The Light of Scarthey: A Romance. Castle Egerton
fibres of the being.
It was a pang of pain, but a revelation of glory.
He stood for some moments, with paling cheeks and hotly-beating heart, gazing back into the wondrous eyes. She, yielding her cheek carelessly to the Squire's hearty kiss, examined the new-comer curiously the while:
"Why – how now, tut, tut, what's this?" thundered the father, who, following the direction of her eyes, wheeled round suddenly to discover his son's strange bearing, "Have you lost all the manners as well as the notions of a gentleman, these last two years? Speak to Madame de Savenaye, sir! – Cécile, this is my son; pray forgive him, my dear; the fellow's shyness before ladies is inconceivable. It makes a perfect fool of him, as you see."
But Madame de Savenaye's finer wits had already perceived something different from the ordinary display of English shyness in the young man, whose eyes remained fixed on her face with an intentness that savoured in no way, of awkwardness. She now broke the spell with a broader smile and a word of greeting.
"You are surprised," said she in tripping words, tinged with a distinct foreign intonation, "to see a strange face here, Mr. Adrian – or, shall I say cousin? for that is the style I should adopt in my Brittany. Yes, you see in me a poor foreign cousin, fleeing for protection to your noble country. How do you do, my cousin?"
She extended a slender, white hand, one rosy nail of which, bending low, Adrian gravely kissed.
"Mais, comment donc!" exclaimed the lady, "my dear uncle did you chide your son just now? Why, but these are Versailles manners – so gallant, so courtly!"
And she gave the boy's fingers, as they lingered under hers, first a discreet little pressure, and then a swift flip aside.
"Ah! how cold you are!" she exclaimed; and then, laughing, added sweetly: "Cold hands, warm heart, of course."
And with rapping heels she turned into the great hall and into the drawing-room whither the two men – the father all chuckles, and the son still struck with wonder – followed her.
She was standing by the hearth holding each foot alternately to the great logs flaming on the tiles, ever and anon looking over her shoulder at Adrian, who had advanced closer, without self-consciousness, but still in silence.
"Now, cousin," she remarked gaily, "there is room for you here, big as you are, to warm yourself. You must be cold. I know already all about your family, and I must know all about you, too! I am very curious, I find them all such good, kind, handsome people here, and I am told to expect in you something quite different from any of them. Now, where does the difference come in? You are as tall as your father, but in face – no, I believe it is your pretty sisters you are like in face."
Here the Squire interrupted with his loud laugh, and, clapping his hand on his stalwart son's head:
"You have just hit it, Cécile, it's here the difference lies. Adrian, I really believe, is a little mistake of Dame Nature; his brain was meant for a girl and was tacked on to that big body by accident, ho, ho, ho! He is quite lady-like in his accomplishments – loves music, and plays, by gad, better than our organist. Writes poetry, too. I found some devilish queer things on his writing-table once, which were not all Latin verses, though he would fain I thought so. And as for deportment, Madame Cécile, why there is more propriety, in that hobbedehoy, at least, more blushing in him, than in all the bread-and-butter misses in the county!"
Adrian said nothing; but, when not turned towards the ground, his gaze still sought the Countess, who now returned the look with a ripening smile open to any interpretation.
"Surely," she remarked, glancing then at the elder for an instant with some archness, "surely you English gentlemen, who have so much propriety, would not rather … there was young Mr. Bradbury, we heard talked of yesterday, whom every farmer with a red-cheeked lass of his own – "
"No, no!" hastily interrupted the baronet, with a blush himself, while Adrian's cheek in spite of the recent indictment preserved its smooth pallor – in truth, the boy, lost in his first love-dream, had not understood the allusion. "No, I don't want a Landale to be a blackguard, you know, but – " And the father, unable to split this ethical hair, to logical satisfaction, stopped and entered another channel of grumbling vituperation, whilst the Countess, very much amused by her private thoughts, gave a little rippling laugh, and resumed her indulgent contemplation of the accused.
"What a pity, now, school-boy Rupert is not the eldest; there would be a country gentleman for you! Whereas, this successor that is to be of mine is a man of books and a philosopher. Forsooth, a first-class bookworm; by gad, I believe the first of our race! And he might make a name for himself, I've been told, among that lot, though the pack o' nonsense he treats us to at times cannot, I'm thinking, really go down even among those college fuzzle-heads. But I am confounded if that chap will ever be of any use as a landlord whenever he steps into my shoes. He hates a gun, and takes more pleasure – what was it he said last time he was here? – oh, yes, more pleasure in watching a bird dart in the blue than bringing it down, be it never so neat a shot. Ho, ho! did ye ever hear such a thing? And though he can sit a horse – I will say that for him (I should like to see a Landale that could not!) – I have seen this big boy of mine positively sicken, ay! and scandalise the hunt by riding away from the death. Moreover, I believe that, when I am gone, he will always let off any poaching scoundrel on the plea that the vermin only take for their necessity what we preserve for sport."
The little foreign lady, smiling no longer, eyed her big cousin with wondering looks.
"Strange, indeed," she remarked, "that a man should fail to appreciate the boon of man's existence, the strength and freedom to dominate, to be up and doing, to live in fact. How I should long to be a man myself, if I ever allowed myself to long for anything; but I am a woman, as you see," she added, rising to the full height of her exquisite figure, "and must submit to woman's lot – and that is just now to the point, for I must leave you to go and see to the wants of that mioche of mine which I hear whining upstairs. But I do not believe my uncle's account of you is a complete picture after all, cousin Adrian. I shall get it out of you anon, catechise you in my own way, and, if needs be, convert you to a proper sense of the glorious privileges of your sex."
And she ran out of the room.
"Well, my lad," said Sir Thomas, that evening, when the ladies had left the two men to their decanter, "I thought my Frenchwoman would wake you up, but, by George, I hardly expected she would knock you all of a heap so quick. Hey! you're winged, Adrian, winged, or this is not port."
"I cannot say, sir," answered Adrian, musing.
The old man caught up the unsatisfactory reply in an exasperated burlesque of mimicry: "I cannot say, sir – you cannot say? Pooh, pooh, there is no shame in being in love with her. We all are more or less; pass the bottle. As for you, since you clapped eyes on her you have been like a man in the moon, not a word to throw to a dog, no eyes, no ears but for your own thoughts, so long as madam is not there. Enter madam, you're alive again, by George, and pretty lively, too! Gad, I never thought I'd ever see you do the lady's man, all in your own queer way, of course; but, hang it all, she seems to like it, the little minx! Ay, and if she has plenty of smiles for the old man she's ready to give her earnest to you – I saw her, I saw her. But don't you forget she's married, sir, very much married, too. She don't forget it either, I can tell you, though you may think she does. Now, what sort of game is she making of you? What were you talking about in the picture gallery for an hour before dinner, eh?"
"To say the truth," answered the son, simply, "it was about myself almost the whole time."
"And she flattered you finely, I'll be bound, of course," said his elder, with a knowing look. "Oh, these women, these women!"
"On the contrary, sir, she thinks even less of me than you do. That woman has the soul of a savage; we have not one thought in common."
The father burst into a loud laugh. "A pretty savage to look at, anyhow; a well-polished one in the bargain, ho, ho, ho! Well, well, I must make up my mind, I suppose, that my eldest son is a lunatic in love with a savage."
Adrian remained silent for a while, toying with his glass, his young brow contracted under a painful frown.