"No, miss. Only she said she had heard you were living here, and she would like to see you, please."
Milly"s relations had lived in Thorley. Thus she knew Mrs. Bundlecombe by sight, and, being somewhat inquisitive by nature, she had already tried to draw the visitor into conversation, but without success.
"Show her in," said Lettice, after a moment"s pause. It was pleasant, after all, to meet a "kent face" in London solitudes, and she felt quite kindly towards Mrs. Bundlecombe, whom she had sometimes seen over the counter in her shop at Thorley. So she received her with gentle cordiality.
Mrs. Bundlecombe showed symptoms of embarra.s.sment at the quiet friendliness of Lettice"s manners. She was not a person of aristocratic appearance, for she was short and very stout, and florid into the bargain; but her broad face was both shrewd and kindly, and her grey eyes were observant and good-humored. Her grey hair was arranged in three flat curls, fastened with small black combs on each side of her face, which was rosy and wrinkled like a russet apple, and her full purple skirt, her big bonnet, adorned with bows of scarlet ribbon, and her much be-furbelowed and be-spangled dolman, attested the fact that she had donned her best clothes for the occasion of her visit, and that Thorley fashions differed from those of the metropolis. She wore gloves with one b.u.t.ton, moreover, and boots with elastic sides.
Mrs. Bundlecombe seemed to have some difficulty in coming to the point.
She told Lettice much Angleford news, including a piece of information that interested her a good deal: namely, that the old squire, after many years of suffering, was dead, and that his nephew, Mr. Brooke Dalton, had at last succeeded to the property. "He"s not there very much, however: he leaves the house pretty much to his sister, Miss Edith Dalton; but it"s to be hoped that he"ll marry soon and bring a lady to the place."
Lettice wondered again why Mrs. Bundlecombe had called upon her. There seemed very little point in her remarks. But the good woman had a very sufficient reason for her call. She was a practical-minded person, and she was moreover a literary woman in her way, as behoved the widow of a bookseller who had herself taken to selling books. It is true that her acquaintance with the works of British authors did not extend far beyond their t.i.tles, but it was to her credit that she contrived to make so much as she did out of her materials. She might have known as many insides of books as she knew outsides, and have put them to less practical service.
"Well," she said, after a quarter of an hour"s incessant talk, "you will be wondering what brought me here, and to be sure, miss, I hardly like to say it now I"ve come; but, as I argued with myself, the rights of man are the rights of man, and to do your best by them who depend on you is the whole duty of man, which applies, I take it, to woman also. And when my poor dear husband died, I thought the path of duty was marked out for me, and I went through my daily exercises, so to speak, just as he had done for forty years. But times were bad, and I could make nothing of it. He had ways of selling books that I could never understand, and I soon saw that the decline and fall was setting in. So I have sold the business for what it would fetch, and paid all that was owing, and I can a.s.sure you that there is very little left. I have a nephew in London who is something in the writing way himself. He used to live with us at Thorley, and he is a dear dutiful boy, but he has had great troubles; so I am going to keep his rooms for him, and take care of his linen, and look after things a bit. I came up to-day to talk to him about it.
"Well, Miss Campion, the long and short of it is that as I was looking over my husband"s state doc.u.ments, so to speak, which he had kept in a private drawer, and which I had never found until I was packing up to go, I found a paper signed by your respected father, less than three months before my good man went to his saint"s everlasting rest. You see, miss, it is an undertaking to pay Samuel Bundlecombe the sum of twenty pounds in six months from date, for value received, but owing to my husband dying that sudden, and not telling me of his private drawer, this paper was never presented."
Lettice took the paper and read it, feeling rather sick at heart, for two or three reasons. If her father had made this promise she felt sure that he would either have kept it or have put down the twenty pounds in his list of debts. The list, indeed, which had been handed to Sydney was in her own writing, and certainly the name of Bundlecombe was not included in it. Was the omission her fault? If the money had never been paid, that was what she would prefer to believe.
"I thought, miss," her visitor continued, "that there might be some mention of this in Mr. Campion"s papers, and, having heard that all the accounts were properly settled, I made bold to bring it to your notice.
It is a kind of social contract, you see, and a solemn league and covenant, as between man and man, which I am sure you would like to settle if the means exist. Not but what it seems a shame to come to a lady on such an errand; and I may tell you miss, fair and candid, that I have been to Mr. Sydney Campion in the Temple, who does not admit that he is liable. That may be law, or it may not, but I do consider that this signature ought to be worth the money."
Lettice took the paper again. There could be no doubt as to its genuineness, and the fact that Sydney had denied his liability influenced her in some subtle manner to do what she had already half resolved to do without that additional argument.
She looked at the box in which she had put her twenty pounds, and she looked at her father"s signature. Then she opened the box and took out the notes.
"You did quite right in coming, Mrs. Bundlecombe. This is certainly my father"s handwriting, and I suppose that if the debt had been settled the paper would not have remained in your husband"s possession. Here is the money."
The old woman could scarcely believe her eyes; but she pocketed the notes with great satisfaction, and began to express her admiration for such honorable conduct in a very voluble manner. Lettice cut her short and got rid of her, and then, if the truth must be confessed, she sat down and had a comfortable cry over the speedy dissipation of her savings.
CHAPTER VII.
MRS. HARTLEY AT HOME.
After her first Christmas in London, Lettice began to accept invitations to the houses of her acquaintance.
She dined several times at the Grahams", where there were never more than eight at table, and, being a bright talker and an appreciative listener--two qualities which do not often go together--she was always an impressive personality without exactly knowing it. Clara was accustomed to be outshone by her in conversation, and had become used to it, but some of the women whom Lettice was invited to meet looked at her rather hard, as though they would have liked to draw her serious attention to the fact that they were better looking, or better dressed, or older or younger than herself, as the case might be, and that it was consequently a little improper in her to be talked to so much by the men.
Undoubtedly Lettice got on well with men, and was more at her ease with them than with her own s.e.x. It was not the effect of forwardness on her part, and indeed she was scarcely conscious of the fact. She conversed readily, because her mind was full of reading and of thought, and her moral courage was never at a loss. The keenness of her perception led her to understand and respond to the opinions of the cleverest men whom she met, and it was not unnatural that they should be flattered.
It does not take long for a man or woman to earn a reputation in the literary circles of London, provided he or she has real ability, and is well introduced. The ability will not, as a rule, suffice without the introductions, though introductions have been known to create a reputation, lasting at any rate for a few months, without any real ability. Lettice advanced rapidly in the estimation of those whose good opinion was worth having. She soon began to discriminate between the people who were worth cultivating and the people who were not. If a person were sincere and straightforward, could say what he meant and say it with point and vivacity, or if he possessed for her those vaguely attractive and stimulating qualities which draw people together without their exactly knowing why (probably through some correlation of temperament), Lettice would feel this person was good to know, whether the world approved her choice of friends or not. And when she wanted to know man or woman, she exerted herself to please--mainly by showing that she herself was pleased. She did not exactly flatter--she was never insincere--but it amounted to much the same thing as flattery. She listened eagerly; her interest was manifested in her face, her att.i.tude, her answers. In fact she was her absolute self, without reserve and without fence. No wonder that she incurred the jealousy of half the women in her set.
But this is how an intellectual woman can best please a man who has pa.s.sed the childish age, when he only cared for human dolls and dolls"
houses. She must carry her intellect about with her, like a brave costume--dressing, of course, with taste and harmony--she must not be slow to admire the intellectual costume of others, if she wants her own to be admired; she must be subtle enough at the same time to forget that she is dressed at all, and yet never for a moment forget that her companion may have no soul or heart except in his dress. If he has, it is for him to prove it, not for her to a.s.sume it.
It was because Lettice had this art of intellectual intercourse, and because she exercised it in a perfectly natural and artless manner, that she charmed so many of those who made her acquaintance, and that they rarely paused to consider whether she was prettier or plainer, taller or shorter, more or less prepossessing, than the women who surrounded her.
In due time she found herself welcomed at the houses of those dear and estimable ladies, who--generally old and childless themselves--love to gather round them the young and clever acolytes of literature and art, the enthusiastic devotees of science, the generous apprentices of constructive politics, for politicians who do not dabble in the reformation of society find other and more congenial haunts. This many-minded crowd of acolytes, and devotees, and apprentices, owe much to the hospitable women who bring them together in a sort of indulgent dame"s school, where their angles are rubbed down, and whence they merge, perhaps, as Arthur Hallam said, the picturesque of man and man, but certainly also more fitted for their work in the social mill than if they had never known that kindly feminine influence.
Lettice became especially fond of one of these minor queens of literary society, who received her friends on Sunday afternoon, and whose drawing-room was frequently attended by a dozen or a score of well-reputed men and women. Mrs. Hartley was an excellent hostess. She was not only careful, to begin with, about her own acquaintance, cultivating none but those whom she had heard well spoken of by competent judges, but she knew how to make a second choice amongst the chosen, bringing kindred spirits together with a happy, instinctive sense of their mutual suitabilities. In spite of her many amiable and agreeable qualities, however, it took Lettice a little time to believe that she should ever make a friend of Mrs. Hartley, whose habit of a.s.sorting and labelling her acquaintances in groups struck her at first as artificial and conventional. Lettice objected, for her own part, to be cla.s.sified.
She had been entreated so often by Clara to go to one of Mrs. Hartley"s afternoons that it was with some compunction of heart that she prepared at last to fulfil her long-delayed promise. She walked from Brook Green to Edwardes Square, about three o"clock one bright Sunday afternoon, in February, and found Clara waiting for her. Clara was looking very trim and smart in a new gown of inexpensive material, but the latest, and she surveyed Lettice in a comprehensive manner from top to toe, as if to ascertain whether a proper value had been attached to Mrs. Hartley"s invitation.
"You look very nice," was her verdict. "I am so glad that you have relieved your black at last, Lettice. There is no reason why you should not wear a little white or lavender."
And indeed this mitigation of her mourning weeds was becoming to Lettice, whose delicate bloom showed fresh and fair against the black and white of her new costume. She had pinned a little bunch of sweet violets into her jacket, and they harmonized excellently well with the grave tranquillity of her face and the soberness of her dress.
"I don"t know why it is, but you remind me of a nun," Clara said, glancing at her in some perplexity. "The effect is quite charming, but it is nun-like too----"
"I am sure I don"t know why; I never felt more worldly in my life," said Lettice, laughing. "Am I not fit for Mrs. Hartley"s drawing-room?"
"Fit? You are lovely; but not quite like anybody else. That is the best of it; Mrs. Hartley will rave of you," said Clara, as they set forth.
And the words jarred a little on Lettice"s sensitive mind; she thought that she should object to be raved about.
They took an omnibus to Kensington High Street, and then they made their way to Campden Hill, where Mrs. Hartley"s house was situated. And as they went, Clara took the opportunity of explaining Mrs. Hartley"s position and claims to distinction. Mrs. Hartley was a widow, childless, rich, perfectly independent: she was very critical and very clever (said Mrs. Graham), but, oh, _so_ kind-hearted! And she was sure that Lettice would like her.
Lettice meekly hoped that she should, although she had a guilty sense of wayward dislike to the woman in whose house, it appeared, she was to be exhibited. For some words of Graham"s lingered in her mind. "Mrs.
Hartley? The lion-hunter? Oh! so _you_ are to be on view this afternoon, I understand." Accordingly, it was with no very pleasant antic.i.p.ation that Lettice entered the lion-hunter"s house on Campden Hill.
A stout, little grey-haired lady in black, with a very observant eye, came forward to greet the visitors. "This is Miss Campion, I feel sure,"
she said, putting out a podgy hand, laden with diamond rings. "Dear Mrs.
Graham, how kind of you to bring her. Come and sit by me, Miss Campion, and tell me all about yourself. I want to know how you first came to think of literature as a profession?"
This was not the way in which people talked at Angleford. Lettice felt posed for a moment, and then a sense of humor came happily to her relief.
"I drifted into it, I am afraid," she answered, composedly.
"Drifted? No, I am sure you would never drift. You don"t know how interested I am, Miss Campion, in the development of the human mind, or you would not try to evade the question. Now, which interests you most, poetry or prose?"
"That depends upon my mood; I am not sure that I am permanently interested in either," Lettice said, quietly.
Her hostess" observant eye was upon her for a moment; then Mrs.
Hartley"s face expanded in a benignant smile.
"Ah, I see you are very clever," she said. "I ask the question--not from idle curiosity, because I have representatives of both in the room at the present moment. There is a poet, whom I mean to introduce you to by and by, if you will allow me; and there is the very embodiment of prose close beside you, although I don"t believe that he writes any, and, like M. Jourdain, talks it without knowing that it is prose."
Lettice glanced involuntarily at the man beside her, and glanced again.
Where had she seen his face before? He was a rather stout, blonde man, with an honest open countenance that she liked, although it expressed good nature rather than intellectual force.
"Don"t you remember him?" said Mrs. Hartley, in her ear. "He"s a cousin of mine: Brooke Dalton, whose uncle used to live at Angleford. He has been wanting to meet you very much; he remembers you quite well, he tells me."
The color rose in Lettice"s face. She was feminine enough to feel that a connecting link between Mrs. Hartley and her dear old home changed her views of her hostess at once. She looked up and smiled. "I remember Mr.
Dalton too," she said.
"What a sweet face!" Mrs. Hartley said to herself. "Now if Brooke would only take it into his head to settle down----"