, when the rainy season was over."

"Such arrangements would scarcely suit Willowdean," said her aunt, laughing.

The fireplaces, the carpeted floors, the total absence of a great dark punkah swaying noiselessly overhead, all filled her with a wonder that was almost childish. Horace and Cyril could both speak with her of India, having served there; the former two years, and the latter five. Poor Bob knew nothing about it, so, as he was rather ignored, he fumed a little in secret, and thought to himself, "when those fellows' leave of absence is up, I shall have it all my own way—patience till then."

All the ideas of the young heiress were odd for a time, being of course those of an Indo-Briton. The Indian summer had just ended when she left Madras, and the Scottish spring had just begun when she arrived at Willowdean, hence the verdure was not so great as she might have found it in Devonshire. The fruit and flowers in the conservatory seemed all strange, puerile, and meagre to her eyes. Luxury and splendour there appeared but little. There was no state kept, she thought, at Willowdean; no horde of half-nude native servants, obsequious to slavery; no camels, with gorgeous housings; no elephants, bearing gilded howdahs with silken curtains; no dhoolie or palanquin bearers, singing gaily as they trotted along. She woke at unearthly hours in the morning, to the astonishment and annoyance of the butler and house-maids, and wished to have a drive, as if she were still at the Choultry of Madras; and then, the perpetual clouds, and more than all the occasional mist from the German Sea—white, dense, and palpable—filled her with wonder, accustomed as she had been to the pure and deep blue sky of Hindostan.

She smiled, and even laughed with provoking playfulness, when Lady Wedderburn, who was fond of "talking peerage," expatiated on the historical and somewhat shady traditionary glories of the Welsh race of Ap-Rhys of Llanchillwydd; on the famous Dafydd-ap-Gwilym-ap-Rhys, who inherited all the virtues of Howel Dha, whose daughter had been his great-great-grandmother, and gave him the blood of the Pendragons. All this sounded odd to Gwenny—very odd—for her papa had been a man of the world, a thorough man of business, who stuck to his ledgers and counting-house, always looking forward, setting little store upon the past, and nothing at all upon a dead ancestry.

Gervase Asloane, the old housekeeper, and other domestics, she somewhat shocked by using the piano on Sunday, and by yawning, more than a young lady should, in church—the parochial barn—oh, good heavens! how unlike it was to the lofty, airy, and white chunam-coated cathedral of the Bishop of Madras! Then there was no organ, and, to her ears, the psalm-singing sounded but as a torrent of dissonant strains.

Her conversation for a time naturally enough ran on memories of the brilliant land she had left—the Choultry of Madras, with all its stately palaces, the black and the white towns, and the catamarans tossing amid the white and foaming surge, which there boils for ever on the shore; of chowries and mosquito curtains; of punka-wallahs and tattywetters; of bheesties and peons, and other persons and things incomprehensible to Lady Wedderburn, who, however, was greatly delighted that Cyril could talk with her on such mysterious matters, and understood what she meant. But then, unluckily, Horace Ramornie knew all about them too, and had been in garrison at Vellore; still Bob sulked, and when Sir John laughed, voted it all "a dreadful bore."

She was astonished to find that people slept in their beds, and not merely on them: that blankets and broadcloth were used even in summer; that the butter was neither poured out like cream nor thickened with dead flies. The state of the thermometer was a source of perpetual wonder to her, and she said to Horace—

"Is it as cool always at Willowdean as on the Blue Mountains of Madras in the wet season?"

But greater surprises were in store for her, when winter came with its frost and snow, its skaters and curlers on loch and river.

With all her kindness and goodness of heart, Lady Wedderburn, in pursuit of her secret wish, was singularly injudicious.

Gwenny had come among her relations, an orphan. Horace Ramornie, though now a soldier, a young lieutenant of the Line, could remember the time when he, too, came to Willowdean in the days of his early orphanage, and the lonely hours when he lay in his little bed at night, seeing, in fancy, his parents' faces amid the darkness, and longing, with all a childish longing and yearning, "for a touch of the vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that was still;" and these recollections made him very tender in his manner to Gwenny, though Horace had ever a gentle and a winning way with all women, old as well as young.

"Cousin Horace," said she, on one occasion, "and you have been an orphan like myself; how strange!"

"Horace is not your cousin, but Cyril is," said Lady Wedderburn, in a pointed manner, as she passed through the drawing-room into the conservatory.

Her words conveyed a volume, for Gwenny blushed scarlet, and the young man grew pale.

"I am not your cousin, Miss Wedderburn—would that I were," said he, with a low sigh.

"Why, what difference would it make?"

"For then I might—might claim something more than mere friendship."

"Not my cousin?" queried Gwenny, her dark eyes dilating as she spoke. "Oh, I know that you are not, though Lady Wedderburn is aunt to us both; but why call me Miss—say Gwenny, as Cyril and Robert do."

"Gwenny then," said Horace, tremulously and softly, for the girl's wonderful beauty bewildered, while her frank and candid manner charmed and entranced him; but he felt a secret consciousness that, before Lady Wedderburn, to call Gwenny by her abbreviated name would be rather injudicious.

While shrinking from the idea of rivalling his cousin Cyril, and earning thereby the anger of such benefactors as his uncle and aunt, Horace Ramornie was in love with all the deep strength of a young man's first and genuine passion. The girl, as we have said, was undoubtedly beautiful, and if love will glorify all it looks on, to his eyes the face and presence of Gwendoleyne became as something divine, and Horace was intoxicated by her!

Night after night he lay awake for hours, feeding his soul with the idea of Gwendoleyne; longing for and yet nervously dreading his recall to the regiment, amid this strange and fresh emotion that had grown in his heart, and which was alike his torment and delight.

He would sigh deeply and bitterly, clasping his hands in the dark, as he thought of his cousin Cyril's greater chances of success, his superior position, his attainments, and many genuine good qualities; and also of his aunt's too perceptible opposition; and then he would wring them like a love-sick girl, for Horace was by nature shy, impressionable, and enthusiastic.

Another was wringing her hands at times in Lonewoodlee, and weeping the silent tears of sad and bitter misgiving!