"That is very unkind of you, I am sure," said Mrs. Courtenay, smiling.
"No, not at all," said Zaluski, with the audacity of a privileged being.
"It is just my little amus.e.m.e.nt, very harmless, very--what you call innocent. Mr. Blackthorne cannot make up his mind about me. One day I appear to him to be Catholic, the next Comtist, the next Orthodox Greek, the next a convert to the Anglican communion. I am a mystery, you see!
And mysteries are as indispensable in life as in a romance."
He laughed. Mrs. Courtenay laughed too, and a little friendly banter was carried on between them, while the curate stood by feeling rather out of it.
I drew nearer to him, perceiving that my prospects bid fair to improve.
For very few people can feel out of it without drifting into a self-regarding mood, and then they are the easiest prey imaginable.
Undoubtedly a man like Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowledge of the world, his genuine good-nature, and the background of sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise because he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The curate perceived this and did not like to be eclipsed--as a matter of fact, n.o.body does. It seemed to him a little unfair that he, who had hitherto been made much of, should be called to play second fiddle to this rich Polish fellow who had never done anything for Muddleton or the neighbourhood. And then, too, Sigismund Zaluski had a way of poking fun at him which he resented, and would not take in good part.
Something of this began to stir in his mind; and he cordially hated the Pole when Jim Courtenay, who arranged the tennis, came up and asked him to play in the next set, pa.s.sing the curate by altogether.
Then I found no difficulty at all in taking possession of him; indeed he was delighted to have me brought back to his memory, he positively gloated over me, and I grew apace.
Zaluski, in the seventh heaven of happiness, was playing with Gertrude Morley, and his play was so good and so graceful that every one was watching it with pleasure. His partner, too, played well; she was a pretty, fair-haired girl, with soft grey eyes like the eyes of a dove; she wore a white tennis dress and a white sailor hat, and at her throat she had fastened a cl.u.s.ter of those beautiful orange-coloured roses known by the prosaic name of "William Allan Richardson."
If Mr. Blackthorne grew angry as he watched Sigismund Zaluski, he grew doubly angry as he watched Gertrude Morley. He said to himself that it was intolerable that such a girl should fall a prey to a vain, shallow, unprincipled foreigner, and in a few minutes he had painted such a dark picture of poor Sigismund that my strength increased tenfold.
"Mr. Blackthorne," said Mrs. Courtenay, "would you take Mrs.
Milton-Cleave to have an ice?"
Now Mrs. Milton-Cleave had always been one of the curate"s great friends.
She was a very pleasant, talkative woman of six-and-thirty, and a general favourite. Her popularity was well deserved, for she was always ready to do a kind action, and often went out of her way to help people who had not the slightest claim upon her. There was, however, no repose about Mrs. Milton-Cleave, and an acute observer would have discovered that her universal readiness to help was caused to some extent by her good heart, but in a very large degree by her restless and over-active brain. Her sphere was scarcely large enough for her, she would have made an excellent head of an orphan asylum or manager of some large inst.i.tution, but her quiet country life offered far too narrow a field for her energy.
"It is really quite a treat to watch Mr. Zaluski"s play," she remarked as they walked to the refreshment tent at the other end of the lawn.
"Certainly foreigners know how to move much better than we do: our best players look awkward beside them."
"Do you think so?" said Mr. Blackthorne. "I am afraid I am full of prejudice, and consider that no one can equal a true-born Briton."
"And I quite agree with you in the main," said Mrs. Milton-Cleave.
"Though I confess that it is rather refreshing to have a little variety."
The curate was silent, but his silence merely covered his absorption in me, and I began to exercise a faint influence through his mind on the mind of his companion. This caused her at length to say:
"I don"t think you quite like Mr. Zaluski. Do you know much about him?"
"I have met him several times this summer," said the curate, in the tone of one who could have said much more if he would.
The less satisfying his replies, the more Mrs. Milton-Cleave"s curiosity grew.
"Now, tell me candidly," she said at length. "Is there not some mystery about our new neighbour? Is he quite what he seems to be?"
"I fear he is not," said Mr. Blackthorne, making the admission in a tone of reluctance, though, to tell the truth, he had been longing to pa.s.s me on for the last five minutes.
"You mean that he is fast?"
"Worse than that," said James Blackthorne, lowering his voice as they walked down one of the shady garden paths. "He is a dangerous, unprincipled fellow, and into the bargain an avowed Nihilist. All that is involved in that word you perhaps scarcely realise."
"Indeed I do," she exclaimed with a shocked expression. "I have just been reading a review of that book by Stepniak. Their social and religious views are terrible; free-love, atheism, everything that could bring ruin on the human race. Is he indeed a Nihilist?"
Mr. Blackthorne"s conscience gave him a sharp p.r.i.c.k, for he knew that he ought not to have pa.s.sed me on. He tried to pacify it with the excuse that he had only promised not to tell that Miss Houghton had been his informant.
"I a.s.sure you," he said impressively, "it is only too true. I know it on the best authority."
And here I cannot help remarking that it has always seemed to me strange that even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonent.i.ty, "The Best Authority." I am inclined to think that were I a human being I should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, "Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then _that_ for your story!"
However, I thrived wonderfully on the best authority, and it would be ungrateful of me to speak evil of that powerful though imaginary being.
At right angles with the garden walk down which the two were pacing there was another wide pathway, bordered by high closely clipped shrubs. Down this paced a very different couple. Mrs. Milton-Cleave caught sight of them, and so did curate. Mrs. Milton-Cleave sighed.
"I am afraid he is running after Gertrude Morley! Poor girl! I hope she will not be deluded into encouraging him."
And then they made just the same little set remarks about the desirability of stopping so dangerous an acquaintance, and the impossibility of interfering with other people"s affairs, and the sad necessity of standing by with folded hands. I laughed so much over their hollow little phrases that at last I was fain to beat a retreat, and, prompted by curiosity to know a little of the truth, I followed Sigismund and Gertrude down the broad gra.s.sy pathway.
I knew of course a good deal of Zaluski"s character, because my own existence and growth pointed out what he was not. Still, to study a man by a process of negation is tedious, and though I knew that he was not a Nihilist, or a free-lover, or an atheist, or an unprincipled fellow with a dangerous temper, yet I was curious to see him as he really was.
"If you only knew how happy you had made me!" he was saying. And indeed, as far as happiness went, there was not much to choose between them, I fancy; for Gertrude Morley looked radiant, and in her clove-like eyes there was the reflection of the love which flashed in his.
"You must talk to my mother about it," she said after a minute"s silence.
"You see, I am still under age, and she and Uncle Henry my guardian must consent before we are actually betrothed."
"I will see them at once," said Zaluski, eagerly.
"You could see my mother," she replied. "But Uncle Henry is still in Sweden and will not be in town for another week."
"Must we really wait so long!" sighed Sigismund impatiently.
She laughed at him gently.
"A whole week! But then we are sure of each other. I do not think we ought to grumble."
"But perhaps they may think that a merchant is no fitting match for you,"
he suggested. "I am nothing but a plain merchant, and my I people have been in the same business for four generations. As far as wealth goes I might perhaps satisfy your people, but for the rest I am but a prosaic fellow, with neither n.o.ble blood, nor the brain of a genius, nor anything out of the common."
"It will be enough for my mother that we love each other," she said shyly.
"And your uncle?"
"It will be enough for him that you are upright and honourable--enough that you are yourself, Sigismund."
They were sitting now in a little sheltered recess clipped out of the yew- trees. When that softly spoken "Sigismund" fell from her lips, Zaluski caught her in his arms and kissed her again and again.
"I have led such a lonely life," he said after a few minutes, during which their talk had baffled my comprehension. "All my people died while I was still a boy."
"Then who brought you up?" she inquired.
"An uncle of mine, the head of our firm in St. Petersburg. He was very good to me, but he had children of his own, and of course I could not be to him as one of them. I have had many friends and much kindness shown to me, but love!--none till to-day."