Lady Jane was kind, ill-tempered, capricious; played wildly, lazily, badly.
"Do you like people in spite of great faults ever, Beatrix?" she asked, suddenly.
"Every one has great faults," said Trixie, sporting a little bit of philosophy.
"No, they have not; there are very good people, and I hate them," said Lady Jane, swinging her mallet slowly like a pendulum, and gazing with her dark deep eyes full into her companion"s face.
"Hate the good people!" exclaimed Beatrix; "then how do you feel towards the bad?"
"There are some whose badness suits me, and I like them; there are others whose badness does not, and them I hate as much as the good almost."
Trixie was puzzled; but she concluded that Lady Jane was in one of her odd moods, and venting her ill temper in those shocking eruptions of levity.
"How old are you, Beatrix?"
"Nineteen."
"Ha! and I am five-and-twenty--six years. There is a great deal learned in those six years. I don"t recollect what I was like when I was nineteen."
She did not sigh; Lady Jane was not given to sighing, but her face looked sad and sullen.
"It all came of my having no friend," she said, abruptly. "Not one. That stupid old woman might have been one, but she would not. I had no one--it was fate; and here I am, such as I am, and I don"t blame myself or anything. But I wish I had one true friend."
"I am sure, Lady Jane, you must have many friends," said Beatrix.
"Don"t be a little hypocrite, Beatrix; why should I more than another?
Friends are not picked up like daisies as we walk along. If you have neither mother nor sisters, nor kith nor kin to care about you, you will find it hard to make strangers do so. As for old Lady Alice, I think she always hated me; she did nothing but pick holes in everything I said or did; I never heard anything from her but the old story of my faults. And then I was thrown among women of the world--heartless, headless creatures. I don"t blame them, they knew no better--perhaps there is no better; but I do blame that egotistical old woman, who, if she had but controlled her temper, might have been of so much use to me, and _would_ not. Religion, and good principles, and all that, whether it is true or false, is the safest plan; and I think if she had been moderately kind and patient, she might have made me as good as others. Don"t look at me as if I had two heads, dear. I"m not charging myself with any enormity.
I only say it is the happiest way, even if it be the way of fools."
"Shall we play any more?" inquired Beatrix, after a sufficient pause had intervened to soften the transition.
"Yes, certainly. Which is my ball?"
"The red. You are behind your hoop."
"Yes; and--and it seems to me, Beatrix, you are a cold little stick, like your grandmamma, as you call her, though she"s no grandmamma of yours."
"Think me as stupid as you please, but you must not think me cold; and, indeed, you wrong poor old granny."
"We"ll talk no more of her. I think her a fool and a savage. Come, it"s your turn, is not it, to play?"
So the play went on for a while in silence, except for those questions and comments without which it can hardly proceed.
"And now you have won, have not you?" said Lady Jane.
"Should you like another game?" asked Beatrix.
"Maybe by-and-by; and--I sometimes wish you liked me, Beatrix; but I don"t know you, and you are little better than a child still; and--no--it could not be--it never could--you"d be sure to hate me in a little while."
"But I do like you, Lady Jane. I liked you very much in London, you were so kind; and I don"t know why you were so changed to me when you came here; you seem to have taken a positive dislike to me."
"So I had, child--I detested you," said Lady Jane, but in a tone that had something mocking in it. "Everything has grown--how shall I express it?--disgusting to me--yes, _disgusting_. You had done nothing to cause it; you need not look so contrite. I could not help it either. I am odious--and I can"t love or like anybody."
"I am sure, Lady Jane, you are not at all like what you describe."
"You think me faultless, do you?"
Beatrix smiled.
"Well, I see you don"t. What _is_ my fault?" demanded Lady Jane, looking on her not with a playful, but with a lowering countenance.
"It is a very conceited office--pointing out other people"s faults, even if one understood them, which I do not."
"Well, I give you leave; tell me one, to begin with," persisted Lady Jane Lennox.
Beatrix laughed.
"I wish, Lady Jane, if you insist on my telling your faults, that you would not look so stern."
"Stern--do I?" said Lady Jane; "I did not intend; it was not with you, but myself, that I was angry; not angry either, for my faults have been caused by other people, and to say truth, I don"t very much wish to mend them."
"No, Lady Jane," said Beatrix, merrily. "I won"t say in cold blood anything disagreeable. I don"t say, mind, that I really could tell you any one fault you may fancy you have--but I won"t try."
"Well, let us walk round this oval; I"ll tell you what you think. You think I am capricious--and so I may appear--but I am not; on the contrary, my likings or aversions are always on good grounds, and last very long. I don"t say people always know the grounds, but they know it is not whim; they know--those that have experienced either--that my love and aversion are both very steady. You think I am ill-tempered, too, but I am not--I am isolated and unhappy; but my temper is easy to get on with--and I don"t know why I am talking to you," she exclaimed, with a sudden change in her looks and tone, "as if you and I could ever by any possibility become friends. Good-bye, Beatrix; I see your grandmamma beckoning."
So she was--leaning upon the arm of her maid, a wan lank figure--motioning her toward her.
"Coming, grandmamma," cried Beatrix, and smiled, and turning to say a parting word to Lady Jane, she perceived that she was already moving some way off toward the house.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
General Lennox receives a Letter.
Monsieur Varbarriere was charmed with his host this morning. Sir Jekyl spent more than an hour in pointing out and ill.u.s.trating the princ.i.p.al objects in the panorama that spread before and beneath them as they stood with field-gla.s.ses scanning the distance, and a very agreeable showman he made.
Very cheery and healthful among the breezy copse to make this sort of rural survey. As they parted in the hall, Monsieur Varbarriere spoke his eloquent appreciation of the beauties of the surrounding country; and then, having letters to despatch by the post, he took his leave, and strode up with pounding steps to his dressing-room.
Long before he reached it, his smile had quite subsided, and it was with a solemn and stern countenance that he entered and nodded to his valet, whom he found awaiting him there.
"Well, Jacques, any more offers? Does Sir Jekyl still wish to engage you?"
"I can a.s.sure Monsieur there has not been a word since upon that affair."
"_Good!_" said Monsieur Varbarriere, after a second"s scrutiny of the valet"s dark, smirking visage.