"My dear Constance"--so it ran--"I should like to make your acquaintance, and I hear that you are at Oxford with your uncle. I would come and see you but that I never leave home. Oxford, too, depresses me dreadfully. Why should people learn such a lot of useless things? We are being ruined by all this education. However, what I meant to say was that Winifred and I would be glad to see you here if you care to come.
Winifred, by the way, is quite aware that she behaved like a fool twenty-two years ago. But as you weren"t born then, we suggest it shouldn"t matter. We have all done foolish things. I, for instance, invented a dress--a kind of bloomer thing--only it wasn"t a bloomer. I took a shop for it in Bond Street, and it nearly ruined me. But I muddled through--that"s our English way, isn"t it?--and somehow things come right. Now, I am very political, and Winifred"s very churchy--it doesn"t really matter what you take up. So do come. You can bring your maid and have a sitting-room. n.o.body would interfere with you. But, of course, we should introduce you to some nice people. If you are a sensible girl--and I expect you are, for your father was a very clever man--you must know that you ought to marry as soon as possible. There aren"t many young men about here. What becomes of all the young men in England, I"m sure I don"t know. But there are a few--and quite possible.
There are the Kenbarrows, about four miles off--a large family--_nouveaux riches_--the father made b.u.t.tons, or something of the kind. But the children are all most presentable, and enormously rich.
And, of course, there are the Fallodens--quite near--Mr. and Lady Laura, Douglas, the eldest son, a girl of seventeen, and two children. You"ll probably see Douglas at Oxford. Oh, I believe Sir Arthur Falloden, _pere_, told me the other day you had already met him somewhere.
Winifred and I don"t like Douglas. But that"s neither here nor there.
He"s a magnificent creature, who can"t be bothered with old ladies.
He"ll no doubt make himself agreeable to you--_cela va sans dire_. I don"t altogether like what I hear sometimes about the Fallodens. Of course Sir Arthur"s very rich, but they say he"s been speculating enormously, and that he"s been losing a good deal of money lately.
However, I don"t suppose it matters. Their place, Flood Castle, is really splendid--old to begin with, and done up! They have copied the Americans and given every room a bathroom. Absurd extravagance! And think of the plumbing! It was that kind of thing gave the Prince of Wales typhoid. I hate drains!
"Well, anyway, do come and see us. Sophia Langmoor tells me she has written to you, and if you go to her, you might come on here afterwards.
Winifred who has just read this letter says it will "put you off." I don"t see why it should. I certainly don"t want it to. I"m downright, I know, but I"m not hypocritical. The world"s just run on white lies nowadays--and I can"t stand it. I don"t tell any--if I can help.
"Oh, and there is Penfold Rectory not very far off--and a very nice man there, though too "broad" for Winifred. He tells me he"s going to have some people staying with him--a Mr. Sorell, and a young musician with a Polish name--I can"t remember it. Mr. Sorell"s going to coach the young man, or something. They"re to be paying guests, for a month at least.
Mr. Powell was Mr. Sorell"s college tutor--and Mr. Powell"s dreadfully poor--so I"m glad. No wife, mercifully!
"Anyway, you see, there are plenty of people about. Do come.
"I am, dear Constance, Your affectionate aunt, MARCIA RISBOROUGH."
"Now what on earth am I going to do about that?" said Constance, tossing the letter over to Annette.
"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Hooper are going, cook says, to the Isle of Wight, and Miss Alice is going with them," said Annette, "and Miss Nora"s going to join them after a bit in Scotland."
"I know all that," said Constance impatiently. "The question is--do you see me sitting in lodgings at Ryde with Aunt Ellen for five or six weeks, doing a little fancy-work, and walking out with Aunt Ellen and Alice on the pier?"
Annette laughed discreetly over her knitting, but said nothing.
"No," said Connie decidedly. "That can"t be done. I shall have to sample Aunt Marcia. I must speak to Uncle Ewen to-morrow. Now put the light out, please, Annette; I"m going to sleep."
But it was some time before she went to sleep. The night was hot and thunderous, and her windows were wide open. Drifting in came the ever-recurring bells of Oxford, from the boom of the Christ Church "Tom," far away, through every variety of nearer tone. Connie lay and sleepily listened to them. To her they were always voices, half alive, half human, to which the dreaming mind put words that varied with the mood of the dreamer.
Presently, she breathed a soft good night into the darkness--"Mummy--mummy darling! good night!" It was generally her last waking thought. But suddenly another--which brought with it a rush of excitement--interposed between her and sleep.
"Tuesday," she murmured--"Mr. Sorell says the schools will be over by Tuesday. I wonder!--"
And again the bluebell carpet seemed to be all round her--the light and fragrance and colour of the wood. And the man on the black horse beside her was bending towards her, all his harsh strength subdued, for the moment, to the one end of pleasing her. She saw the smile in his dark eyes; and the touch of sarcastic _brusquerie_ in the smile, that could rouse her own fighting spirit, as the touch of her whip roused the brown mare.
"Am I really so late?" said Connie, in distress, running downstairs the following afternoon to find the family and various guests waiting for her in the hall.
"Well, I hope we shan"t miss everybody," said Alice sharply. "How late are we?"
She turned to Herbert Pryce.
The young don smiled and evaded the question.
"Nearly half an hour!" said Alice. "Of course they"ll think we"re not coming."
"They" were another section of the party who were taking a couple of boats round from the lower river, and were to meet the walkers coming across the Parks, at the Cherwell.
"Dreadfully sorry!" said Connie, who had opened her eyes, however, as though Alice"s tone astonished her. "But my watch has gone quite mad."
"It does it every afternoon!" murmured Alice to a girl friend of Nora"s who was going with the party. It was an aside, but plainly heard by Constance--whose cheeks flushed.
She turned appealingly to Herbert Pryce.
"Please carry my waterproof, while I b.u.t.ton my gloves." Pryce was enchanted. As the party left the house, he and Constance walked on together, ahead of the others. She put on her most charming manners, and the young man was more than flattered.
What was it, he asked himself, complacently, that gave her such a delicate distinction? Her grey dress, and soft grey hat, were, he supposed, perfect of their kind. But Oxford in the summer term was full of pretty dresses. No, it must be her ease, her sureness of herself that banished any awkward self-consciousness both in herself and her companions, and allowed a man to do himself justice.
He forgot her recent snubs and went off at score about his own affairs, his college, his prospects of winning a famous mathematical prize given by the Berlin Academy, his own experience of German Universities, and the shortcomings of Oxford. On these last he became scornfully voluble.
He was inclined to think he should soon cut it, and go in for public life. These university towns were really very narrowing!
"Certainly," said Constance amiably. Was he thinking of Parliament?
Well, no, not at once. But journalism was always open to a man with brains, and through journalism one got into the House, when the chance came along. The House of Commons was dangerously in want of new blood.
"I am certain I could speak," he said ardently. "I have made several attempts here, and I may say they have always come off."
Constance threw him a shy glance. She was thinking of a dictum of Uncle Ewen"s which he had delivered to her on a walk some days previously.
"What is it makes the mathematicians such fools? They never seem to grow up. They tell us they"re splendid fellows, and of course we must believe them. But who"s to know?"
Meanwhile, Alice and Sorell followed them at some distance behind, while Mrs. Hooper and three or four other members of the party brought up the rear. Scroll"s look was a little clouded. He had heard what pa.s.sed in the hall, and he found himself glancing uncomfortably from the girl beside him to the pair forging so gaily ahead. Alice Hooper"s expression seemed to him that of something weak and tortured. All through the winter, in the small world of Oxford, the flirtation between Pryce of Beaumont and Ewen Hooper"s eldest girl had been a conspicuous thing, even for those who had little or no personal knowledge of the Hoopers.
It was noticed with amus.e.m.e.nt that Pryce had at last found some one to whom he might talk as long and egotistically as he pleased about himself and his career; and kindly mothers had said to each other that it would be a comfort to the Hoopers to have one of the daughters settled, though in a modest way.
"It is pleasant to see that your cousin enjoys Oxford so much," said Sorell, as they neared the museum, and saw Pryce and Connie disappearing through the gate of the park.
"Yes. She seems to like it," said Alice coldly.
Sorell began to talk of his first acquaintance with the Risboroughs, and of Connie"s mother. There was no hint in what he said of his own pa.s.sionate affection for his dead friends. He was not a profaner of shrines. But what he said brought out the vastness of Connie"s loss in the death of her mother; and he repeated something of what he had heard from others of her utter physical and mental collapse after the double tragedy of the year before.
"Of course you"ll know more about it than I do. But one of the English doctors in Rome, who is a friend of mine, told me that they thought at one time they couldn"t pull her through. She seemed to have nothing else to live for."
"Oh, I don"t think it was as bad as that," said Alice drily. "Anyway, she"s quite well and strong now."
"She"s found a home again. That"s a great comfort to all her mother"s old friends."
Sorell smiled upon his companion; the sensitive kindness in his own nature appealing to the natural pity in hers.
But Alice made no reply; and he dropped the subject.
They walked across the park, under a wide summer sky, towards the winding river, and the low blue hills beyond it. At the Cherwell boat-house they found the two boats, with four or five men, and Nora, as usual, taking charge of everything, at least till Herbert Pryce should appear.
Connie was just stepping into the foremost boat, a.s.sisted by Herbert Pryce, who was in his shirt-sleeves, while Lord Meyrick and another Marmion man were already in the boat.
"Sorell, will you stroke the other boat?" said Pryce, "and Miss Nora, will you have a cushion in the bows? Now I think we"re made up. No--we want another lady. And running his eyes over those still standing on the bank, he called a plump little woman, the wife of a Llandaff tutor, who had been walking with Mrs. Hooper.