MRS. RUSSELL PENTON did not let the grass grow under her feet. In two or three days after the above events, before Mr. Penton had made up his mind to give any answer, good or bad, another emissary appeared at the Hook. He was a messenger less imposing but more practical than the stately lady who had perhaps calculated a little—more than was justified by the effect produced—upon her own old influence over her cousin. No influence, save that of mutual interest and business-like arrangement, was in the thoughts of the present negotiator. He drove up to the door in a delightful dog-cart, with a fine horse and the neatest groom, a perfectly well-appointed equipage altogether, such as it is a pleasure to see. He was as well got-up himself as the rest of the turn-out—a young man with a heavy mustache and an air—Anne, who at the sound of this arrival could not be restrained from moving to the window and looking out behind the curtains, pronounced him to be “A Guardsman, I should think.” “A Guardsman! how should you know what a Guardsman is like? and what could he want here?” Walter had said, contemptuously. But he too had peeped a little, ashamed of himself for doing so. “A bagman, you mean, coming for orders,” he cried; to which his sister retorted with equal justice: “How do you know what a bagman is like? and what orders could he get here?” The two young people were considerably discomfited when the stranger, in all his smartness and freshness, with a flower in his button-hole (in the middle of winter), was suddenly shown in upon them by Martha with the murmur of a name which neither caught, and which, as Anne divined, their handmaiden had mumbled on purpose, not comprehending what it was.
The stranger made his bow and explained that he had come to see Mr. Penton on business; and then he displayed an amiable willingness to enter into conversation with the younger branches of the family. “Your roads are not all that could be desired,” he said, finding upon his coat-sleeve an infinitesimal spot of mud. “I am afraid it must be pretty damp here.’
“No, it is not damp,” said Walter, promptly.
“Oh!” said the other; and then after a moment he hazarded the observation that the house, though pretty, lay rather low.
“It is not lower than we like it to be,” Walter replied. He did not show his natural breeding. He felt somehow antagonistic to this visitor without any reason, divining what his errand was.
“Oh!” said the stranger again; and then he addressed himself to Anne, and said that the weather was very mild for the season, an assertion which the most contradictory could not have denied. Anne had been looking at him with great curiosity all the time. She did not know how to classify this spruce personage. She was not at all acquainted with the genus young man, and it was not without interest to her. He was neither a Guardsman nor a bagman, whatever that latter order might be. Who was he? She felt very desirous to inquire. Her reply was, “I am afraid father must be out. Did he expect you to come?” thinking perhaps in this way the stranger might be led into telling who he was.
“I don’t know that he expected me. I came on business. There are certain proposals, I believe; but I need not trouble you with such matters. I hope I may be permitted to wait for Mr. Penton, if he is likely to return soon.”
“The best way,” said Walter, with an air of knowledge which deeply impressed his sister, “is to write beforehand and make an appointment.”
“That is most true,” said the other, with suppressed amusement, “but I was told I was almost sure to find Mr. Penton at home.”
At this moment the door flew open hastily and Ally appeared, not seeing the stranger as she held the door. “Oh, Wat,” she cried, “father has gone out and some one has come to see him. Mamma thinks it is some dreadful person about Penton. She wants you to run out and meet him, and tell him—What are you making signs to me for?”
As she said this she came fully into the room and looked round her, and with a sudden flush of color, which flamed over cheek and brow and chin, perceived the visitor, who made a step forward with a smile and a bow.
“I am the dreadful person,” he said. “I don’t know what I can say to excuse myself. I had no bad intention, at least.”
Ally was so much discomposed that after her blush she grew pale and faint. She sunk into a chair with a murmur of apology. She felt that she would like to sink through the floor; and for once in her gentle life would have willingly taken vengeance upon the brother and sister who had let her commit so great a breach of manners, and of whom one, Anne, showed the greatest possible inclination to laugh. Walter, however, was not of this mind. He took everything with a seriousness that was almost solemnity.
“My sister, of course, did not know you were there,” he said. And then, with that desire to escape from an unpleasant situation which is common to his kind, “Since you are in a hurry and your business is serious, I’ll go and see if I can find Mr. Penton,” he said.
And he had the heart to go, leaving the stranger with Ally and Anne! the one overwhelmed with confusion, the other so much tempted to laugh. It was like a boy, they both reflected indignantly to leave them so. Between Ally, who would have liked to cry, and Anne who restrained with difficulty the titter of her age, the young man, however, felt himself quite at an advantage. He asked with quiet modesty whether he might send his horse round to the stables. “I can send him up to the village, but if you think I might take the liberty of putting him up here—” They were so glad to be free of him, even for a moment, that they begged him to do so, in one breath.
“But for goodness’ sake, Ally, don’t look so miserable, there is no harm done,” said Anne, in the moment of his absence; “it will show him how we feel about it.”
“What does it matter how we feel? but to be rude is dreadful; let me go and tell mother—”
“What, and leave me alone with him? You are as bad as Wat. You sha’n’t stir till father comes. Fancy a strange young man, and an enemy—”
“He need not be an enemy, he is only a lawyer,” Ally said, always ready to see things in the most charitable light.
“And what is a lawyer but an enemy? Did you ever hear of a lawyer coming into the midst of a family like this but it was for harm? It was very funny, though, when you bolted in. Wat and I were making conversation; when you suddenly came like a thunder-bolt with your ‘dreadful person.’”
In the absence of the injured, Ally herself did not refuse to laugh in a small way. “He does not look dreadful at all,” she said; “he looks rather—nice, as if he would have some feeling for us.”
“I don’t think his feeling for us could be of much consequence. We are not fallen so low as that, that we should need to care for an attorney’s feeling,” said Anne. But then her attention was distracted by the fine horse with its shining coat, the dog-cart all gleaming with care and varnish, notwithstanding the traces of the muddy roads. “He must be well off,” she said, “at least,” with a little sigh.
“He is in the law,” said Ally; “that doesn’t mean the same thing as an attorney. An attorney is the lower kind; and I’m sure it may matter a great deal that he should have feeling. Think of poor Wat’s interest. It is Wat that is to be considered; even mother, who is so strong on the other side, and thinks it would be so much better for the rest of us, is sorry for Wat.”
“Hush! he is coming back,” Anne said. There was something strangely familiar in the return of the visitor through the open door without any formalities, as if he were some one staying in the house.
“It is very fortunate that the weather is so fine,” he said, coming back. “The situation is delightful for the summer, but you must find it unpleasant when the floods are out.”
“It is never unpleasant,” said Anne; “for it is our home. We like it better than any other situation. Penton is much grander, but we like this best.”
“We need not make any comparison,” said Ally. “Cousin Alicia prefers Penton because she was born there, and in the same way we—”
“I understand,” the stranger said. But the girls were not clever enough to divine what it was he understood, whether he took this profession of faith in the Hook as simply genuine, or perceived the irritation and anxiety which worked even in their less anxious souls. He began to talk about the great entertainment that had taken place lately at Bannister. “It was got up regardless of expense,” he said, “and it was very effective as a show. All that plaster and pretense looks better in the glow of Bengal lights—of course, you were—What am I thinking of? It is not your time yet for gayeties of that kind.”
“We were not there,” said Anne, in a very decisive tone. Disapproval, annoyance, a little wistfulness, a little envy were in her voice. “We don’t go anywhere,” she said.
“Not yet, I understand,” said the stranger again. There was a soothing tone about him generally. He seemed to make nothing of the privations and disabilities of which they were so keenly conscious. “I have a sister who is not out,” he went on. “I tell her she has the best of it; for nothing is ever so delightful as the parties you don’t go to, when you are very young.”
They paused over this, a little dazzled by the appearance of depth in the saying. It sounded to them very original, and this is a thing that has so great a charm for girls. He went on pleasantly, “There are to be some entertainments, I hear, at Penton when everything is settled. I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you there.”
“At Penton! we are never at Penton,” they cried in the same breath; but then Ally gave Anne a look, and Anne, being far the most prompt of the two, made an immediate diversion. “There is father coming through the garden,” she said. It was a principle in the family to maintain a strict reserve in respect to Penton, never permitting any one to remark upon the want of intercourse between the families. It is needless to say that this was a very unnecessary reserve, as everybody knew what were the relations between Sir Walter and his heir. But this is a delusion common to many persons more experienced in the ways of the world than the poor Pentons of the Hook.
Mr. Penton came in making a great noise with his big boots upon the tiles of the hall. He opened the door of the drawing-room and looked in with a nod of recognition which was not very cordial. “Good-morning, Mr. Rochford,” he said; “I am sorry I have kept you waiting. Perhaps you will come with me to my room, where we shall be undisturbed.”
The young man hesitated a little. He made the girls a bow more elaborate than is usual with young Englishmen.
“If I am not so fortunate as to see you again before I go—” he said, with his eyes on Ally—and how could Ally help it? She was not in the habit of meeting people who looked at her so. She blushed, and made an inclination of her head, which took Anne, who gave him an abrupt little nod, quite by surprise. “Why,” the girl cried, almost before the door closed, “Ally, you gave him a sort of dismissal as if you had been a queen.”
“What nonsense!” Ally said, but she blushed once more all over, from the edge of her collar to her hair. “I wonder,” she said, “whether Cousin Alicia can leave us out, if she is going to give entertainments as he says.”
“When everything is settled—what does that mean, when everything is settled?” cried Anne.
“It means, I suppose,” said Walter, gloomily, “when Penton has been given over, when we have fallen down among the lowest gentry, just kept up a little (and that’s not much) by the baronetcy which they can not take away. Father can’t sell that, I believe. Mrs. Russell Penton may be a very great lady, but she can’t succeed to the baronetcy. Leave us out! Do you mean to say that—over my body, as it were, you would go!”
“Oh, Walter, don’t take it like that! If father settles upon doing this, it will be because both together they have decided that it is the best.”
“And no one asks what I think,” cried the lad, “though after all it is I—” He stopped himself with an effort, and without another word swung out again, leaving the door vibrating behind him. And the girls looked at each other with faces suddenly clouded. Fifty looks to twenty so remote an age, so little to be calculated upon. After all, it was Walter, not Mr. Penton, who was the heir. And no one asked what he thought!
The door of the book-room closed upon the negotiations which were of such importance to the family. There came a hush upon the house—even the winterly birds in the trees without, who chirped with sober cheerfulness on ordinary occasions, were silent to-day, as if knowing that something very important was going on. Those who passed the door of the book-room—and everybody passed it, the way of each individual, whatever he or she was doing, leading them curiously enough in that direction—heard murmurs of conversation, now in a higher, now in a lower key, and sometimes a little stir of the chairs, which made their hearts jump, as if the sitting were about to terminate. But these signs were fallacious for a long time, and it was only when dinner was ready, the early dinner, with all its odors, which it was impossible to disguise, that the door opened at last. The three young people were all about the hall-door, Walter hanging moodily outside, the two girls doing all they could to distract his thoughts, when this occurred. They all started as if a shell had fallen amongst them. By the first glimpse of Mr. Penton’s face they were all sure they could tell what had been decided upon. But they were not to have this satisfaction.
“Tell your mother,” he said, keeping in the shade, where no one could read his countenance, “to send in a tray with some luncheon for Mr. Rochford and me.” And then the door closed, and the discussion within and the mystery and anxiety without continued as before.