Set in Silver
"You are sure she has done that?" I asked, staggered by this statement,
which I was far from expecting.
"Quite sure, unless love (in the form of Dick) is deaf as well as blind.
He certainly flatters himself that they are on these terms."
"Since when?" I persisted. (By the by, I wonder if the inquisitors ever
hit on the ingenious plan of making prisoners torture themselves?
Nothing hurts worse than self-torture.)
"Only since Lulworth Cove, or you would have heard of it before. You
know when we came back from our walk, and saw them sitting on the beach
together, I said what a pretty picture they made?"
Naturally, I remembered extremely well.
"That was when they had their great scene. Dick begged me, as an old
friend of yours, to say a word when I found the chance. And I confess,
I've _made_ the chance to-night. I do hope you won't think me
impertinent and interfering? I'm fond of Dick. He's about all I have to
be fond of in the world. And besides--just because I've never been happy
myself, I want others to be, while they're young, not to waste time."
I muttered something, I hardly know what, and she went on to talk to me
of her past, for the first time. Said she had married when little more
than a child, and had made the mistake of marrying a man she thought she
could manage to live happily with, instead of one she couldn't manage to
live happily without. That was all; but it had made _all_ the
difference--and if Miss Lethbridge had given her first love to Dick----
I nearly said, "Hang first love!" but I held my tongue, fortunately, for
of course she meant well, and was only doing her best for her nephew.
But how anyone could love that fellow passes my understanding! Why, it
seems to me the creature's parents could hardly have loved him, unless
he had had something of the monstrous hypnotism, as well as the
selfishness, of a young cuckoo in its stolen nest. Yet the same
hypnotism may influence birds outside the nest, I suppose. That's the
only way to account for an infatuation on the part of Ellaline.
"If you are angry, Dick and I must go away," Mrs. Senter went on. "But
he couldn't help falling in love, and to me they seem made for each
other."
I had to answer that of course I wasn't angry, but I thought any talk of
love premature, to say the least.
"You won't actually refuse your consent, then?" asked she.
"Much good my refusing would do, if the girl really cares!" said I. "I
shan't disinherit her, whatever she does."
Mrs. Senter laughed at that. "Why, even if you did," said she, "it
wouldn't matter greatly to them, because Dick has something of his own,
and she is an heiress, isn't she?"
Then--I don't know whether I was wrong or not--but I swear I made the
answer I did without any mean or selfish motives--if I can read my own
soul. If Burden were a fortune-hunter, I wanted to save her from him,
that's all. I told Mrs. Senter that Ellaline had very little money of
her own. "I shall look after her, of course," I said. "But the amount of
the _dot_ I may give will be determined by circumstances."
I don't know that I mayn't have put this in a tactless way. Anyhow, Mrs.
Senter looked rather odd--hurt, or distressed, or something queer--I
couldn't make quite out. She said, nevertheless, that Dick did not care
for Miss Lethbridge's money. He had fallen in love with her the first
time they met. Nothing else mattered, as they would have enough to live
on. But she had supposed the girl almost too rich for Dick. Wasn't
Ellaline a relation of the millionaire family of Lethbridges? She had
heard so.
I answered that the relationship was distant. That Ellaline's father had
once been a friend of mine, and that her mother had been my cousin,
though a French girl.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Senter, as if suddenly enlightened. "Is she--by any
chance--the daughter of a _Frederic_ Lethbridge?"
What she recalled about Fred Lethbridge, I can't guess. She isn't old
enough to have known him, unless as a child or a very young girl. But
she certainly had some thought in connection with him which made her
silent and reflective. I hope I have done Ellaline no harm--in case the
girl really does care for Burden. I never had the intention of keeping
her parentage secret, though at the same time it would pain me to have
any gossip reach her. However, to do Mrs. Senter justice, I don't think
she is a gossip. She likes to say "smart" things, but so far as I have
heard, she is never smart at other people's expense. And since her
confidences to me concerning her past, I am sorry for the poor little
woman.
Not much more passed between us on the subject of Ellaline and Dick,
except that I refused to recommend the young man to the girl's good
graces. I had to tell Mrs. Senter that, not even for the pleasure of
pleasing her, could I consent to do what she asked. But I did finally
promise to let Ellaline know that personally I had no objection to the
alleged "understanding," if it were for her happiness. Nevertheless, I
would advise her that she must do nothing rash. Mrs. Senter not only
permitted, but actually suggested, this extra clause; and our _seance_
ended.
Some things are too strange not to be true; and I suppose this
infatuation of Ellaline's, if it exists, is one of them. And it must
exist. There can be no doubt of it, since Mrs. Senter has it from the
boy--who apparently has it from the girl.
What to make of it, however, that she told me only about ten days ago,
she didn't like him? Yet I am forgetting. We have it on good authority
that "'tis best to begin with a little aversion."
I ought to have known that a daughter of Ellaline de Nesville and
Frederic Lethbridge couldn't develop into the star-high being this girl
has seemed to me; and I must make the best of it that she's something
less in soul than, in my first burst of astonished admiration, I was
inclined to appraise her. After all, why feel bitter against people
because they have disappointing shortcomings, if not defects, instead of
the dazzling virtues that glittered in your imagination? Cream always
rises to the top, yet we don't think less of it because there's nothing
but milk underneath.
Yes, if I find out that she likes this hypnotic cuckoo I mustn't despise
her for it. But I must find out as soon as I can. Suspense is the one
unbearable pain. And you are at liberty to laugh at me as I hope I shall
soon be laughing at myself.
L. P.
XV
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Osborne Hotel, Torquay_,
_August 6th_
Ma Petite Minerve-de-Mere: A hundred and six and a half thanks
for your counsels and consolations. I needed both, and not a bit the
less because I'm not unhappy now. I'm violently happy. It won't last,
but I love it--this happiness. I keep it sitting on my shoulder and
stroking its wings, so it mayn't remember when it's time to fly away.
That letter I wrote you _was_ silly. I was a regular cry-baby to write
it. But I'm so glad you answered quickly. I don't know how I should have
borne it if the man at the Poste Restante window had said: "Nothing for
you, miss." I might have responded with blows.
There was a letter from Ellaline, too. I'd sent her the "itinerary" as
far as I knew it, and Torquay was the last place on the list. I was
wondering if anything were the matter, but there isn't--though there
_is_ news. She waited to write, she says, so that her plans might be
decided and she could tell them to me.
The military manoeuvres go on; and the news has nothing directly to do
with the adored Honore. But Ellaline has made a confidante--a Scotch
girl she has met. I don't mean she's told everything; far from that,
apparently. She has kept the fraudulent part, about me, secret, and only
confided the romantic part, about herself. What she says she has told
is, that she's run away from cruel persons who want to have all her
money, and to prevent her from having any happiness. That she's hiding
till the man she's engaged to can take her to Scotland and have a Scotch
marriage--at Gretna Green, if possible, because it would be romantic,
and her mother was married there. The Scotch girl, with northern
coldness of reason, has pointed out that Gretna Green is nowadays like
any other place, but Ellaline is not weaned from the idea. She appears
to have fascinated her new friend (as she did her old ones), in spite of
the northern coldness, and has received a pressing invitation to visit
at the girl's house in Scotland until Honore can claim her.
There is a mother, as well as a girl, but only a stepmother, and
apparently a detail; for the girl has the money and the strength of
will. The two are stopping in a pension near Madame de Blanchemain's
house. The girl is a Miss McNamarra, with freckles and no figure, but
engaged to an officer, and consequently sympathetic. She has advised
Ellaline that, if she travels from France to Scotland with Honore, on
the way to be married, he mayn't respect her as much as if she had
friends and chaperons, and a nice place to wait for him. Ellaline is too
French at heart not to feel that this advice is good--though she adds in
her letter that she, of course, trusts darling Honore completely;--so
she has accepted the invitation.
The only trouble is, she wants more money at once. She must let golden
louis run through her fingers like water, for I sent her nearly all Sir
Lionel handed me before we started on the trip. I shall have to ask him
for more, and I'll hate doing that, because, though I shall be gone out
of his life so soon, I'm too vain and self-conscious (it must be that!)
to like making a bad impression on his mind while we're together.
I shan't hate it as much, however, as I should, supposing that something
which happened last night _hadn't_ happened. I'm coming to that part
presently. It's the thing that's made me happy--the thing that won't
last long.
We left adorable little Sidmouth days ago--I almost forget how many,
coming as far as Exeter along a lovely road. But then, everything is
lovely in Devonshire. It is almost more beautiful than the New Forest,
only so different that, thank goodness, it isn't necessary to compare
the two kinds of scenery.
Perhaps Devonshire, stripped of its bold, red rocks, drained of its
brilliant blue sea, and despoiled of its dark moors, might be too sugary
sweet with its flower-draped cottages, and lanes like green-walled
conservatories; but it is so well balanced, with its intimate
sweetnesses, and its noble outlines. I think _you_ are rather like
Devonshire, you're so perfect, and you are the most well-balanced person
I was ever introduced to--except Dad. I'm proud that his ancestors were
Devonshire men. And oh, the junket and Devonshire cream are even better
than he used to tell me! I haven't tasted the cider yet, because I can't
bear to miss the cream at any meal; and the chambermaid at Sidmouth
warned me that they "didn't mix."
Bits of Devonshire are like Italy, I find. Not only is the earth deep
red in the meadows, where the farmers have torn open its green coat, and
many of the roads a pale rose-pink--dust and all--but lots of houses and
cottages are pink, a real Italian pink, so that whole villages blush as
you look them in the face. Sometimes, too, there's a blue or a green, or
a golden-ochre house; here and there a high, broken wall of rose or
faded yellow, with torrential geraniums boiling over the top. And the
effect of this riot of colour, in contrast with the silver gray of the
velvety thatch, or lichen-jewelled slate roofs, under great, cool trees,
is even more beautiful than Italy. If all England is a park, Devonshire
is a queen's garden.
From Sidmouth we went to Budleigh Salterton (why either, but especially
both?), quaintly pretty, and rather Holland-like with its miniature