Volume 2 — CHAPTER XVIII. DISAPPOINTMENT.

The first sight of No. 23 Bolton-square proved rather disenchantant to the two young ladies, who for the last five weeks had talked and thought of but little else than the coming glories of the season. As they approached the sights and scents of London, a dense fog, as it appeared to the novices, but which was, in fact, simply an easterly wind laden with dull yellow smoke, shrouded as with a veil every distant object on which they looked.

“This never can be London; and London, too, in the month of May,” thought Kate, as she looked out from the window of the railway-carriage on an atmosphere thick with discoloured smoke, through the mists of which the summits of sundry towers and steeples, together with the outlines of some nearer buildings, were dimly visible.

London in the month of May! And as Miss Katharine Vavasour realised the melancholy fact, it required all the counterbalancing comfort to be found in the recollection that Rhoda was at last “coming out,” to make amends to her for the lost country pleasures to which distance now lent a hitherto undiscovered charm. But if the time-worn, smoke-stained walls of the family mansion struck the imagination of Lady Millicent’s young daughters as gloomy and uninviting, what could be said of the interior, where the wear and tear of years was everywhere visible? In the spacious suite of drawing-rooms, the furniture of which had not been renewed for more years than Lady Millicent had ever cared to count, and where, “dingy yellow” vying with “dirty red,” everywhere displayed tokens that the letting of the town mansion of the Vavasours had been very promiscuously carried on, poor Rhoda (for Kate was too overjoyed at the change to take any lasting notice of the surroundings) stood in mute dismay. The last tenant had been an American—a wealthy New-Yorkian—who, following the “common and unclean” habits peculiar to his country, had not improved either the outward appearance or the intrinsic value, in a delicate female point of view, of the carpets. Probably Mr. John B. Foy, or whatever might have been the gentleman’s multifold cognomen, would have scorned the meanness of letting his house in the Fifth Avenue, or in University-square, to any Britisher or other foreigner desirous to witness the humours of “York City;” but, having paid a good many almighty dollars to an individual (a “female,” as the said New-Yorker might possibly have designated the superb Lady Millicent), he very naturally concluded that, viewing the matter commercially, he had a right to abuse as well as to use, in aristocratic Bolton-square, the privileges of his sex and country.

“Did you ever see anything so dirty, so shabby, so faded?” Rhoda remarked to her brother Horace, the first moment after their arrival when she found herself alone with him. “Mamma could have had no idea of how bad it was. Just look at the paint and the curtains! If they were but clean! But really, these are too horrid!”

“Wait till you make acquaintance with some of the other great houses that fine ladies give their balls and drums in!” Horace said. “It isn’t everyone who finds money for everything; and you will amuse yourself just as well in a room where the paint is dingy and the hangings old-fashioned, as you have any chance of doing in places that are kept in apple-pie order. In my opinion, and as far as I can judge, it’s rather chique to be shabby in this kind of way, as well as in some others that I could mention.”

“But, Horace,” said Kate, who had joined her brother and sister, as they stood, the one philosophising and the other listening disconsolately, in the midst of the much-reprobated family furniture,—“but, Horace, tell me about Arthur. We are to call this afternoon on dear Sophy. Mamma seems terribly afraid of being over-civil; and it seems a little bit unbrotherly of Atty not to have come last night to see us, so many months as it is since he and Sophy married. But I suppose it’s out of sight out of mind with them.” And Kate, laughter-loving Kate, heaved a little sigh as she quoted the well-worn proverb.

“Nonsense, it’s nothing of the kind; but women are so awfully fond of jumping at conclusions. Arthur would have been here fast enough, if he had hoped that any good could come of his putting himself in Lady Mill’s way; but it wouldn’t, and that is a truth, poor fellow, that he has not got at this time of day to learn.”

“But, Horace dear, do tell me what it is all about! I should have thought that marrying Sophy Duberly would have put everything to rights. The old man seemed so very fond of Atty, and Sophy, too. I should have imagined that all would have gone smoothly with poor Arthur when once he was one of them—once he was Sophy’s husband; and a baby coming besides, which Mr. Duberly was so anxious for. Really, Horace, I am puzzled, and that is the truth. You always talk as if something dreadful was hanging over Arthur’s head, and—”

“Do I? Then I am a fool for not being able to keep my own and other people’s counsel. But,” lowering his voice, although Rhoda, who knew herself to be less trusted by her brother than his younger sister Kate, had discreetly walked away,—“there is no use in talking about it. Have you seen—”

“But, Horace, there may be use in talking about it,” interposed his sister. “We might do something, if we were able to put our heads together, to get Arthur out of his trouble. Union is strength, they say; and though the bundle of sticks is a pretty tough one—”

“And will therefore take time to break,” put in Horace sadly, “which is precisely the reason why there is no use trying to do it; for time is everything to Atty. If you knew old Duberly as well as I do, Kate, you would say the same.”

“But what has Mr. Duberly to do with it?” asked Kate.

“Everything. If anything should happen, which isn’t the least likely, to old Dub, all would be smooth as velvet for Arthur; but as it is—”

“As it is! O, do go on, Horace; how provoking you are!”

“Well, as it is—But here comes milady. I say, Katie, not a word! But I needn’t repeat that to you, for, considering you are of the feebler sex, you are one of the most reliable young persons with whom I happen to be acquainted.”