This lady received the visitors with a mixture of ceremony and diffidence quite English. No middle-aged matron who was not an Englishwoman could evince precisely the same manner — a manner so uncertain of herself, of her own merits, of her power to please, and yet so anxious to be proper, and, if possible, rather agreeable than otherwise. In the present instance, however, more embarrassment was shown than is usual even with diffident Englishwomen. Miss Helstone felt this, sympathized with the stranger, and knowing by experience what was good for the timid, took a seat quietly near her, and began to talk to her with a gentle ease, communicated for the moment by the presence of one less self-possessed than herself.
She and this lady would, if alone, have at once got on extremely well together. The lady had the clearest voice imaginable — infinitely softer and more tuneful than could have been reasonably expected from forty years — and a form decidedly inclined to embonpoint. This voice Caroline liked; it atoned for the formal, if correct, accent and language. The lady would soon have discovered she liked it and her, and in ten minutes they would have been friends. But Mr. Helstone stood on the rug looking at them both, looking especially at the strange lady with his sarcastic, keen eye, that clearly expressed impatience of her chilly ceremony, and annoyance at her want of aplomb. His hard gaze and rasping voice discomfited the lady more and more. She tried, however, to get up little speeches about the weather, the aspect of the country, etc.; but the impracticable Mr. Helstone presently found himself somewhat deaf. Whatever she said he affected not to hear distinctly, and she was obliged to go over each elaborately-constructed nothing twice. The effort soon became too much for her. She was just rising in a perplexed flutter, nervously murmuring that she knew not what detained Miss Keeldar, that she would go and look for her, when Miss Keeldar saved her the trouble by appearing. It was to be presumed at least that she who now came in through a glass door from the garden owned that name.
There is real grace in ease of manner, and so old Helstone felt when an erect, slight girl walked up to him, retaining with her left hand her little silk apron full of flowers, and, giving him her right hand, said pleasantly, “I knew you would come to see me, though you do think Mr. Yorke has made me a Jacobin. Good-morning.”
“But we’ll not have you a Jacobin,” returned he. “No, Miss Shirley; they shall not steal the flower of my parish from me. Now that you are amongst us, you shall be my pupil in politics and religion; I’ll teach you sound doctrine on both points.”
“Mrs. Pryor has anticipated you,” she replied, turning to the elder lady. “Mrs. Pryor, you know, was my governess, and is still my friend; and of all the high and rigid Tories she is queen; of all the stanch churchwomen she is chief. I have been well drilled both in theology and history, I assure you, Mr. Helstone.”
The rector immediately bowed very low to Mrs. Pryor, and expressed himself obliged to her.
The ex-governess disclaimed skill either in political or religious controversy, explained that she thought such matters little adapted for female minds, but avowed herself in general terms the advocate of order and loyalty, and, of course, truly attached to the Establishment. She added she was ever averse to change under any circumstances, and something scarcely audible about the extreme danger of being too ready to take up new ideas closed her sentence.
“Miss Keeldar thinks as you think, I hope, madam.”
“Difference of age and difference of temperament occasion difference of sentiment,” was the reply. “It can scarcely be expected that the eager and young should hold the opinions of the cool and middle-aged.”
“Oh! oh! we are independent; we think for ourselves!” cried Mr. Helstone. “We are a little Jacobin, for anything I know — a little freethinker, in good earnest. Let us have a confession of faith on the spot.”
And he took the heiress’s two hands — causing her to let fall her whole cargo of flowers — and seated her by him on the sofa.
“Say your creed,” he ordered.
“The Apostles’ Creed?”
“Yes.”
She said it like a child.
“Now for St. Athanasius’s. That’s the test!”
“Let me gather up my flowers. Here is Tartar coming; he will tread upon them.”
Tartar was a rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he was turning round preparatory to depositing his tawny bulk upon them, when Miss Helstone and Miss Keeldar simultaneously stooped to the rescue.
“Thank you,” said the heiress, as she again held out her little apron for Caroline to heap the blossoms into it. “Is this your daughter, Mr. Helstone?” she asked.
“My niece Caroline.”
Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and then looked at her. Caroline also looked at her hostess.
Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed) — Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye. Her height and shape were not unlike Miss Helstone’s; perhaps in stature she might have the advantage by an inch or two. She was gracefully made, and her face, too, possessed a charm as well described by the word grace as any other. It was pale naturally, but intelligent, and of varied expression. She was not a blonde, like Caroline. Clear and dark were the characteristics of her aspect as to colour. Her face and brow were clear, her eyes of the darkest gray (no green lights in them — transparent, pure, neutral gray), and her hair of the darkest brown. Her features were distinguished — by which I do not mean that they were high, bony, and Roman, being indeed rather small and slightly marked than otherwise, but only that they were, to use a few French words, “fins, gracieux, spirituels” — mobile they were and speaking; but their changes were not to be understood nor their language interpreted all at once. She examined Caroline seriously, inclining her head a little to one side, with a thoughtful air.
“You see she is only a feeble chick,” observed Mr. Helstone.
“She looks young — younger than I. — How old are you?” she inquired in a manner that would have been patronizing if it had not been extremely solemn and simple.
“Eighteen years and six months.”
“And I am twenty-one.”
She said no more. She had now placed her flowers on the table, and was busied in arranging them.
“And St. Athanasius’s Creed?” urged the rector. “You believe it all, don’t you?”
“I can’t remember it quite all. I will give you a nosegay, Mr. Helstone, when I have given your niece one.”
She had selected a little bouquet of one brilliant and two or three delicate flowers, relieved by a spray of dark verdure. She tied it with silk from her workbox, and placed it on Caroline’s lap; and then she put her hands behind her, and stood bending slightly towards her guest, still regarding her, in the attitude and with something of the aspect of a grave but gallant little cavalier. This temporary expression of face was aided by the style in which she wore her hair, parted on one temple, and brushed in a glossy sweep above the forehead, whence it fell in curls that looked natural, so free were their wavy undulations.