Sword and Gown. George A. Lawrence

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      The next morning was so soft and sunny that it tempted Miss Tresilyan out on the terrace of their hotel very soon after breakfast. She was waiting for her brother on the top of the steps leading down into the road, when Major Keene passed by again. If he had never heard of her before, the smooth sweeping outline of her magnificent form, and the careless grace of her attitude, as she stood leaning against the stone balustrade, were not likely to escape an eye that was wont to light on every point of feminine perfection, as a poacher’s does on a sitting hare. But he never got so far as her face then; and hardly had time to criticise her figure; for at that moment a brisk gust of the mistral swept round the corner, and revealed a foot and ankle so marvelously exquisite, that they attracted his eyes, as long as he dared to fix them without risking a stare; and kept his thoughts busy till he saw her again. “Caramba!” he muttered, half aloud. “I don’t wonder at any one who has seen that not looking at a nautch-girl afterward.” And he quickened his pace toward Mr. Molyneux’s house. He met them before he reached their door.

      “I am going to Miss Tresilyan,” Fanny said. “Isn’t it lucky, her first morning here being such a delicious one?”

      “Ah! I thought that was your point,” answered Keene. “There must be a tremendous amount of ‘gushing’ to be got through still: the accumulation of—how many months? I suppose you only took the rough edge off last night. Don’t hurt her, please, that’s all. And, Hal, you were actually going to preside over the meeting of two young hearts, and gloat over their emotions, and spoil their innocent amusements? I wonder at you. Means well, Mrs. Molyneux; but he’s so thoughtless.”

      Fanny laughed. “I think I could do without him. But we mean to walk this afternoon, and he may come then; and you too, Major Keene, if you are good.”

      “I’ll enter into all sorts of recognizances to keep the peace,” was the reply; “but I should have thought you might trust me by this time. It’s that excitable husband of yours that wants disciplining. I’ll give him some soda-water by way of a precaution. Then, when you have sacrificed to friendship sufficiently, you will lionize Miss Tresilyan? The Castle first, of course. Shall we meet you there at two?”

      Harry did not quite see the thing in this light, and looked slightly disappointed; but he yielded the point, as he always did, and went away dutifully with his superior officer.

      “Describe the brother,” the latter said, abruptly, when they had gone a few steps.

      “Well, I believe he’s the most ignorant man in Great Britain,” answered Molyneux: “that’s his spécialité. He never had much education; and he has been trying to forget that little, ‘hard all,’ ever since he was eighteen. You remember how our fellows used to laugh at me about my epistles? I could give him 21lb., and a beating any day. They say, two men have to stand over him whenever he tries to write a letter, for no one is strong enough to keep him straight in his spelling and grammar. If he tries it on alone, he gets bewildered in the second sentence, and wanders up and down, knocking his head against particles and parts of speech, like the man in the Maze; and throws up the sponge at last, utterly beat. Helplessly devoted to his sister, but rather obstinate with other people, and apt to be sulky sometimes; but good-natured on the whole; and drinks very fair.”

      “Oh, he drinks fair, does he?” Royston said, meditatively. “Has that any thing to do with his brotherly affection? Every body who is fond of Miss Tresilyan seems to take to liquor. Annesley was pretty sober till he knew her. It’s rather odd. I don’t suppose she encourages them?”

      “Certainly not; at least, I know she has tried to stint Dick in his brandy very often. It’s the only point she has never been able to carry.”

      “A man must be firm about some one thing,” 13 the other remarked, “or there’s an end of free-agency altogether. He has no intellects to be affected by it apparently; and I dare say his health does not suffer much yet. It’s a question of constitution, after all.”

      He dropped the subject then, and was very silent all the rest of the morning, till they came to the place of meeting. Somehow or another, it did not occur to him to mention to Harry what he had seen on the terrace.

      They had not waited long before the three women came slowly up the zigzags of the path that wound round the Castle-hill. Dick Tresilyan had “got his pass signed” for the day, and had started off, with his courier, to make the lives of several natives a burden to them, on the subject of bécasses and bécassines.

      Cecil might have been known by her walk among ten thousand. She seemed to float along without any visible exertion, as if her dress were buoyant, and bore her up in some mysterious fashion; but, looking closer, and marking how straight and firmly and lightly every footfall was planted, you gave the narrow arched instep, and the slender rounded ankle, the credit they well deserved; marveling only that so delicate a symmetry could conceal so much sinewy power. Upon this occasion, she was evidently accommodating her pace to that of Mrs. Danvers; and no racing man could have seen the two, without thinking of one of the Flyers of the turf walking down by the side of the trainer’s pony.

      Miss Tresilyan’s hat, of a soft black felt, shaded by a black cock’s feather, was decidedly in advance of her age: for that very provocative head-gear, with the many-colored panaches, had not then become so common; and even the Passionate Pilgrim might hope (with luck) to walk along a pier or a parade, without meeting a succession of Red Rovers—each capable of boarding him at a minute’s notice, and making all his affections walk the plank. Her tunic of iron-gray velvet, without fitting tightly to her figure, still did it fair justice; and, from the tie of her neck-ribbon, down to the wonderful boots that slid in and out from under the striped scarlet kirtle over which her dress was looped up, there was not the minutest detail that might not have challenged and baffled criticism.

      Royston Keene appreciated all this thoroughly. No man alive held the stale old adage of “Beauty when unadorned,” etc., in profounder scorn. A pair of badly-fitting gloves, a soiled collerette, or a tumbled dress, had cured more than one of the fever fits of his younger days; and he was ten times as fastidious now.

      He drew a long, slow breath of intense enjoyment, as a thirsty cricketer may do after the first deep draught of claret-cup that rewards a two hours’ innings. “It’s very refreshing, after weeks of total abstinence, to see a woman who goes in for dress, and does it thoroughly well.” He had no time for more, for the others were almost within hearing.

      When the introductions were over, Mrs. Danvers said she was tired, and must rest a little. Very few words will do justice to her personal appearance. Brevity, and breadth, and bluntness were her chief characteristics, which applied equally to her figure, her face, and her extremities, and, not unfrequently, to her speech too. Her health was really infirm, but she never could attain the object of many an invalid’s harmless ambition—looking interesting. Illness made her cheeks look pasty, but not pale; it could not fine down the coarsely moulded features, or purify their ignoble outline. Her voice was against her, certainly; perhaps this was the reason why, when she bemoaned herself, so many irreverent and hard-hearted reprobates called it “whining.” It was very unfortunate; for few could be found, even in the somewhat exacting class to which she belonged, more anxious and active in enlisting sympathy. She was looking especially ill-tempered just then, but Major Keene was not easily daunted, and he went in at her straight and gallantly—about the weather,