"I beg you--Be frank with me, Rose!"
A flame of the vanished fire shone in her face, but subsided, and she shook her head darkly.
"Have you any objection to my friend?"
Her fingers grew petulant with an orange leaf. Eyeing a spot on it, she said, hesitatingly:
"Any friend of yours I am sure I should like to help. But--but I wish you wouldn"t a.s.sociate with that--that kind of friend. It gives people all sorts of suspicions."
Evan drew a sharp breath.
The voices of Master Alec and Miss Dorothy were heard shouting on the lawn. Alec gave Dorothy the slip and approached the conservatory on tip-toe, holding his hand out behind him to enjoin silence and secrecy.
The pair could witness the scene through the gla.s.s before Evan spoke.
"What suspicions?" he asked.
Rose looked up, as if the harshness of his tone pleased her.
"Do you like red roses best, or white?" was her answer, moving to a couple of trees in pots.
"Can"t make up your mind?" she continued, and plucked both a white and red rose, saying: "There! choose your colour by-and-by," and ask Juley to sew the one you choose in your b.u.t.ton-hole."
She laid the roses in his hand, and walked away. She must have known that there was a burden of speech on his tongue. She saw him move to follow her, but this time she did not linger, and it may be inferred that she wished to hear no more.
CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH EVAN WRITES HIMSELF TAILOR
The only philosophic method of discovering what a young woman means, and what is in her mind, is that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by following her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not want to know a particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the central system of facts that shall penetrate her. Clearly there was a disturbance in the bosom of Rose Jocelyn, and one might fancy that amiable mirror as being wilfully ruffled to confuse a thing it was asked by the heavens to reflect: a good fight fought by all young people at a certain period, and now and then by an old fool or two. The young it seasons and strengthens; the old it happily kills off; and thus, what is, is made to work harmoniously with what we would have be.
After quitting Evan, Rose hied to her friend Jenny Graine, and in the midst of sweet millinery talk, darted the odd question, whether baronets or knights ever were tradesmen: to which Scottish Jenny, entirely putting aside the shades of beatified aldermen and the ill.u.s.trious list of mayors that have welcomed royalty, replied that it was a thing quite impossible. Rose then wished to know if tailors were thought worse of than other tradesmen. Jenny, premising that she was no authority, stated she imagined she had heard that they were.
"Why?" said Rose, no doubt because she was desirous of seeing justice dealt to that cla.s.s. But Jenny"s bosom was a smooth reflector of facts alone.
Rose pondered, and said with compressed eagerness, "Jenny, do you think you could ever bring yourself to consent to care at all for anybody ever talked of as belonging to them? Tell me."
Now Jenny had come to Beckley Court to meet William Harvey: she was therefore sufficiently soft to think she could care for him whatever his origin were, and composed in the knowledge that no natal stigma was upon him to try the strength of her affection. Designing to generalize, as women do (and seem tempted to do most when they are secretly speaking from their own emotions), she said, shyly moving her shoulders, with a forefinger laying down the principle:
"You know, my dear, if one esteemed such a person very very much, and were quite sure, without any doubt, that he liked you in return--that is, completely liked you, and was quite devoted, and made no concealment--I mean, if he was very superior, and like other men--you know what I mean--and had none of the cringing ways some of them have--I mean; supposing him gay and handsome, taking--"
"Just like William," Rose cut her short; and we may guess her to have had some one in her head for her to conceive that Jenny must be speaking of any one in particular.
A young lady who can have male friends, as well as friends of her own s.e.x, is not usually pressing and secret in her confidences, possibly because such a young lady is not always nursing baby-pa.s.sions, and does not require her s.e.x"s coddling and posseting to keep them alive. With Rose love will be full grown when it is once avowed, and will know where to go to be nourished.
"Merely an idea I had," she said to Jenny, who betrayed her mental pre-occupation by putting the question for the questions last.
Her Uncle Melville next received a visit from the restless young woman.
To him she spoke not a word of the inferior cla.s.ses, but as a special favourite of the diplomatist"s, begged a gift of him for her proximate birthday. Pushed to explain what it was, she said, "It"s something I want you to do for a friend of mine, Uncle Mel."
The diplomatist instanced a few of the modest requests little maids prefer to people they presume to have power to grant.
"No, it"s nothing nonsensical," said Rose; "I want you to get my friend Evan an appointment. You can if you like, you know, Uncle Mel, and it"s a shame to make him lose his time when he"s young and does his work so well--that you can"t deny! Now, please, be positive, Uncle Mel. You know I hate--I have no faith in your "nous verrons". Say you will, and at once."
The diplomatist pretended to have his weather-eye awakened.
"You seem very anxious about feathering the young fellow"s nest, Rosey?"
"There," cried Rose, with the maiden"s mature experience of us, "isn"t that just like men? They never can believe you can be entirely disinterested!"
"Hulloa!" the diplomatist sung out, "I didn"t say anything, Rosey."
She reddened at her hastiness, but retrieved it by saying:
"No, but you listen to your wife; you know you do, Uncle Mel; and now there"s Aunt Shorne and the other women, who make you think just what they like about me, because they hate Mama."
"Don"t use strong words, my dear."
"But it"s abominable!" cried Rose. "They asked Mama yesterday what Evan"s being here meant? Why, of course, he"s your secretary, and my friend, and Mama very properly stopped them, and so will I! As for me, I intend to stay at Beckley, I can tell you, dear old boy." Uncle Mel had a soft arm round his neck, and was being fondled. "And I "m not going to be bred up to go into a harem, you may be sure."
The diplomatist whistled, "You talk your mother with a vengeance, Rosey."
"And she"s the only sensible woman I know," said Rose. "Now promise me--in earnest. Don"t let them mislead you, for you know you"re quite a child, out of your politics, and I shall take you in hand myself. Why, now, think, Uncle Mel! wouldn"t any girl, as silly as they make me out, hold her tongue--not talk of him, as I do; and because I really do feel for him as a friend. See the difference between me and Juley!"
It was a sad sign if Rose was growing a bit of a hypocrite, but this instance of Juliana"s different manner of showing her feelings toward Evan would have quieted suspicion in shrewder men, for Juliana watched Evan"s shadow, and it was thought by two or three at Beckley Court, that Evan would be conferring a benefit on all by carrying off the romantically-inclined but little presentable young lady.
The diplomatist, with a placid "Well, well!" ultimately promised to do his best for Rose"s friend, and then Rose said, "Now I leave you to the Countess," and went and sat with her mother and Drummond Forth.
The latter was strange in his conduct to Evan. While blaming Laxley"s unmannered behaviour, he seemed to think Laxley had grounds for it, and treated Evan with a sort of cynical deference that had, for the last couple of days, exasperated Rose.
"Mama, you must speak to Ferdinand," she burst upon the conversation, "Drummond is afraid to--he can stand by and see my friend insulted.
Ferdinand is insufferable with his pride--he"s jealous of everybody who has manners, and Drummond approves him, and I will not bear it."
Lady Jocelyn hated household worries, and quietly remarked that the young men must fight it out together.
"No, but it"s your duty to interfere, Mama," said Rose; "and I know you will when I tell you that Ferdinand declares my friend Evan is a tradesman--beneath his notice. Why, it insults me!"
Lady Jocelyn looked out from a lofty window on such veritable squabbles of boys and girls as Rose revealed.
"Can"t you help them to run on smoothly while they"re here?" she said to Drummond, and he related the scene at the Green Dragon.
"I think I heard he was the son of Sir Something Harrington, Devonshire people," said Lady Jocelyn.
"Yes, he is," cried Rose, "or closely related. I"m sure I understood the Countess that it was so. She brought the paper with the death in it to us in London, and shed tears over it."
"She showed it in the paper, and shed tears over it?" said Drummond, repressing an inclination to laugh. "Was her father"s t.i.tle given in full?"
"Sir Abraham Harrington, replied Rose. "I think she said father, if the word wasn"t too common-place for her."
"You can ask old Tom when he comes, if you are anxious to know," said Drummond to her ladyship. "His brother married one of the sisters. By the way, he"s coming, too. He ought to clear up the mystery."