"Do you ever mean to come over to breakfast with us?" asked Lady Vyner.
"The promise has been made and renewed, I think, a dozen times."
"May I say next Sunday, then?"
"And you"ll promise to come to church with us afterwards?" cried Lady Vyner.
He muttered something with a smile to Miss Courtenay, and she turned away abruptly, but ere she drew down her veil her face betokened the reverse of displeasure.
Though, as they drove homeward, the unpleasant explanation that lay before them engaged much of their thoughts, taxing all their address how to encounter its difficulty, yet, from time to time, Georgina would return to talk of the house they had just quitted, and the host.
"It is easy enough to see why our straitlaced neighbours do not take to him," said she; "he is too much a man of the world--too tolerant and forgiving for their notions."
"A little too lax, also, for the proprieties of English life," added Lady Vyner.
"For its hypocrisies, if you like, Laura. I"m certain people are pretty much the same everywhere, though the way they talk about themselves may be very different."
"I suspect he has made a conquest, Georgy," said her sister, laughing; "or rather, that his magnificent old castle, and his Vand.y.k.es, and his pineries, and his conservatory have----"
"No! that I protest against. His "accessories," as the French would call them, are undeniable. It is a house absolutely princely in all its details; but I think he himself is the gem of the collection. He is so courteous and so pleasant, so anecdotic, and so full of all manner of _apropos_, and then so utterly unlike every one else that one knows."
"I suppose there lies his chief attraction. We have to measure him with people all whose thoughts and ideas are so essentially homely, and who must of necessity be eternally talking of themselves--that is, of their own turnpike, their own turnips, and their own c.o.c.k pheasants."
"Is it not strange that he never married?" said Georgina, after a silence.
"I don"t think so. He"s not a man that would be likely to marry, and very far from being one that a woman would like to take as a husband."
"Do you think so--do you really think so?"
"I"m certain of it. All those charming little schemes for our entertainment that captivated us a while ago, show a degree of care and attention bestowed on little things which would make life a perfect servitude. Cannot you imagine him spending his mornings giving audience to his cook, and listening to the report of his gardener? I fancy I see him in the midst of a levee of domestics, gravely listening to the narrative of the last twenty-four hours of his household."
"So far from that," said Georgina, warmly, "he told me Bernais did everything--engaged and discharged servants, changed furniture, rearranged rooms, and, in fact, managed little daily "surprises" for him, that, as he said, compensated for much of the solitude in which he lived."
"But why does he live in solitude? Why not go back to the life and the places that habit has endeared to him?"
"He told me to-day that he intended to do so; that he is only waiting for the visit of a certain relative, Mr. Ladarelle; after which he means to set out for Italy."
"Ladarelle is the great banker, and, if I mistake not, his heir." "Yes.
Sir Within says that they scarcely know each other, and have all that dislike and distrust that usually separate the man in possession and the man in expectancy."
"One can fancy how distasteful his heir must be to a man like Sir Within Wardle," said Lady Vyner.
"To any man, sister," broke in Georgina--"to any man who only knows the person as the inheritor of his fortune. I declare I think Sir Within spoke of the Ladarelles with much forbearance, aware, as he is, that they are coming down here to see in what state of repair the castle is, and whether the oaks are being thinned more actively than a mere regard for their welfare would exact."
"Did Sir Within say that?" asked Lady Vyner, with a laugh. "No; but _I_ guessed it!" "Well, he supplied the text for your theory?" "In a measure, perhaps. It was when you went with Groves to look at the large cactus he told me this, and mentioned that, by a singular provision, though the estate is strictly entailed, he could charge the property to any extent with jointure if he married; and perhaps, said he, my worthy relatives are anxious to satisfy themselves that this event has not, nor is very likely to occur."
"Not now, certainly?" said Lady Vyner, with a saucy laugh. "I don"t know. There are many women well to do, and well off, would marry him."
"That is to say, there are a considerable number of women who would sacrifice much for money."
Miss Courtenay was silent; when she next spoke, it was about the evening--the air was growing fresh, and the twilight deepening. "I wonder in what mood we are to find Mr. M"Kinlay--if we are to find him at all."
"I own it would be very awkward; but I am such a coward about meeting him, that I half wish he had gone away, and that we were left to make our lame excuses in a letter."
"I have to confess that the matter sits very lightly on _my_ conscience," said Georgina, "though I am the real delinquent. I don"t like him, and I shall not be very unhappy if he knows it."
"Possibly enough, but such a breach of all politeness----"
"My dear Laura, he has met this incident, or something very like it, a hundred times. Earls and Viscounts have made appointments with him and forgotten him; he has been left standing on that terrace, or pacing moodily up that street, for hours long, and, as Sir Within said very smartly, consoled by the item that would record it in the bill of costs."
"Yes, I remember the remark; it struck me as the only bit of vulgarity about him."
"Vulgarity! Sir Within Wardle vulgar!"
"Well, I have no other word for it, Georgy. It was the observation that might readily have come from any ordinary and common-place person, and sounded unsuitably from the lips of a very polished gentleman."
"Poor Sir Within! if in a gloomy moment you may be wondering to yourself what harsh or envious things your wealth, your splendour, and your taste may have provoked from us, I am certain that you never imagined that the imputation of being vulgar was one of them!"
Fortunately there was no time to continue a theme so threatening to be unpleasant, for already they were at the gate lodge, and a loud summons with the bell had announced their arrival.
CHAPTER IX. MR. M"KINLAY"S TRIALS
Mr. M"Kinlay was awakened from a pleasant nap oyer the "Man of Feeling,"
which he had persuaded himself he was reading with all the enjoyment it had once afforded him, by the French clock oyer the mantelpiece performing a lively waltz, and then striking five!
He started, rubbed his eyes, and looked about him, not very certain for some minutes where he was. The hum of the bees, the oppressive perfume of the sweetbriar and the jessamine, and the gentle drip-drip of a little trickling rivulet over some rock-work, seemed still to steep his senses in a pleasant dreamy languor, and a sort of terror seized him that the ladies might possibly have come in, and found him there asleep.
He rang the bell and summoned Rickards at once.
"Where are the ladies?" asked he, eagerly.
"Not come back yet, Sir. It"s very seldom they stay out so long. I can make nothing of it."
"You told her Ladyship I was here, didn"t you?"
"I told Miss Georgina, Sir, and of course she told my Lady."
"What"s your dinner-hour?"
"Always early, Sir, when Sir Gervais is from home. My Lady likes four, or half-past."
"And it"s five now!"
"Yes, Sir; a quarter-past five. It"s the strangest thing I ever knew,"
said he, going to the window, which commanded a view of the road at several of its windings through the valley. "We have an excellent lake trout for dinner; but by good luck it"s to be grilled, not boiled, or it would be ruined utterly."
"Capital things, those red trout," said M"Kinlay, to whom, like most of his craft and way of life, the pleasures of the table offered great temptations. "Is your cook a good one, Rickards?"