“Ah!” said Lady Tyrrell, “I saw your pupil bringing in a delicious festoon—all black and red fruit and crimson and purple leaves. He is really a boy of taste; I think he will do you credit.”
“The new Joshua Reynolds,” said Frank, glad of an excuse to turn towards Eleonora. “Rosamond mentioned her discovery.”
“You might have seen him just now figuring as Buttons,” said Lady Tyrrell. “Degradation of art, is it not? But it was the only way to save it. Lenore is teaching him; and if his talent prove worth it we may do something with him. Any way, the produce of native genius will be grand material for the bazaar.”
“Card-board prettinesses!” said Mrs. Duncombe; “you spoil him with them; but that you’ll do any way—make him fit for nothing but a flunkey.”
“Unappreciated zeal!” said Lady Tyrrell, glancing at her sister, who flushed a little, and looked the more grave.
“Eh, Lenore,” said her father, “wasn’t it to please you that Camilla made me take your pet to make havoc of my glasses?”
“You meant it so, dear papa,” said Eleonora, calling up a smile that satisfied the old gentleman. “It was very kind in you.”
Fresh subjects were started, and on all the talk was lively and pleasant, and fascinated Cecil, not from any reminiscence of Dunstone—for indeed nothing could be more unlike the tone that prevailed there: but because it was so different from that of Compton Poynsett, drifting on so unrestrainedly, and touching so lightly on all topics.
By the close of the meal, rain had set in, evidently for the afternoon. Frank offered to ride home, and send the carriage for Cecil; but the Duncombes proposed to take her and drop her at home; and to this she consented, rather to Frank’s dismay, as he thought of their coach appearing at his mother’s door.
Lady Tyrrell took her up to resume her hat; and on the way, moved by distaste to her double surname, and drawn on by a fresh access of intimacy, she begged to be called Cecil—a privilege of which she had been chary even in her maiden days; but the caressing manner had won her heart, and spirit of opposition to the discouragement at home did the rest.
The request was reciprocated with that pensive look which was so touching. “I used to be Camilla to all the neighbourhood, and here I find myself—miles’—no, leagues further off—banished to Siberia.”
“How unjust and unkind!” cried Cecil.
“My dear, you have yet to learn the gentle uncharitableness of prejudice. It is the prevailing notion that my married life was a career of dissipation. Ah! if they only knew!”
“The drag is round,” said Mrs. Duncombe’s voice at the door, in all its decisive abruptness, making both start.
“Just ready,” called Lady Tyrrell; adding, in a lower tone, “Ah! she is startling, but she is genuine! And one must take new friends when the old are chilly. She is the only one—”
Cecil’s kiss was more hearty than any she had given at Compton, and she descended; but just as she came to the door, and was only delaying while Frank and Captain Duncombe were discussing the merits of the four horses, the Compton carriage appeared in the approach, and Raymond’s head within. Lady Tyrrell looked at Cecil, and saw it was safe to make a little gesture with the white skin of her fair brow, expressing unutterable things.
Mrs. Duncombe lost no time in asking if any steps were being taken for improving the drainage; to which Raymond replied, “No, that was not the business in hand. This was the architecture of the town-hall.”
“Splendour of municipality above, and fever festering below,” said Mrs. Duncombe.
“Wilsborough is not unhealthy,” said Raymond.
She laughed ironically.
“The corporation have been told that they have an opportunity,” said Raymond; “but it takes long to prepare people’s minds to believe in the expedience of such measures. If Whitlock could be elected mayor there would be some chance, but I am afraid they are sure to take Truelove; and as things are at Wilsborough, we must move all at once or not at all. Individual attempts would do more harm than good.”
“Ah! you fear for your seat!” said the plain-spoken lady.
Raymond only chose to answer by a laugh, and would not pursue the subject so treated. He was politeness itself to all; but he withstood Lady Tyrrell’s earnest entreaties to come in and see some Florentine photographs, growing stiffer and graver each moment, while his wife waxed more wrathful at the treatment which she knew was wounding her friend, and began almost to glory in having incurred his displeasure herself. Indeed, this feeling caused the exchange of another kiss between the ladies before Sir Harry handed Cecil into the carriage, and Raymond took the yellow paper books that were held out to her.
Looking at the title as they drove off, he said quietly, “I did not mean to deprive you, Cecil; I had ordered Lanfrey from Bennet for you.”
She was somewhat abashed, but was excited enough to answer, “Thank you. I am going to join Lady Tyrrell and Mrs. Duncombe in a subscription to Rolandi’s.”
He started, and after a pause of a few moments said gently, “Are you sure that Mr. and Mrs. Charnock would like to trust your choice of foreign books to Mrs. Duncombe?”
Taking no notice of the point of this question, she replied, “If it is an object to exchange books at home faster than I can read them properly, I must look for a supply elsewhere.”
“You had better subscribe alone,” he replied, still without manifest provocation.
“That would be uncivil now.”
“I take that upon myself.”
Wherewith there came a silence; while Cecil swelled as she thought of the prejudice against her friend, and Raymond revolved all he had ever heard about creatures he knew so little as women, to enable him to guess how to deal with this one. How reprove so as not to make it worse? Ought not his silent displeasure to suffice? And in such musings the carriage reached home.
It had been an untoward day. He had been striving hard against the stream at Willansborough. The drainage was not only scouted as an absurd, unreasonable, and expensive fancy, but the architect whom he had recommended, in the hope that he would insist on ground-work which might bring on the improvement, had been rejected in favour of a kinsman of Mr. Briggs, the out-going mayor, a youth of the lower walk of the profession—not the scholar and gentleman he had desired, for the tradesman intellect fancied such a person would be expensive and unmanageable.
Twin plans for church and town-hall had been produced, which to Raymond’s taste savoured of the gimcrack style, but which infinitely delighted all the corporation; and where he was the only cultivated gentleman, except the timid Vicar, his reasonings were all in vain. The plan was accepted for the town-hall, and the specifications were ordered to be made out for competition, and a rate decided on. The church was to wait for subscription and bazaar; the drains, for reason in Wil’sbro’, or for the hope of the mayoralty of Mr. Whitlock, a very intelligent and superior linendraper.
CHAPTER XI
Rosamond’s Apologue
Pray, sir, do you laugh at me?
Was Cecil’s allegiance to Dunstone, or was it to the heiress of Dunstone? Tests of allegiance consist in very small matters, and it is not always easy to see the turning-point. Now Cecil had always stood on a pinnacle at Dunstone, and she had found neither its claims nor her own recognized at Compton. One kind of allegiance would have remained on the level, and retained the same standard, whether accepted or not. Another would climb on any pinnacle that any one would erect for the purpose, and become alienated from whatever interfered with such eminence.
So as nobody seemed so willing to own Cecil’s claims to county