"The chamber green. Yes, very clever, very pretty;" and having eyed them over again carefully, he said, laying them down--
"A curious as well as a handsome old house, no doubt. Ah! very curious, I dare say," said the sage Monsieur Varbarriere. "Are there here the ground plans?"
"We have them somewhere, I fancy, among the t.i.tle-deeds, but none here,"
said Sir Jekyl, a little stiffly, as if it struck him that his visitor"s curiosity was a trifle less ceremonious than, all things considered, it might be.
Pretty Beatrix was singing now to her own accompaniment; and Captain Drayton, twisting the end of his light moustache, stood haughtily by her side. The music in his ear was but a half-heard noise. Indeed, although he had sat out operas innumerable, like other young gentlemen, who would sit out as many hours of a knife-grinder"s performance, or of a railway whistle, if it were the fashion, had but an imperfect recollection of the airs he had paid so handsomely to hear, and was no authority on music of any sort.
Now Beatrix was pretty--more than pretty. Some people called her lovely.
She sang in that rich and plaintive contralto--so rare and so inexplicably moving--the famous "Come Gentil," from Don Pasquale. When she ceased, the gentleman at her other side, Guy Strangways, sighed--not a complimentary--a real sigh.
"That is a wonderful song, the very spirit of a serenade. Such distance--such gaiety--such sadness. Your Irish poet, Thomas Moore, compares some spiritual music or kind voice to sunshine spoken. This is _moonlight_--moonlight _sung_, and _so_ sung that I could dream away half a life in listening, and yet sigh when it ceases."
Mr. Guy Strangway"s strange, dark eyes looked full on her, as with an admiring enthusiasm he said these words.
The young lady smiled, looking up for a moment from the music-stool, and then with lowered eyes again, and that smile of gratification which is so beautiful in a lovely girl"s face.
"It is quite charming, really. I"m no musician, you know; but I enjoy good music extravagantly, especially singing," said Captain Drayton. "I don"t aspire to talk sentiment and that kind of poetry." He was, perhaps, near using a stronger term--"a mere John Bull; but it _is_, honestly, charming."
He had his gla.s.s in his eye, and turned back the leaf of the song to the t.i.tle-page.
"Don Pasquale--yes. Sweet opera that. How often I have listened to Mario in it! But never, Miss Marlowe, with more real pleasure than to the charming performance I have just heard."
Captain Drayton was not making his compliment well, and felt it somehow.
It was clumsy--it was dull--it was meant to override the tribute offered by Guy Strangways, whose presence he chose, in modern phrase, to ignore; and yet he felt that he had, as he would have expressed it, rather "put his foot in it;" and, with just a little flush in his cheek and rather angry eyes, he stooped over the piano and read the Italian words half aloud.
"By-the-bye," he said, suddenly recollecting a topic, "what a sweet scene that is of Gryston Bridge? Have you ever been to see it before?"
"Once since we came, we rode there, papa and I," answered Miss Marlowe.
"It looked particularly well this evening--quite beautiful in the moonlight."
"Is it possible, Miss Marlowe, that _you_ were there this evening? I and my uncle stopped on our way here to admire the exquisite effect of the steep old bridge, with a wonderful foreground of Druidic monuments, as they seemed to me."
"Does your father preserve that river?" asked Captain Drayton, coolly pretermitting Mr. Strangways altogether.
"I really don"t know," she replied, in a slight and hurried way that nettled the Captain; and, turning to Guy Strangways, she said, "Did you see it _from_ the bridge?"
"No, Mademoiselle; from the mound in which those curious stones are raised," answered Mr. Strangways.
Captain Drayton felt that Miss Marlowe"s continuing to talk to Mr.
Strangways, while _he_ was present and willing to converse, was extremely offensive, choosing to entertain a low opinion in all respects of that person. He stooped a little forward, and stared at the stranger with that ill-bred gaze of insolent surprise which is the peculiar weapon of Englishmen, and which very distinctly expresses, "who the devil are you?"
Perhaps it was fortunate for the harmony of the party that just at this moment, and before Captain Drayton could say anything specially impertinent, Sir Jekyl touched Drayton on the shoulder, saying--
"Are you for whist?"
"No, thanks--I"m no player."
"Oh! Mr. Strangways--I did not see--do _you_ play?"
Mr. Strangways smiled, bowed, and shook his head.
"Drayton, did I present you to Mr. Strangways?" and the Baronet made the two young gentlemen technically known to one another--though, of course, each knew the other already.
They bowed rather low, and a little haughtily, neither smiling. I suppose Sir Jekyl saw something a little dangerous in the countenance of one at least of the gentlemen as he approached, and chose to remind them, in that agreeable way, that he was present, and wished them acquainted, and of course friendly.
He had now secured old Colonel Doocey to make up his party--the sober old Frenchman and Sir Paul Blunket making the supplementary two; and before they had taken their chairs round the card-table, Captain Drayton said, with a kind of inclination rather insolent than polite--
"You are of the Dilbury family, of course? I never knew a Strangways yet--I mean, of course, a Strangways such as one would be likely to meet, you know--who was not."
"You know one now, sir; for I am not connected ever so remotely with that distinguished family. My family are quite another Strangways."
"No doubt quite as respectable," said Captain Drayton, with a bow, a look, and a tone that would have pa.s.sed for deferential with many; but which, nevertheless, had the subtle flavour of an irony in it.
"Perhaps more so; my ancestors are the Strangways of Lynton; you are aware they had a peerage down to the reign of George II."
Captain Drayton was not as deep as so fashionable and moneyed a man ought to have been in extinct peerages, and therefore he made a little short supercilious bow, and no answer. He looked drowsily toward the ceiling, and then--
"The Strangways of Lynton are on the Continent or something--one does not hear of them," said Captain Drayton, slightly but grandly. "We are the Draytons of Drayton Forest, in the same county."
"Oh! then my uncle is misinformed. He thought that family was extinct, and lamented over it when we saw the house and place at a distance."
Captain Drayton coloured a little above his light yellow moustache. He was no Drayton, but a remotely collateral Smithers, with a queen"s letter const.i.tuting him a Drayton.
"Aw--yes--it is a fine old place--quite misinformed. I can show you our descent if you wish it."
If Drayton had collected his ideas a little first he would not have made this condescension.
"Your descent is high and pure--_very_ high, I a.s.sume--mine is only respectable--presentable, as you say, but by no means so high as to warrant my inquiring into that of other people."
"Inquiry! of course. I did not say inquiry," and with an effort Captain Drayton almost laughed.
"Nothing more dull," acquiesced Mr. Strangways slightly.
Both gentlemen paused--each seemed to expect something from the other--each seemed rather angrily listening for it. The ostensible attack had all been on the part of the gallant Captain, who certainly had not been particularly well bred. The Captain, nevertheless, felt that Mr. Strangways knew perfectly all about Smithers, and that Smithers really had not one drop of the Drayton blood in his veins; and he felt in the sore and secret centre of his soul that the polished, handsome young gentleman, so easy, so graceful, with that suspicion of a foreign accent and of foreign gesture, had the best of the unavowed battle. He had never spoken a word or looked a look in the course of this little dialogue which could have suggested an idea of altercation, or any kind of mutual unpleasantness, to the beautiful young girl; who, with one hand on the keys of the piano, touched them so lightly with her fingers as to call forth a dream of an air rather than the air itself.
To her Guy Strangways turned, with his peculiar smile--so winning, yet so deep--an enigmatic smile that had in it a latent sadness and fierceness, and by its very ambiguousness interested one.
"I upbraid myself for losing these precious moments while you sit here, and might, perhaps, be persuaded to charm us with another song."
So she was persuaded; Captain Drayton still keeping guard, and applauding, though with no special goodwill toward the unoffending stranger.
The party broke up early. The ladies trooped to their bed-room candles and ascended the great staircase, chatting harmoniously, and bidding mutual sweet goodnights as in succession they reached their doors. The gentlemen, having sat for awhile lazily about the fire, or gathered round the tray whereon stood sherry and seltzer water, repaired also to the cl.u.s.ter of bedchamber candlesticks without, and helped themselves, talking together in like sociable manner.
"Would you like to come to my room and have a cigar, Monsieur Varbarriere?" asked the Baronet in French.
Monsieur was much obliged, and bowed very suavely, but declined.
"And you, Mr. Strangways?"