"Was it a little disappointment? Do you want to give lessons--singing lessons?"
"Yes; but n.o.body will have me to teach them," said Janetta, laughing nervously.
Sir Philip looked back at the house which they had just pa.s.sed. "That is Miss Morrison"s school: you came out of it, did you not? Does she not need your help?"
"I do not suit her."
"Why? Did she try your voice?"
"Oh, no. It was for other reasons. She was prejudiced against me," said Janetta, with a little gulp.
"Prejudiced? But why?--may I ask?"
"Oh, she had heard something she did not like. It does not matter: I shall get other pupils by-and-bye."
"Is it important to you to have pupils?" Sir Philip asked, as seriously and anxiously as if the fate of the empire depended on his reply.
"Oh, most important." Janetta"s face and voice were more pathetic than she knew. Sir Philip was silent for a moment.
"I have heard you sing," he said at length, in his grave, earnest way.
"I am sure that I should have no hesitation in recommending you--if my recommendation were of any use. My mother may perhaps hear of somebody who wants lessons, if you will allow me to mention the matter to her."
"I shall be very much obliged to you," said Janetta, feeling grateful and yet a little startled--it did not seem natural to her in her sweet humility that Sir Philip and his mother should interest themselves in her welfare. "Oh, _very_ much obliged."
Sir Philip raised his hat and smiled down kindly upon her as he said good-bye. He had been interested from the very first in Margaret"s friend. And he had always been vaguely conscious that Margaret"s friendship was not likely to produce any very desirable results.
Janetta went on her way, feeling for the moment a little less desolate than she had felt before. Sir Philip turned homewards to seek his mother, who was a woman of whom many people stood in awe, but whose kindness of heart was never known to fail. To her Sir Philip at once poured out his story with the directness and Quixotic ardor which some of his friends found incomprehensible, not to say absurd. But Lady Ashley never thought so.
She smiled very kindly as her son finished his little tale.
"She is really a good singer, you say? Mr. Colwyn"s daughter. I have seen him once or twice."
"He was a good fellow."
"Yes, I believe so. Miss Morrison"s school, did you mention? Why, Mabel Hartley is there." Mabel Hartley was a distant cousin of the Ashleys. "I will call to-morrow, Philip, and find out what the objection is to Miss Colwyn. If it can be removed I don"t see why she should not teach Mabel, who, I remember, has a voice."
Lady Ashley carried out her intention, and announced the result to her son the following evening.
"I have not succeeded, dear. Miss Morrison has been prejudiced by some report from Miss Polehampton, with whom Miss Colwyn and Margaret Adair were at school. She said that the two girls were expelled together."
Sir Philip was silent for a minute or two. His brows contracted. "I was afraid," he said, "that Miss Adair"s championship of her friend had not been conducted in the wisest possible manner. She has done Miss Colwyn considerable harm."
Lady Ashley glanced at him inquiringly. She was particularly anxious that he should marry Margaret Adair.
"Is Lady Caroline at home?" her son asked, after another and a longer pause.
"Yes. She came home yesterday--with dear Margaret. I am sure, Philip, that Margaret does not know it if she has done harm."
"I don"t suppose she does, mother. I am sure she would not willingly injure any one. But I think that she ought to know the circ.u.mstances of the case."
And then he opened a book and began to read.
Lady Ashley never remonstrated. But she raised her eyebrows a little over this expression of Sir Philip"s opinion. If he were going to try to tutor Margaret Adair, whose slightest wish had never yet known contradiction, she thought it probable that the much-wished for marriage would never take place at all.
CHAPTER XV.
A BONE OF CONTENTION.
Poor Janetta, plodding away at her music lessons and doing the household work of her family, never guessed that she was about to become a bone of contention. But such she was fated to be, and that between persons no less distinguished than Lady Caroline Adair and Sir Philip Ashley--not to speak of Sir Philip and Margaret!
Two days after Janetta"s unexpected meeting with Sir Philip, that gentleman betook himself to Helmsley Court in a somewhat warm and indignant mood. He had seen a good deal of Margaret during the autumn months. They had been members of the same house-party in more than one great Scottish mansion: they had boated together, fished together, driven and ridden and walked together, until more than one of Lady Caroline"s acquaintances had asked, with a covert smile, "how soon she might be allowed to congratulate".... The sentence was never quite finished, and Lady Caroline never made any very direct reply. Margaret was too young to think of these things, she said. But other people were very ready to think of them for her.
The acquaintance had therefore progressed a long way since the day of Margaret"s return from school. And yet it had not gone quite so far as onlookers surmised, or as Lady Caroline wished. Sir Philip was most friendly, most attentive, but he was also somewhat absurdly unconscious of remark. His character had a simplicity which occasionally set people wondering. He was perfectly frank and manly: he spoke without _arriere-pensee_, he meant what he said, and was ready to believe that other people meant it too. He had a pleasant and courteous manner in society, and liked to be on friendly terms with every one he met; but at the same time he was not at all like the ordinary society man, and had not the slightest idea that he differed from any such person--as indeed he did. He had very high aims and ideals, and he took it for granted, with a really charming simplicity, that other people had similar aims and similar (if not higher) ideals. Consequently he now and then ran his head against a wall, and was laughed at by commonplace persons; but those who knew him well loved him all the better for his impracticable schemes and expectations.
But to Margaret he seemed rather like a firebrand. He took interest in things of which she had never heard, or which she regarded with a little delicate disdain. A steam-laundry in Beaminster, for example--what had a man like Sir Philip Ashley to do with a steam-laundry? And yet he was establishing one in the old city, and actually a.s.suring people that it would "pay." He had been exerting himself about the drainage of the place and the dwellings of the poor. Margaret was sorry in a vague way for the poor, and supposed that drainage had to be "seen to" from time to time, but she did not want to hear anything about it. She liked the pretty little cottages in the village of Helmsley, and she did not mind begging for a holiday for the school children (who adored her) now and then; and she had heard with pleasure of Lady Ashley"s pattern alm-houses and dainty orphanage, where the old women wore red cloaks, and the children were exceedingly picturesque; but as a necessary consequence of her life-training, she did not want to know anything about disease or misery or sin. And Sir Philip could not entirely keep these subjects out of his conversation, although he tried to be very careful not to bring a look that he knew well--a look of shocked repulsion and dislike--to Margaret"s tranquil face.
She welcomed him with her usual sweetness that afternoon. He thought that she looked lovelier than ever. The day was cold, and she wore a dark-green dress with a good deal of gold embroidery about it, which suited her perfectly. Lady Caroline, too, was graciousness itself. She received him in her own little sitting-room--a gem of a room into which only her intimate friends were admitted, and made him welcome with all the charm of manner for which she was distinguished. And to add to her virtues, she presently found that she had letters to write, and retired into an adjoining library, leaving the door open between the two rooms, so that Margaret might still be considered as under her chaperonage, although conversation could be conducted without any fear of her overhearing what was said. Lady Caroline knew so exactly what to do and what to leave undone!
As soon as she was gone, Sir Philip put down his tea-cup and turned with an eager movement to Margaret.
"I have been wanting to speak to you," he said. "I have something special--something important to say."
"Yes?" said Margaret, sweetly. She flushed a little and looked down. She was not quite ignorant of what every one was expecting Sir Philip Ashley to say.
"Can you listen to me for a minute or two?" he said, with the gentle eagerness of manner, the restrained ardor which he was capable--unfortunately for him--of putting into his most trivial requests. "You are sure you will not be impatient?"
Margaret smiled. Should she accept him? she was thinking. After all, he was very nice, in spite of his little eccentricities. And really--with his fine features, his tall stature, his dark eyes, and coal-black hair and beard--he was an exceedingly handsome man.
"I want you to help me," said Sir Philip, in almost a coaxing tone. "I want you to carry out a design that I have formed. n.o.body can do it but you. Will you help me?"
"If I can," said Margaret, shyly.
"You are always good and kind," said Sir Philip, warmly. "Margaret--may I call you Margaret? I have known you so long."
This seemed a little irregular, from Miss Adair"s point of view.
"I don"t know whether mamma----" she began, and stopped.
"Whether she would like it? I don"t think she would mind: she suggested it the other day, in fact. She always calls me "Philip," you know: perhaps you would do the same?"
Again Margaret smiled; but there was a touch of inquiry in her eyes as she glanced at him. She did not know very much about proposals of marriage, but she fancied that Sir Philip"s manner of making one was peculiar. And she had had it impressed upon her so often that he was about to make one that it could hardly be considered strange if his manner somewhat bewildered her.
"I want to speak to you," said the young man, lowering his earnest voice a little, "about your friend, Miss Colwyn."
Now, why did the girl flush scarlet? Why did her hand tremble a little as she put down her cup? Philip lost the thread of the conversation for a minute or two, and simply looked at her. Then Margaret quietly took down a screen from the mantel-piece and began to fan herself. "It is rather hot here, don"t you think?" she said, serenely. "The fire makes one feel quite uncomfortable."