CHAPTER XXXIII.
AN OLD FRIEND.
“THE Winterbournes” had been for some time at home—they were now in London, and Marian had appeared at court in the full splendour of that young beauty of hers; which never had dazzled any one at home as it dazzled every one now. She and her handsome young husband were the lions of the season, eagerly sought after in “the best society.” Their story had got abroad, as stories which are at all remarkable have such a wonderful faculty of getting; and strangers whom Marian had never seen before, were delighted to make her acquaintance—charmed to know her sister, who had so much genius, and wrote such delightful books, and, most extraordinary of all, extremely curious and interested about Charlie, the wonderful young brother who had found out the mystery. At one of the fashionable assemblies, where Louis and Marian, Rachel and Agnes, were pointed out eagerly on all sides, and commented upon as “such fresh unsophisticated young creatures—such a group! so picturesque, so interesting!” they became aware, all of them, with different degrees of embarrassment and pain, that Mrs Edgerley was in the company. Louis found her out last of all. She could not possibly fail to notice them; and the young man, anxious to save her pain, made up his mind at once to be the first to address her. He went forward gravely, with more than usual deference in his manner. She recognised him in a moment, started with a little surprise and a momentary shock, but immediately rushed forward with her most charming air of enthusiasm, caught his hand, and overwhelmed him with congratulations. “Oh, I should be so shocked if you supposed that I entertained any prejudice because of poor dear papa!” cried Mrs Edgerley. “Of course he meant no harm; of course he did not know any better. I am so charmed to see you! I am sure we shall make most capital cousins and firm allies. Positively you look quite grave at me. Oh, I assure you, family feuds are entirely out of fashion, and no one ever quarrels with me! I am dying to see those sweet girls!”
And very much amazed, and filled with great perturbation, those sweet girls were, when Mrs Edgerley came up to them, leaning upon Louis’s arm, bestowed upon them all a shower of those light perfumy kisses which Marian and Agnes remembered so well, and, declaring Lady Winterbourne far too young for a chaperone, took her place among them. Amazed as they were at this sudden renewal of old friendship, none of them desired to resist it; and before they were well aware, they found themselves engaged, the whole party, to Mrs Edgerley’s next “reception,” when “every one would be so charmed to see them!” “Positively, my love, you are looking quite lovely,” whispered the fine lady into the shrinking ear of Marian. “I always said so. I constantly told every one you were the most perfect little beauty in the world; and then that charming book of Miss Atheling’s, which every one was wild about! and your brother—now, do you know, I wish so very much to know your brother. Oh, I am sure you could persuade him to come to my Thursday. Tell him every one comes; no one ever refuses me! I shall send him a card to-morrow. Now, may I leave my cause in your hands?”
“We will try,” said Marian, who, though she bore her new dignities with extraordinary self-possession on the whole, was undeniably shy of Agnes’s first fashionable patroness. The invitation was taken up as very good fun indeed, by all the others. They resolved to make a general assault upon Charlie, and went home in great glee with their undertaking. Nor was Charlie, after all, so hard to be moved as they expected. He twisted the pretty note in his big fingers with somewhat grim amusement, and said he did not mind. With this result Mrs Atheling showed the greatest delight, for the good mother began to speculate upon a wife for Charlie, and to be rather afraid of some humble beauty catching her boy’s eye before he had “seen the world.”
With almost the feeling of people in a dream, Agnes and Marian entered once more those well-remembered rooms of Mrs Edgerley, in which they had gained their first glimpse of the world; and Charlie, less demonstrative of his feelings, but not without a remembrance of the past, entered these same portals where he had exchanged that first glance of instinctive enmity with the former Lord Winterbourne. The change was almost too extraordinary to be realised even by the persons principally concerned. Marian, who had been but Agnes Atheling’s pretty and shy sister, came in now first of the party, the wife of the head of her former patroness’s family. Agnes, a diffident young genius then, full of visionary ideas of fame, had now her own known and acknowledged place, but had gone far beyond it, in the heart which did not palpitate any longer with the glorious young fancies of a visionary ambition; and Charlie, last of all—Charlie, who had tumbled out of the Islington fly to take charge of his sisters—a big boy, clumsy and manful, whom Lord Winterbourne smiled at, as he passed, with his ungenial smile—Charlie, almost single-handed, had thrust the usurper from his seat, and placed the true heir in his room. No wonder that the Athelings were somewhat dizzy with recollections when they came among all the fashionable people who were charmed to see them, and found their way at last to the boudoir where Agnes and Marian had looked at the faces and the diamonds, on that old Thursday of Mrs Edgerley’s, which sparkled still in their recollection, the beginning of their fate.
But though Louis and Marian, and Agnes and Rachel, were all extremely attractive, had more or less share in the romance, and were all more or less handsome, Charlie was without dispute the lion of the night. Mrs Edgerley fluttered about with him, holding his great arm with her pretty hand, and introducing him to every one; and with a smile, rueful, comical, half embarrassed, half ludicrous, Charlie, who continued to be very shy of ladies, suffered himself to be dragged about by the fashionable enchantress. He had very little to say—he was such a big fellow, so unmanageable in a delicate crowd of fine ladies, with draperies like gossamer, and, to do him justice, very much afraid of the dangerous steering; but Charlie’s “manners,” though they would have overwhelmed with distress his anxious mother, rather added to his “success.” “It was he who conducted the whole case.” “I do not wonder! Look, what a noble head! What a self-absorbed expression! What a power of concentration!” were the sweet and audible whispers which rang around him; and the more sensible observers of the scene, who saw the secret humour in Charlie’s upper-lip, slightly curved with amusement, acute, but not unkindly, and caught now and then a gleam of his keen eye, which, when it met with a response, always made a momentary brightening of the smile—were disposed to give him full credit for all the power imputed to him. Mrs Edgerley was in the highest delight—he was a perfect success for a lion. Lions, as this patroness of the fine arts knew by experience, were sadly apt to betray themselves, to be thrown off their balance, to talk nonsense. But Charlie, who was not given to talking, who was still so delightfully clumsy, and made such a wonderful bow, was perfectly charming; Mrs Edgerley declared she was quite in love with him. After all, natural feeling put out of the question, she had no extraordinary occasion to identify herself with the resentments or enmities of that ruined plotter at Baden; and he must have been a worthy father, indeed, who had moved Mrs Edgerley to shut her heart or her house to the handsome young couple, whom everybody delighted to honour, or to the hero of a fashionable romance, which was spoken of everywhere. She had no thought of any such sacrifice; she established the most friendly relations instantly with her charming young cousins. She extended the kindly title, with the most fascinating amiability, to Agnes and Charlie. She overwhelmed the young lawyer with compliments and invitations. He had a much stronger hold upon her fickle fancy than the author of Hope Hazlewood. Mrs Edgerley was delighted to speak to all her acquaintances of Mr Atheling, “who conducted all the case against poor dear papa—did everything himself, I assure you—and such a charming modesty of genius, such a wonderful force and character! Oh, any one may be jealous who pleases; I cannot help it. I quite adore that clever young man.”
Charlie took it all very quietly; he concerned himself as little about the adoration of Mrs Edgerley, as he did about the secret scrutiny of his mother concerning every young woman who chanced to cross the path of her son. Young women were the only created things whom Charlie was afraid of, and what his own secret thoughts might be upon this important question, nobody could tell.