“And poor Anselm, it is really piteous to see his devotion to Basil. He has always looked up to him as to a sort of superior being, and indeed Basil has been treated as such by us all. Anselm has always been so delicate and backward – a frail staff to lean upon, but my mind misgives me that before long his father will have no other.”
“Do the doctors think as you do?”
“They do not say so, but I feel sure they think so.”
“I should like to see Basil again before I leave. May I call, do you think?”
“By all means; it would please him very much. Are you going straight home when you leave Paris – to Meadshire, I mean, for that is ‘home’ now to you, I suppose.”
“Yes,” replied Mr Cheviott, “we go straight to Romary. You must come and see us there some time or other, Mrs Brabazon.”
“Thank you,” she said, with a sigh, “I must make no plans just now. My time belongs entirely to my brother and the boys. But talking of Meadshire reminds me – is it anywhere near Withenden that you live?”
“Very near – within a mile or two.”
“Have you ever heard of a place called Hathercourt near there?” inquired Mrs Brabazon, with interest. “You don’t happen to know anything of the clergyman of Hathercourt, or rather of his family? West, I think, is the name.”
“Western,” interrupted Alys close by. “Oh, yes, they are such pretty girls. I am sure they are nice.”
“How can you possibly judge, Alys?” said her brother, coldly. “You only saw them once in your life, and just for a mere instant.”
But Alys’s eager, flushed face, and warmly-expressed admiration of the Western sisters, had absorbed Mrs Brabazon’s attention; she hardly heard what Mr Cheviott said, or, if she did, she gave no heed to it.
“So you know them, then, Miss Cheviott?” she said, cordially, smiling at Alys as she spoke. “Do tell me all you know about them. ‘Girls,’ you say – are they all girls, then – no sons?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alys, “I think there are sons – indeed, I feel sure there are. But it was the girls I noticed, one was so pretty.”
The eagerness died out of her voice, for the expression of her brother’s face told her that again she had managed to displease him.
“How unlucky I am to-day,” she said to herself, and the change in her manner was so complete that Mr Cheviott was afraid Mrs Brabazon would notice it.
“It is a case of ‘all kinds’ in the Western household,” he said, with a slight laugh. “Alys and I only saw them once in church – there seemed to be girls and boys, of every size, down to little mites – a regular poor parson’s family.”
“But what sort of people are they?” asked Mrs Brabazon. “Being such near neighbours, you must hear something about them.”
“They are not such very near neighbours of ours. Withenden is the nearest railway station to Hathercourt, and we are only three miles from Withenden, but Hathercourt again is four miles the other way. Of course I take some interest in Hathercourt now, on Arthur Beverley’s account. You heard of his romantic legacy?”
“Oh! yes,” said Mrs Brabazon. “He wrote all about it to Basil. But I wish you would tell me anything you do know or have heard about these Westerns.”
“Which is very little. They are not in any sort of society.”
“How could they be, if they are so very poor?”
Mr Cheviott slightly shrugged his shoulders.
“I did not say they could be,” he answered, with a smile. “I was only, at your bidding, telling the very little I know about them. They are not in any society, not only because they are very poor, but because people know nothing about them. The father is not a man who has distinguished himself in any way, and I believe he married beneath him – a poor governess, or something of that kind – so what can you expect?”
Mrs Brabazon gave a curious smile.
“Oh! indeed,” she said, dryly. “So the on dit of Meadshire is that the Rector, or Vicar – which is he? – of Hathercourt married beneath him. Thank you; I am glad to know it. Here comes Anselm, I must go! You said these Western girls were pretty, did you not, Miss Cheviott?” she went on, turning to Alys. “Their beauty must be of the dairy-maid order, I suppose?”
Alys felt that her brother’s eyes were fixed upon her, but she answered sturdily nevertheless.
“On the contrary, they are particularly refined-looking girls. The eldest one especially has the sort of look that – that – ” she hesitated.
“That a princess of the blood royal might have,” suggested Mrs Brabazon, laughingly.
Alys smiled, and so, to her relief, did her brother. Then Mrs Brabazon and the boy Anselm took their departure, and not long after, Madame de Briancourt having overwhelmed them with her pretty regrets and desolations at their leaving Paris so abruptly, the brother and sister bade their hostess farewell, and drove off again on their round of calls.
“Laurence Cheviott is evidently prejudiced against these Westerns. I wonder why, for I think him a reasonable sort of man, on the whole,” said Mrs Brabazon to herself. “Can it be possible that he has fallen in love with this very magnificent Miss Western, whom his sister admires so much, and that she has snubbed him? That I can quite believe he would find it hard to forgive. But, oh! no, that is quite impossible. I remember he said he had only seen them once. I think I shall get Basil, poor fellow, to write to Arthur Beverley; he may know something of them. I would like to see them, and it would be a satisfaction to Basil too.”
“What possible reason can Mrs Brabazon have for wanting to know anything about those Westerns? I am afraid she is something of a busybody after all. Surely Arthur cannot have been writing anything about them to Basil Brooke? Oh, no, it can’t be that, for if he had written anything of consequence, it would have been confidentially, and he would hardly be likely to trouble Brooke about anything of that kind now,” thought Mr Cheviott, when he found himself in the carriage again beside his sister, driving rapidly away from Madame de Briancourt’s.
Alys noticed his abstraction.
“What are you thinking of, Laurence?”
“Only what a very little world this is!”
“I know,” exclaimed Alys, not sorry to draw the conversation round to a point where her mind was not at rest. “You are thinking how strange it was that we should twice in one day hear Hathercourt Rectory spoken of – at least, not twice spoken of, but I mean mentioned, in Arthur’s letter, and again by Mrs Brabazon. Laurence, were you vexed with what I said of the Westerns? Did it seem like contradicting you?”
“Oh, no, you could not help saying what you thought – nor could I,” he added, after a little pause.
“I did think those girls so pretty, especially the eldest one, and not only pretty, but something more – good and nice.”
“I don’t see how they can be superior, however, considering their disadvantages,” said Mr Cheviott, musingly. “I don’t agree with you in admiring the elder one more than the other. There was something not commonplace about that younger girl,” and a curious feeling shot across his mind as he recalled the young face with the kindly honest eyes and half shy smile that had met his glance that Sunday morning in the porch of the old church – a feeling almost of disloyalty in the words and tones with which he had replied to Mrs Brabazon’s inquiries – a ridiculous feeling altogether to have in connection with a girl he had only seen once in his life, and that for not more than five minutes. But the vision of Mary Western’s face had imprinted itself on his memory, and refused to be effaced.
Alys fancied that the prejudice she had suspected was passing away; it could not have been very deep after all. She determined