Portia; Or, By Passions Rocked. Duchess
of the room from ceiling to floor, and, with a back glass in her hand, is leaning slightly to one side, as though lost in admiration of the soft mass of fair, brown hair that lies coiled low down on her neck in high-art fashion. She is like a soft harmony in black and gold, with her filmy robes clinging closely round her, and the old gold, that is so like tarnished yellow, touching her here and there.
"Ah! Mark was right," says Dulce, with a little sigh of intensest pleasure. "Come down now (you cannot make yourself more beautiful), and be made known to Uncle Christopher."
It is in the library that Miss Vibart makes herself known. Dulce entering first, with her gay little air, says:
"This is Portia, Uncle Christopher." Thereupon a tall old man, rising from a chair, comes quickly up to them and takes Portia's hand, and, stooping very low, presses his lips to her forehead.
He is a remarkably handsome old man, with light hair, and a rather warm complexion, and choleric, but kindly eyes. Even at the first glance Portia tells herself he would be as harsh a foe as he would be a champion true, and in so far she reads him right. He is hot-tempered, obstinate, at moments perhaps unjust, but at all times kind-hearted, and deserving of tenderest regard.
Now he is holding his new niece's hand, and is gazing down at her with animated eyes, that no age will ever quite dim.
"So glad. So glad you have come to us," he says, in a tone that reminds her of Dulce's, though it is so deep and strong and masculine, and hers so very much the reverse in every way, "Bless me, how days go by! Just last week, as it seems to me, I saw you a little girl in short petticoats and frills, and furbelows, and now – "
"I wear petticoats still," says Portia, demurely, with a soft laugh, "and frills sometimes, and often furbelows, I think, though I don't in the least know what they mean, but they sound nice. So, after all, I should be now very much as I was."
"Very much. But forgive me," says Sir Christopher, "if I say you were not anything like as good-looking then as you are to-day."
"A speech easy to forgive," said Portia, lightly. Then, after a pause, "I, too, remember what you were like in those old days."
"What then?" asked Sir Christopher, giving a sudden pull to his collar, and betraying an increased degree of interest.
"Nothing like so good-looking as you are to-day," retorts she, with a quick smile and a little flicker of her eyelids.
"Ah! we shall be friends," cries Sir Christopher, gaily. "Baby and you and I will ride roughshod over all the others; and we have wanted somebody to help us, haven't we, Baby?" Then he turns more entirely to Dulce; "Eh, a sharp wit, isn't it?" he says.
"Auntie Maud sent her love to you," said Portia.
"Eh? Much obliged, I'm sure," says Sir Christopher. "Very good of her; mine to her in return. A most estimable woman she always was, if short of nose. How she could have thrown herself away upon that little insignificant – eh? – though he was my brother – eh?"
"She ought to have had you," says Miss Vibart, with soft audacity.
"Eh? eh?" says Sir Christopher, plainly delighted. "Now, what a rogue!" He turns to Dulce, as he always does on every occasion, be it sweet or bitter. "You hear her, Dulce. She flatters me, eh?"
"Uncle Christopher, you are a sad, sad flirt," says Dulce, patting his cheek. "I am glad poor Auntie Maud escaped your fascinations. You would have forgotten her in a week. Do you know what o'clock it is? —after six. Now do go up and get ready for dinner, and try to be in time for once, if only to do honor to Portia. He is so irregular," says Dulcinea, turning to Portia.
Miss Vibart, like Alice, begins to think it all "curiouser and curiouser;" yet, withal, the house seems full of love.
"Well, indeed as a rule, I believe I am late," says Sir Christopher, in a resigned tone. "But I always put it down upon Mylder; he can't tie a cravat!" Then, to Portia, "You are pale and thin, child. You must get rosy and fat, and above all things healthy, before we are done with you."
"She must, indeed," says Dulce, "though I doubt if she will thank us for it by-and-by; when she finds herself (as she shall) with rose-colored cheeks like a dairy-maid, she will be very angry with us all."
"I shall never have red cheeks," says Portia; "and I shall never be angry with you; but I shall surely get strong in this charming air."
"Here you will live forever," says Dulce. "People at ninety-five consider themselves in the prime of life."
"Lucky they!" says Portia; "they must 'wear the rose of youth' upon them forever."
"Oh! we can die young," says Dulce, hastily, as though anxious to take a stigma off her country-side. "We have been known to do it, but not much; and the happiest have gone the soonest."
"Yes," says Uncle Christopher, most cheerfully – he is plainly unimpressed, and shows an inclination to whistle
"Golden lads and girls, all must,
As chimney-sweepers come to dust!"
"I say, Dulce, isn't Portia like that picture of your grand-aunt in the north gallery?"
"Like who?" asks Portia, anxiously.
"Like the handsomest woman in Europe, of her time," says Sir Christopher, earnestly, with a low, profound bow that might perhaps have been acceptable to "the handsomest woman in Europe," but only serves now to raise wild mirth in the breasts of her degenerate grand-nieces.
When they have reached again the hall outside (leaving Sir Christopher to seek the tender mercies of Mylder) Portia turns to her cousin —
"I am fortunate," she says, in her usual composed fashion that is yet neither cold nor repellant, "I find Uncle Christopher, also, altogether charming!"
The "also" is very happy. It is not to be misunderstood, and is full of subtle flattery. Dulcinea yields to it, and turns, eyes and lips bright with a warm smile, upon Miss Vibart.
"Yes; he is quite everything that is nice," she says, gracefully ignoring the compliment to herself. "Now, shall we come and sit on the balcony until dinner is ready; as a rule, we assemble there in Summer instead of in the drawing-room, which, of course, is more convenient, and decidedly more gloomy."
"I have an all-conquering curiosity to know everything about everybody down here," says Portia, as they reach the balcony. Dulce pushes a low, sleepy-looking chair toward her, and, sinking gracefully into it, she turns her eyes up to her cousin. "Tell me all about your Roger," she says, languidly. "As I must begin with somebody, I think I shall prefer beginning with – with – what shall I call him? Your young man?"
"It sounds like Martha's baker's boy," says Dulce, laughing; "but you may call Roger what you like. I wish with all my heart you could call him husband, as that would take him out of my way."
They are standing on the balcony, and are looking toward the South. Beyond them stretch the lawns, green and sloping; from below, the breath of the sleeping flowers comes up to greet them; through the trees in the far, far distance comes to them a glimpse of the great ocean as it lies calm and silent, almost to melancholy, but for the soft lap, lapping of the waves upon the pebbly shore.
"Some one told me he was very handsome," says Portia, at a venture. Perhaps she has heard this, perhaps she hasn't. It even seems to her there is more truth in the "has" than in the "hasn't."
"I have seen uglier people," admits Dulcinea, regretfully; "when he has his face washed, and his hair brushed, he isn't half a bad boy."
"Boy?" asks Portia, doubtfully; to her the foregoing speech is full of difficulty.
"I daresay you would call him a man," says Dulce, with a shrug of her soft shoulders; "but really he isn't. If you had grown up with him, as I have, you would never think of him as being anything but an overgrown baby, and a very cross one. That is the worst of being brought up with a person, and being told one is to marry him by-and-by. It rather takes the gilt off him, I think," says Dulce with a small smile.
"But why must you marry him?" asks Portia, opening her large black fan in an indolent fashion,