Half a dozen German throats broke into guttural protest. Amid the storm of laughter and remonstrance, the door suddenly opened. The fluttered parlour-maid mumbled a long name, and, with a port of soldierly uprightness, there advanced behind her a large fair-haired woman, followed by a gentleman, and in the distance by another figure.
Rose drew back a moment astounded, one hand on the piano, her dress sweeping round her. An awkward silence fell on the chattering circle of musicians.
"Good heavens!" said Langham to himself, "Lady Charlotte Wynnstay!"
"How do you do, Miss Leyburn?" said one of the most piercing of voices.
"Are you surprised to see me? You didn"t ask me--perhaps you don"t want me. But I have come, you see, partly because my nephew was coming," and she pointed to the gentleman behind her, "partly because I meant to punish you for not having come to see me last Thursday. Why didn"t you?"
"Because we thought you were still away," said Rose, who had by this time recovered her self-possession. "But if you meant to punish me, Lady Charlotte, you have done it badly. I am delighted to see you. May I introduce my sister? Agnes, will you find Lady Charlotte Wynnstay a chair by mamma?"
"Oh, you wish, I see, to dispose of me at once," said the other imperturbably. "What is happening? Is it music?"
"Aunt Charlotte, that is most disingenuous on your part. I gave you ample warning."
Rose turned a smiling face towards the speaker. It was Mr. Flaxman, Lady Charlotte"s companion.
"You need not have drawn the picture too black, Mr. Flaxman. There is an escape. If Lady Charlotte will only let my sister take her into the next room, she will find herself well out of the clutches of the music. Oh, Robert! Here you are at last! Lady Charlotte, you remember my brother-in-law? Robert, will you get Lady Charlotte some tea?"
"_I_ am not going to be banished," said Mr. Flaxman, looking down upon her, his well-bred, slightly worn face aglow with animation and pleasure.
"Then you will be deafened," said Rose, laughing, as she escaped from him a moment, to arrange for a song from a tall formidable maiden, built after the fashion of Mr. Gilbert"s contralto heroines, with a voice which bore out the ample promise of her frame.
"Your sister is a terribly self-possessed young person, Mr. Elsmere,"
said Lady Charlotte, as Robert piloted her across the room.
"Does that imply praise or blame on your part, Lady Charlotte?" asked Robert, smiling.
"Neither at present. I don"t know Miss Leyburn well enough. I merely state a fact. No tea, Mr. Elsmere. I have had three teas already, and I am not like the American woman who could always worry down another cup."
She was introduced to Mrs. Leyburn; but the plaintive invalid was immediately seized with terror of her voice and appearance, and was infinitely grateful to Robert for removing her as promptly as possible to a chair on the border of the two rooms where she could talk or listen as she pleased. For a few moments she listened to Fraulein Adelmann"s veiled unmanageable contralto; then she turned magisterially to Robert standing behind her.
"The art of singing has gone out." she declared, "since the Germans have been allowed to meddle in it. By the way, Mr. Elsmere, how do you manage to be here? Are you taking a holiday?"
Robert looked at her with a start.
"I have left Murewell, Lady Charlotte."
"Left Murewell!" she said in astonishment, turning round to look at him, her eyegla.s.s in her eye. "Why has Helen told me nothing about it? Have you got another living?"
"No. My wife and I are settling in London. We only told Lady Helen of our intentions a few weeks ago."
To which it may be added that Lady Helen, touched and dismayed by Elsmere"s letter to her, had not been very eager to hand over the woes of her friends to her aunt"s cool and irresponsible comments.
Lady Charlotte deliberately looked at him a minute longer through her gla.s.s. Then she let it fall.
"You don"t mean to tell me any more, I can see, Mr. Elsmere. But you will allow me to be astonished?"
"Certainly," he said, smiling sadly, and immediately afterwards relapsing into silence.
"Have you heard of the squire lately?" he asked her after a pause.
"Not from him. We are excellent friends when we meet, but he doesn"t consider me worth writing to. His sister--little idiot--writes to me every now and then. But she has not vouchsafed me a letter since the summer. I should say from the last accounts that he was breaking."
"He had a mysterious attack of illness just before I left," said Robert gravely. "It made one anxious."
"Oh, it is the old story. All the Wendovers have died of weak hearts or queer brains--generally of both together. I imagine you had some experience of the squire"s queerness at one time, Mr. Elsmere. I can"t say you and he seemed to be on particularly good terms on the only occasion I ever had the pleasure of meeting you at Murewell."
She looked up at him, smiling grimly. She had a curiously exact memory for the unpleasant scenes of life.
"Oh, you remember that unlucky evening!" said Robert, reddening a little. "We soon got over that. We became great friends."
Again, however, Lady Charlotte was struck by the quiet melancholy of his tone. How strangely the look of youth--which had been so attractive in him the year before--had ebbed from the man"s face--from complexion, eyes, expression! She stared at him, full of a brusque tormenting curiosity as to the how and why.
"I hope there is some one among you strong enough to manage Miss Rose,"
she said presently, with an abrupt change of subject. "That little sister-in-law of yours is going to be the rage."
"Heaven forbid!" cried Robert fervently.
"Heaven will do nothing of the kind. She is twice as pretty as she was last year; I am told she plays twice as well. She had always the sort of manner that provoked people one moment and charmed them the next. And, to judge by my few words with her just now, I should say she had developed it finely. Well, now, Mr. Elsmere, who is going to take care of her?"
"I suppose we shall all have a try at it, Lady Charlotte."
"Her mother doesn"t look to me a person of nerve enough," said Lady Charlotte coolly. "She is a girl certain--absolutely certain--to have adventures, and you may as well be prepared for them."
"I can only trust she will disappoint your expectations, Lady Charlotte," said Robert, with a slightly sarcastic emphasis.
"Elsmere, who is that man talking to Miss Leyburn?" asked Langham as the two friends stood side by side, a little later, watching the spectacle.
"A certain Mr. Flaxman, brother to a pretty little neighbour of ours in Surrey--Lady Helen Varley--and nephew to Lady Charlotte. I have not seen him here before; but I think the girls like him."
"Is he the Flaxman who got the mathematical prize at Berlin last year?"
"Yes, I believe so. A striking person altogether. He is enormously rich, Lady Helen tells me, in spite of an elder brother. All the money in his mother"s family has come to him, and he is the heir to Lord Daniel"s great Derbyshire property. Twelve years ago I used to hear him talked about incessantly by the Cambridge men one met. "Citizen Flaxman" they called him, for his opinions" sake. He would ask his scout to dinner, and insist on dining with his own servants, and shaking hands with his friends" butlers. The scouts and the butlers put an end to that, and altogether, I imagine, the world disappointed him. He has a story, poor fellow, too--a young wife, who died with her first baby ten years ago.
The world supposes him never to have got over it, which makes him all the more interesting. A distinguished face, don"t you think?--the good type of English aristocrat."
Langham a.s.sented. But his attention was fixed on the group in which Rose"s bright hair was conspicuous; and when Robert left him and went to amuse Mrs. Leyburn, he still stood rooted to the same spot watching.
Rose was leaning against the piano, one hand behind her, her whole att.i.tude full of a young, easy, self-confident grace. Mr. Flaxman was standing beside her, and they were deep in talk--serious talk apparently, to judge by her quiet manner and the charmed attentive interest of his look. Occasionally, however, there was a sally on her part, and an answering flash of laughter on his; but the stream of conversation closed immediately over the interruption, and flowed on as evenly as before.
Unconsciously Langham retreated farther and farther into the comparative darkness of the inner room. He felt himself singularly insignificant and out of place, and he made no more efforts to talk. Rose played a violin solo, and played it with astonishing delicacy and fire. When it was over Langham saw her turn from the applauding circle crowding in upon her and throw a smiling interrogative look over her shoulder at Mr. Flaxman. Mr.
Flaxman bent over her, and as he spoke Langham caught her flush, and the excited sparkle of her eyes. Was this the "some one in the stream"? No doubt!--no doubt!
When the party broke up Langham found himself borne towards the outer room, and before he knew where he was going he was standing beside her.
"Are _you_ here still?" she said to him, startled, as he held out his hand. He replied by some comments on the music, a little lumbering and infelicitous, as all his small-talk was. She hardly listened, but presently she looked up nervously, compelled as it were by the great melancholy eyes above her.
"We are not always in this turmoil, Mr. Langham. Perhaps some other day you will come and make friends with my mother?"