THAT summer was as bright as the winter had been cold. The hot weather came on in May, and the country about Markham brightened into a perfect paradise of foliage and blossom. Sir Gus came to life; he began to show himself in the country, to move about, to accept the invitations which were given to him. And it cannot be denied that his thoughts and plans were much modified after he had made acquaintance with the county and began to feel that people were inclined to pay him a great deal of attention. He had wanted nothing better at first than to be received as a member of Lady Markham’s family, to adopt, as it were, his brothers and sisters, and to make them as little conscious as possible of the change he had brought into their life. He had promised that he would never marry, nor do anything to spoil Paul’s prospects further. But before the summer was over his views in this respect had sensibly modified. He began to think that perhaps the length and dreariness of the winter had been partly owing to the fact that Lady Markham and her children were less satisfactory than a wife and children of his own. Why should he (after all) sacrifice himself to serve Paul? He was not old, whatever those arrogant young people might think; and probably it was in this way that happiness might come to him. Paul would no doubt get on very well in society; he would marry well, and his younger son’s portion was not contemptible; there really seemed no reason why his elder brother should sacrifice himself on Paul’s account. And gradually there dawned upon him an idea that before winter came on again he might have some one belonging to him who should be his very own.
Gus dined out very solemnly by himself, making acquaintance with his neighbours during the Easter recess, and when the great people of the neighbourhood came back to the country after the season; and did not scorn the tables of the less great who remained in the country all the year round. He was not exclusive. The less great houses were still great enough for Gus. He liked to go to the Rectory, where Mr. Stainforth, who was a politic old man, often invited him; and indeed, Sir Augustus, who everybody said was so exceedingly simple and unpretentious, became quite popular in the district where at first everybody had been against him as an intruder. Though it was no less hard upon Paul than before, the new heir was pardoned in the county because of his adoption of the family and his kindness and genuine humility. There could not be any harm in him, people said, when he was so good to the children, when he sought so persistently the friendship of his stepmother, and endeavoured to make everything pleasant for her.
Then it became very evident that Sir Gus, though not so young as he once was, was still marriageable and likely to marry, which naturally still further increased his popularity; and as, instead of attempting any stratagems of self-defence, he was but too eager to put himself into the society of young ladies, and showed unequivocal signs of regarding them with the eye of a purchaser, it was natural that the elder ladies should accept this challenge, and on their parts do what they could to make him acquainted with the stores the county possessed. Women do not give themselves to this business of settling marriages in England with the candour and honesty that prevail in other countries. The work is stealthy and unacknowledged, but it is too natural and too just not to be done with more or less vigour; and the county was not less active than other counties. “Poor Paul!” some people said, who had at first received the new baronet as a merely temporary holder of the title and estates—one who, according to a legend dear to the popular mind, had bound himself not to do anything towards the achievement of an heir; but by and by they said, “Poor Sir Gus!” and could see no reason in the world why he should sacrifice himself. This was a little after the time when he had himself come to the same conclusion.
When all the families began to return at the end of July, he was asked everywhere. Mourning is not for a man a very rigid bond, and it was now nearly a year since Sir William died, so that there was nothing to restrain him; indeed there were some who said that Lady Markham was too punctilious in keeping Alice at home, never letting her be seen anywhere—a girl who really ought to marry, now that the family were in so changed a position. Sir Gus went a great deal to Westland Towers, where there had never been so many parties before—garden parties, archery meetings, competitions at lawn-tennis, to which the entire county was convoked; and at all these parties there was no more favoured guest than Gus. This was a great change, and pleased him much. At “home” he was not much more than put up with. They had come to like him, and they had always been very kind to him; but he had been an intruder, and he had banished the son of the house, and it was not to be supposed that mortal forbearance should go so far as to admire and honour him as the chief person in the household, even though he was its nominal head. When he went elsewhere Gus was made more of than at Markham, and at the Towers he felt the full force of his own position. His sayings were listened for, his jokes were laughed at, and he himself was followed by judicious flattery. All his little eccentricities were allowed and approved, his light clothes extolled as the most convenient garments in the world, and his distaste for sport and the winter amusements of country life sanctioned and approved.
“How men of refined habits can do it has always been a mystery to me,” said Lady Westland.
“You forget, mamma, that a taste for bloodshed is one of the most refined tastes in the world,” said Ada, who was herself fond of hunting when she had a chance, and never was better pleased than when she could lunch with a shooting party at the cover-side. Ada made a grimace behind Gus’s back, and said “Little monster!” to the other young ladies.
“Ah, poor Paul! We used to see so much of him,” she said, “when he was the man, poor fellow, and no one had ever heard of this little Creole. But parents are nothing if not prudent,” Miss Westland added; “and now the tropics are in the ascendant, and poor Paul is nowhere. What can one do?” she said with a shrug of her shoulders up to her ears.
Dolly Stainforth, who was of the party, but not old enough or important enough to say anything, grew pale with righteous indignation. She was very well aware that Paul had never “seen much” of the family at Westland Towers: but that they should now pretend to hold him at arm’s length stung her to the heart. This took place at a garden party, and the explanation about Paul had been made in the midst of a great many people of the neighbourhood, who had all been very sorry for Paul in their day, yet were all beginning now to turn towards the new-risen sun. Dolly had turned her back upon them, and gone off by herself in bitterly-suppressed indignation, sore and wounded, though not for her own sake, when she encountered Sir Gus, who had spied her in a turning of the shrubbery. George Westland had spied her too, but had been stopped by his mother on his way to her, and might be seen in the distance standing gloomily on the outskirts of a group of notables, with whom he was supposed to be ingratiating himself, gazing towards the bosquet in which the object of his affections had disappeared.
“What is the matter, Miss Dolly?” Sir Gus had said.
“Oh, nothing. I was not crying,” Dolly said, with a sob. “I am too indignant to cry. It is the horridness of people,” she cried with an outburst of wrath and grief. Sir Gus was distressed. He did not like to see any one cry, much less this dainty little creature, who was almost his first acquaintance in the place.
“Don’t,” he said, touching her shoulder lightly with his brown hand. “Whatever it is it cannot be worth crying about. None of them can do any harm to you.”
“Harm to me! I wish they could,” said Dolly; “that would not matter much. But don’t believe them, don’t you believe them: a little while ago they were all for Paul—nobody was so nice as Paul—and now it is all you, and Paul, they say, is nowhere. Do you think it is like a lady to say that poor Paul is ‘nowhere,’ only because he has lost his property, and you have got it?” cried Dolly, turning with fury, which it was difficult to restrain, upon the poor little baronet. He changed colour: of course he knew that it was his position, and not any special gifts of his own, which recommended him; yet he did not like the thought.
“That is not my fault, Miss Dolly,” he said. “You should not be unjust; though it is your favourite who has been the loser, you ought not to be unjust, for I have nothing more than what is my right.”
“Oh, Sir Augustus,” said Dolly, alarmed by her own vehemence, “it was not you I meant. You have always been kind. It was those horrid people who think of nothing but who has the money. And then, you know,” she said, turning her tearful eyes upon him, “I have known them all my life—and I can’t bear to hear them speak so of Paul.”
“And you can’t bear me, I suppose, for putting this Paul of yours out of his place?” Gus said.
“No, indeed I don’t blame you. A woman might have given it up, but it is not your fault if you are different from a woman—all men are,” said Dolly, shaking her head. “When one knows as much about a village as I do, one soon finds out that.”
“I suppose you think the women are better than the men,” said Sir Gus, shaking his head too.
“I am for my own side,” said Dolly promptly, her tears drying up in the impulse of war; “but I did not mean that,” she added, “only different. Men and women are not good—or nasty—in the same way. I don’t suppose—you—could have done anything but what you did.”
“I don’t think I could,” said Sir Gus, briefly.
“But the people here,” said Dolly, “oh, the people here!” She stamped her foot upon the ground in her impatience and indignation; but when he would have pursued the subject, Dolly became prudent, and stopped short. She would say nothing more, except another appeal to heaven and earth against “the horridness of people.” This, however, gave Sir Gus a great deal to think of. Dolly did not in the least know what he had in his mind. She was not aware that the little man was going about among all the pretty groups of the garden party in the conscious exercise of choice, noting all the ladies, selecting the one that pleased him. Two or three had pleased him more or less—but one most of all: which was what Dolly Stainforth never suspected. Sir Gus walked about with the air of a man occupied with important business. He had no time to pay any attention to the progress of the games that were going on; his own affairs engrossed him altogether. Sometimes he selected one lady from a number on pretence of showing her something, or of watching a game, or hearing the band play a particular air, and carried her off with him to the suggested object, talking much and earnestly. He did not pay much court to the mothers and chaperons, but went boldly to the fountain-head. And some of the pretty young women to whom he talked so gravely did not quite know what to make of the little baronet. They laughed among themselves, and asked each other, “Did he ask you whether you liked town better or country? and if you would not like to take a voyage to the tropics?” Dolly on being asked this question quite early in their acquaintance, had answered frankly, “Not at all,” and had further explained that life out of the parish was incomprehensible to her. “I could not leave my poor people for months and months, with nobody but papa to look after them,” Dolly had said.
It was only after he had enjoyed about half a dozen interviews of this kind, amusing the greater part of his temporary companions, but fluttering the bosoms of one or two who were quick-witted enough to see the handkerchief trembling in the little sultan’s hand, that Sir Gus allowed himself to be carried off in his turn by Ada Westland, who came up to him in her bold way, neglecting all decorum.
“Come with me, Sir Augustus,” she said, “I have got a view to show you,” and she led him to where among the trees, there was a glimpse of the beautiful rich country, undulating, all wooded and rich with cornfields, to where Markham Chase, with all its oaks and beeches, shut in the horizon line. There was a glimpse of the house to be had in the distance, peeping from the foliage: and in the centre of the scene, the red roofs of the village and the slope of the Rectory garden in the sunshine. “I used to be brought here often to have my duty taught me,” said Ada. “Mamma made quite a point of it every day when we first came here.”
“I am glad your duty makes you look at my house, Miss Westland,” said Sir Gus, making her a bow.
“Oh, I don’t mean now,” said the outspoken young woman. “That is quite a different matter. I was quite young then, you know, and so was Paul, and my mother trained me up in the way that a girl should go. We are new people, you know; we have not much distinction in the way of family. What mamma intended to do with me was to make me marry Paul.”
Once more Sir Augustus bowed his head quite gravely. He did not laugh at the bold announcement, as she meant he should. “Was your heart in it?” he said.
“My heart? Do you think I have got one? I don’t know—I don’t think it was, Sir Augustus. ‘Look at all that sweep of country,’ mamma used to say; ‘that may all be yours if you play your cards well—and a family going back to the Conqueror.’ There have only been two generations of us,” said Ada; “you may think how grand it would have felt to know that there was a Crusader’s monument in the family. In some moods of my mind, especially when I have been very much sat upon by the blue-blooded people, I don’t think I should have minded marrying the Crusader himself.”
“I can understand the feeling,” said Gus. He was perfectly grave, his muscles did not relax a hairsbreadth. He stood and looked upon the woods that were his own, and the house which he called home. It looked a little chilly to him, even in the midst of the sunshine. The sky was pale with heat, and all the colours of the country subdued in the brilliant afternoon light, the trees hanging together like terrestrial clouds, the stubblefields grey where the corn had been already cut, and the roads white with dust. But it did not occur to him as he stood and gazed at Markham that it would make him happy to live there with his present companion by his side. “Beauty is deceitful, and favour is vain.” She was one of the prettiest persons present. She was full of wit and cleverness, and had far more wit and knowledge than half of her party put together. But the heart of the little baronet was not gained by those qualities. He stood quite unmoved by Ada’s side. She might have married the Crusader for anything Sir Augustus cared. Ada waited a little to see if no better reply would come, and then she made another coup.
“Pity us for an unfortunate family, foiled on every side,” she said. “Paul you know, has ceased to be a parti altogether. Anybody may marry him who pleases—and to a district in which men do not abound this is a great grievance—but I don’t blame you for that, Sir Augustus, though some do. And look there,” she said, suddenly turning round, “look at the door of the conservatory. There are mamma’s hopes tumbling down in another direction. I don’t feel the disappointment so much in my own case, but about George, I do really pity mamma. She can’t marry me to the next property, as she intended; and just look at George, making a fool of himself with the parson’s daughter. Now, Sir Augustus, don’t you feel sorry for mamma?”
“Miss Stainforth is a very charming young lady,” said Sir Gus, still as grave as ever, “but I thought that she——” here he stopped in some confusion, having nearly committed himself, he felt.
“I know what you were going to say,” said Ada, with a laugh. “You think she had a fancy for Paul too. She might just as well have had a fancy for the moon. The Markhams would never have permitted that; and as for Paul himself, he thought no more of Dolly——! Fancy, Dolly! but my brother does. It is a pity, a great pity, don’t you think, that brothers and sisters can’t change places sometimes? George would have made a much better young lady than I do. I am much too outspoken and candid for a girl, but I should never have fallen in love with Dolly Stainforth. If mamma could change us now, it would be some consolation to her still.”
“Miss Stainforth is a very charming young lady,” Sir Gus said again.
“A—ah!” said Ada, with a malicious laugh, “you admire Dolly too, Sir Augustus? I beg a thousand pardons. I ought to have been more cautious. But I never thought that a man who had seen the world, a man of judgment, a person with experience and discrimination——”
“You think too favourably of me,” said Sir Gus. “It is true I have come over a great part of the world; but I don’t know that of itself that gives one much experience. You think too favourably of me.”
“That is a fault,” said Ada, “which most men pardon very easily,” and she looked at him in a way that was flattering, Gus felt, but a little alarming too.
This conversation too had its effect upon him. He felt that there was no time to lose in making up his mind. If he was to secure for himself a companion before the winter came on, it would be well not to lose any time. And Miss Westland was very flattering and agreeable; she seemed to have a very high opinion of him. Gus did not feel that she was the woman he would like to marry; but if by any chance it might happen that she was a woman who would like to marry him, he did not feel that she would be very easy to resist. That such a woman might possibly wish to marry him was of itself very flattering; still on the whole, Gus felt that he would prefer to choose rather than to be chosen. And with a shrewd sense of the difficulties of his position, he decided that to have another young lady betrothed to him would be by far his best safeguard against Ada. A woman who belonged to him would stand up for him; and the mere fact that he belonged to her would be an effectual defence. As it happened, fortune favoured him. Mrs. Booth, who had come with Dolly in her little carriage to the Towers, wanted to get back early, as the evening was so fine, and Dolly declared that there was nothing she would like so much as to walk. There would certainly be somebody going her way to bear her company. Then Sir Gus stepped forward and said he would certainly be going her way, and would walk with her to the Rectory gate. Dolly smiled upon him so gratefully when he said this that his heart stirred in Gus’s bosom. She kept near him all the rest of the time, coming up to him now and then to see if he was ready, if he wished to go, with much filial attention; but Gus did not think of it in that light. Nor did he think that it was by way of getting rid of George Westland that she devoted herself to him. This is not an idea which naturally suggests itself to a man who has never had any reason to think badly of himself. Gus had always, on the contrary, entertained a very good opinion of himself; he had known that, on the whole, he deserved that mankind in general should entertain a good opinion of him, and there was nothing at all out of the way, or even unexpected in the fact that Dolly should be pleased by his care of her, and attracted towards himself. It was a thing which was very natural and delightful, and pleased him greatly. When the company began to disperse, he was quite ready to obey Dolly’s indication of a wish to go, and to take leave of Lady Westland when her son was out of the way, according to the girl’s desire. They set out upon the dusty road together in the grateful cool of the summer evening, carriage after carriage rolling past them, with many nods and wreathed smiles from the occupants, and no doubt many remarks also upon Dolly’s cavalier. But the pair themselves took it very tranquilly. They went slowly along, lingering on the grassy margin of the road to escape the dust, and enjoying the coolness and the quiet.
“How sweet it is,” Dolly said, “after the heat of the day.”
“You call that hot, Miss Dolly?” said Gus. “We should not call it hot where I come from.”
“Well, I am glad I have nothing to do with the tropics,” Dolly said. “I like the cool evening better than the day. One can move now—one can walk; but I suppose you never can do anything there in the heat of the day?”
“I am sorry you don’t like the tropics,” he said. “I think you would, though, if you had ever been there. It is more natural than England. Yes, you laugh, but I know what I mean. I should like to show you the bright-coloured flowers, and the birds, and all the things so full of colour—there’s no colour here. I tell Bell and Marie so, and they tell me it is I that can’t see. And then the winter——” Gus shuddered as he spoke.
“But you ought to have gone out more,” said Dolly, “and taken exercise; that makes the blood run in your veins. Oh, I like the winter! We have not had any skating here for years. It has been so mild. I like a good sharp frost, and no wind, and a real frosty sun, and the ice bearing. You don’t know how delightful it is.”
“No, indeed,” said Gus, with a shudder. “But, perhaps,” he added, “if one had a bright little companion like you, one might be tempted to move about more. Bell and Marie are delightful children, but they are a little too young, you know.”
“But Alice——” said Dolly, with a little anxiety.
“Alice never has quite forgiven me, I fear; and then she has her mother to think of; and they always tell me she cannot do this or that for her mourning. It is very right to wear mourning, I don’t doubt,” said Gus, “but never to be able to go out, or meet your fellow-creatures——”
“That would be impossible!” said Dolly, with decision. “It is not a year yet. You did not know poor Sir William. But next winter it will be different, and we must all try to do our best”—for Lady Markham, she was going to say—but he interrupted her.
“That will be very kind, Miss Dolly. I think you could do a great deal without trying very much. I always feel more cheerful in your company. Do you remember the first time we ever were in each other’s company, on the railway?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Dolly. She was very incautious. “I thought you were such a——” She did not say queer little man, but felt as if she had said it, so near was it to her lips; and blushed, which pleased Gus greatly, and made him imagine a much more flattering conclusion. “You asked me a great deal about poor Paul,” she said, “and then we met them coming home; and Sir William, oh! how ill he looked—as if he would die!”
“You remember that day?” said Gus, much delighted, “and so do I. You told me a great deal about my family. It was strange to talk of my family as if I had been a stranger, and to hear so much about them.”
“I thought you were a stranger, Sir Augustus.”
“Yes, and you wished I had been one when you found out who I really was. Oh, I don’t blame you, Miss Dolly—it was very natural; but I hope now, my dear,” he said, with a tone that was quite fatherly, though he did not intend it to be so, “that you are not so sorry, but rather glad on the whole to know Gus Markham, who is not so bad as you thought.”
Dolly was surprised to be called “my dear;” but at his age was it not quite natural?
“Oh,” she said, faltering, “I never thought you were bad, Sir Augustus; you have always been very kind, I know.”
But she could not say she was glad of his existence, which had done so much harm to—other people; even though in her heart she had a liking for Sir Gus, the queerest little man that ever was!
“I have tried to be,” he said; “and I think they all feel I have done my best to show myself a real friend; but there comes a time when one wants something more than a friend, and, Dolly, I think that time has come now.”
Well! it was a little odd, but she did not at all mind being called Dolly by Sir Gus. She looked at him with a little surprise, doubtful what he could mean. They were by this time quite near the village and the Rectory gate.
“I think,” he said, “that if I don’t get married, my dear, I shall never be able to stand another winter at Markham. It nearly killed me last year.”
“Married!” she cried, her voice going off in a high quaver of surprise and consternation. If her father had intimated a similar intention she could scarcely have been more astonished. This is what everybody had consoled themselves by thinking such a man was never likely to do.
“Yes, married,” he said. “Don’t you think you know, Dolly, a dear little girl that would marry me, though I am not so young nor so handsome as Paul? You see it is not Paul now, it is me; and though he was handsomer and taller, I don’t think he was nearly so good-tempered as I am, my dear. I give very little trouble, and I should always be willing to do what my wife wanted to do—or at least almost always, Dolly—and you would not get that with many other men. Haven’t you ever thought of it before? Oh, I have, often. I went through all the others to-day, just to give myself a last chance, to see if, at the last moment, there was any one I liked better; but there was none so nice as you. You see, I have not done it without thought. Now, my pretty Dolly, my little dear, just say you will marry me before the winter, and to-morrow we can settle all the rest.”
He had taken her hand as they stood together at the gate. Dolly’s amazement knew no bounds. She was so bewildered that she could only stand and gaze at him with open mouth.
“Do you mean me?” she cried at last—“me?” with mingled horror and surprise. “I don’t know what you mean!” she said.
“Yes, my dear, I mean you. I tell you I looked again at all the rest, and there was not one so nice. Of course I mean you, Dolly. I have always been fond of you from the first. I will make you a good husband, dear, and you will make me a sweet little wife.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Dolly cried. The world, and the sky, and the trees, seemed to be going round with her. She caught at the gate to support herself. “No, no, no! It is all a dreadful mistake.”
“It cannot be a mistake. I know very well what I am doing, Dolly.”
“But oh dear! oh dear! Sir Augustus, let me speak. Do you think I know what I am doing? No, no, no, no! You must be going out of your senses to ask me.”
“Why? because you are so young and so little? But that is just what I like. You are the prettiest of all the girls. You are a dear, sweet, good little thing that will never disappoint me. No, no, it is no mistake.”
To see him standing there beaming and smiling through the dusk was a terrible business for Dolly.
“It is a mistake. I cannot, cannot do it—indeed I cannot. I will not marry you—never! I don’t want to marry anybody,” she said, beginning to weep in her excitement.
Now and then a villager would lumber by, and, seeing the couple at the porch, grin to himself and think that Miss Dolly was just the same as the other lasses. It was a pity the gentleman was so little, was all they said.