The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James
and leave the house to avoid being openly rude to him. Do you mind my lighting a cigar, Nelly, for I ‘ve got myself so angry that I want a weed to calm me down again?”
“Let us talk of something else; for on this theme I’m not much better tempered than yourself.”
“There ‘s a dear good girl,” said he, drawing her towards him, and kissing her cheek. “I ‘d have sworn you felt as I did about this old fop; and we must be arrant snobs, Nelly, or else his coming down amongst us here would not have broken us all up, setting us exchanging sneers and scoffs, and criticising each other’s knowledge of life. Confound the old humbug; let us forget him.”
They walked along without exchanging a word for full ten minutes or more, till they reached the brow of the cliff, from which the pathway led down to the cottage. “I wonder when I shall stand here again?” said he, pausing. “Not that I ‘m going on any hazardous service, or to meet a more formidable enemy than a tart flag-captain; but the world has such strange turns and changes that a couple of years may do anything with a man’s destiny.”
“A couple of years may make you a post-captain, Jack; and that will be quite enough to change your destiny.”
He looked affectionately towards her for a moment, and then turned away to hide the emotion he could not master.
“And then, Jack,” said she, caressingly, “it will be a very happy day that shall bring us to this spot again.”
“Who knows, Nelly?” said he, with a degree of agitation that surprised her. “I have n’t told you that Julia and I had a quarrel the last time we met.”
“A quarrel!”
“Well, it was something very like one. I told her there were things about her manner, – certain ways she had that I didn’t like; and I spoke very seriously to her on the subject. I did n’t go beating about, but said she was too much of a coquette.”
“Oh, Jack!”
“It’s all very well to be shocked, and cry out, ‘Oh, Jack!’ but isn’t it true? Haven’t you seen it yourself? Hasn’t Marion said some very strange things about it?”
“My dear Jack, I need n’t tell you that we girls are not always fair in our estimates of each other, even when we think we are, – and it is not always that we want to think so. Julia is not a coquette in any sense that the word carries censure, and you were exceedingly wrong to tell her she was.”
“That’s how it is!” cried he, pitching his cigar away in impatience. “There’s a freemasonry amongst you that calls you all to arms the moment one is attacked. Is n’t it open to a man to tell the girl he hopes to make his wife that there are things in her manner he does n’t approve of and would like changed?”
“Certainly not; at least it would require some nicer tact than yours to approach such a theme with safety.”
“Temple, perhaps, could do it,” said he, sneeringly.
“Temple certainly would not attempt it.”
Jack made a gesture of impatience, and, as if desirous to change the subject, said, “What ‘s the matter with our distinguished guest? Is he ill, that he won’t dine below-stairs to-day?”
“He calls it a slight return of his Greek fever, and begs to be excused from presenting himself at dinner.”
“He and Temple have been writing little three-cornered notes to each other all the morning. I suppose it is diplomatic usage.”
The tone of irritation he spoke in seemed to show that he was actually seeking for something to vent his anger upon, and trying to provoke some word of contradiction or dissent; but she was silent, and for some seconds they walked on without speaking.
“Look!” cried he, suddenly; “there goes Julia. Do you see her yonder on the path up the cliff; and who is that clambering after her? I’ll be shot if it’s not Lord Culduff.”
“Julia has got her drawing-book, I see. They’re on some sketching excursion.”
“He was n’t long in throwing off his Greek fever, eh?” cried Jack, indignantly. “It’s cool, isn’t it, to tell the people in whose house he is stopping that he is too ill to dine with them, and then set out gallivanting in this fashion?”
“Poor old man!” said she, in a tone of half-scornful pity.
“Was I right about Julia now?” cried he, angrily. “I told you for whose captivation all her little gracefulnesses were intended. I saw it the first night he stood beside her at the piano. As Marion said, she is determined to bring him down. She saw it as well as I did.”
“What nonsense you are talking, Jack; as if Julia would condescend – ”
“There ‘s no condescension, Nelly,” he broke in. “The man is a Lord, and the woman he marries will be a peeress; and there ‘s not another country in Europe in which that word means as much. I take it, we need n’t go on to the cottage now?”
“I suppose we could scarcely overtake them?”
“Overtake them! Why should we try? Even my tact, Nelly, that you sneered at so contemptuously a while ago, would save me from such a blunder. Come, let’s go home and forget, if we can, all that we came about. I at least will try and do so.”
“My dear, dear Jack, this is very foolish jealousy.”
“I am not jealous, Nelly. I’m angry; but it is with myself. I ought to have known what humble pretensions mine were, and I ought to have known how certainly a young lady, bred as young ladies are now-a-days, would regard them as less than humble; but it all comes of this idle shore-going, good-for-nothing life. They ‘ll not catch me at it again, that’s all.”
“Just listen to me patiently, Jack. Listen to me for one moment.”
“Not for half a moment. I can guess everything you want to say to me, and I tell you frankly, I don’t care to hear it. Tell me whatever you like to-morrow – ”
He tried to finish his speech, but his voice grew thick and faltering, and he turned away and was silent.
They spoke little to each other as they walked homewards. A chance remark on the weather, or the scenery, was all that passed till they reached the little lawn before the door.
“You’ll not forget your pledge, Jack, for to-morrow?” said Ellen, as he turned towards her before ascending the steps.
“I ‘ll not forget it,” said he, coldly, and he moved off as he spoke, and entered an alley of the shrubbery.
CHAPTER XVIII. A DULL DINNER
The family dinner on that day at Castello was somewhat dull. The various attempts to secure a party for the ensuing Saturday, which had been fixed on to celebrate Jack’s promotion, had proved failures. When Temple arrived at Longworth’s he learned that the host and ‘his guest were from home and not to return for some days – we have seen how it fared as to the L’Estranges – so that the solitary success was Captain Craufurd, a gentleman who certainly had not won the suffrages of the great house.
There were two vacant places besides at the table; for butlers are fond of recording, by napkins and covers, how certain of our friends assume to treat us, and thus, as it were, contrast their own formal observances of duty with the laxer notions of their betters.
“Lord Culduff is not able to dine with us,” said Colonel Bramleigh, making the apology as well to himself as to the company.
“No, papa,” said Marion; “he hopes to appear in the drawing-room in the evening.”
“If not too much tired by his long walk,” broke in Jack.
“What walk are you dreaming of?” asked Marion.
“An excursion he made this morning down the coast, sketching or pretending to sketch. Nelly and I saw him clambering up the side of a cliff – ”
“Oh, quite impossible; you must be mistaken.”
“No,”