The Trellised Lane, page 5
Julia was of the opinion that the gentleman would be a better authority, but she obligingly replied that she believed it was.
“Indeed it is,” said Monsieur d’Arbois, “the lady is quite correct. But I think you have also a word for it in English, not true? What you call a nonesuch is the same thing.”
“Of course, you are quite right,” said Mrs. Norcross. “I wonder we use the French word at all. It does not look at all as one pronounces it, you know. French is so very odd that way. Although it is beautiful as you speak it, Monsieur; your accent is quite perfection!”
Mr. Norcross coughed.
“I am deeply grateful for your compliment, madame, but I think you can not say the same thing about my English. I have little difficulty with my grammar and vocabulary, but my accent, it is not so perfect. I find it hard to say that awkward ‘th’; to me, it is wonderful that you all do it so well.”
“I assure you, it is nothing at all. Depend upon it,” said Lady Norcross, “you shall be saying it to admiration in a month or two. We do it continually! You have not been in England long enough; that is your problem.”
“Alas,” said d’Arbois, smiling and shaking his head ruefully, “I have been in this country many, many years, for you know my parents were émigrés; we left France with Louis XVIII, when I was only four years old. You will think, perhaps, that having come here so young I shall have learned to speak English with ease, but it is not so, for we spoke French only in our house, and had few acquaintances outside it.”
“How very dreadful, Monsieur! To leave one’s home and country—why I can not even bear to quit London in the winter! What ever induced your family to do it?”
“Well you know, madame, that my father is a count; life in France was very uncomfortable for an aristocrat in thousand seven hundred eighty-nine; very many of us left our country. However, we are reestablished now.”
“Indeed!” Mrs. Norcross exclaimed. “What a dreadful situation.” Mrs. Norcross, of course, had lived through all these events and knew very well of the émigrés who had resided in England, but these were facts she had consigned to the category of politics, a subject of which she disclaimed all knowledge and scrupulously understood nothing. She continued therefore to address d’Arbois in accents of increasing wonderment and dismay. “Then you have been in England ever since? You must wish to visit your country dreadfully.”
“But no, madame; I have been to France four years ago. I returned with the king as I left with him.”
“And yet you have come back to England! For heaven’s sake, why?”
At once d’Arbois’ eyes hardened and the muscles at the corners of his mouth grew tense. He drew himself up as he spoke. “I had been very long away from France,” he said, in a low, purposeful tone. “It was—it was no longer home for me. I have come back.”
Even Mrs. Norcross could not fail to remark his sudden rigidity. Her distress at having asked what seemed to be an unfortunate question was so acute that for a few moments she actually could find nothing to say. The disagreeable silence of the whole party was interrupted only by the entrance of a footman, who announced that “If it pleases madam, dinner is served.”
Madam was more than pleased—she was delighted, and, springing up, she quickly bestowed Julia’s arm on that of Monsieur d’Arbois. Fitzgerald offered his escort to his hostess, and Mr. Norcross was left to amuse himself as best he might on his way to the dining parlour.
Chapter V
That apartment had been fitted up most admirably on a scheme of moss green and white, and presented a breathtaking appearance. A grander room in Cross House was meant for banquets and large parties; this one was designed for intimate dining, and its proportions and furnishings exactly suited that purpose. Long silk draperies, made to look even longer by their vertical stripes of green and white, hung at the windows; the seats of the chairs were fitted with the same material. A thick carpet of moss green had been laid upon the floor, and above the polished mahogany table hung a crystal chandelier ornamented with a score of candles. A cheerful warmth issued from the hearth, and the fire and tapers together illuminated the small apartment brilliantly.
Julia was delighted, and instantly felt more at ease than she had in the crimson-and-gold drawing room, which was lovely but somewhat formal. Her conversation with Monsieur d’Arbois between the rooms had exclusively concerned the French language; her escort was certain of her complete mastery of that tongue, and Julia was as firmly persuaded that she could do no more than stammer out a few phrases. In the end, neither debater convinced the other, nor even altered their opinions in the slightest, and the discussion ended in a draw.
Mrs. Norcross arrived at the table chattering at a neck-or-nothing rate to Fitzgerald and interrupted herself only to arrange the seating of her guests. She and her son, of course, took the ends of the table; Fitzgerald was stationed to the right of his hostess and d’Arbois to her left. Julia was placed between that gentleman and Mr. Norcross, a situation that at once pleased and alarmed her.
As soon as the party had been thus disposed, Mrs. Norcross recollected the anecdote she had been recounting to Fitzgerald; she reclaimed and held his attention throughout the repast, and guarded it as jealously as a general who has seized and occupied a piece of foreign territory. Fitzgerald was not unhappy to be so regaled, for he found Mrs. Norcross’s prattle highly amusing, and a fit challenge to his own loquacity. Julia, however, was excessively dismayed by the preoccupation of the hostess with her brother, for she found it impossible to engage both the gentlemen beside her in a single and simultaneous conversation; thus she was obliged to turn repeatedly from one to the other in an uncomfortable and (she felt) highly ridiculous manner, and found scarcely a moment to spare for eating. She finally concluded that, despite the wealth and variety of dishes, the object of a London dinner was not to nourish oneself but to maintain a barrier between one’s two nearest neighbours and so prevent a collision, and this she did to the best of her ability. The gentlemen, however, were of no assistance whatsoever in the endeavour, for they seemed to dislike one another cordially, and Julia, by the end of the meal, could almost dislike them both for having submitted her to such a trial of diplomacy. She bore the ordeal with grace, though, and persevered unfailingly in her attempts at polite intercourse. She was engaged in a painful discussion of music with Monsieur d’Arbois when she heard the gentleman at her left inquire:
“Do you play?”
“Yes,” said Julia, turning her head one hundred thirty-five degrees to address him, “a little.”
“On the pianoforte, I suppose?”
“Yes, just so. I play very badly indeed, but I enjoy it excessively. Are you partial to music?”
“Very much so,” Mr. Norcross replied. “And what do you play?”
“Just recently I have been applying myself to Beethoven; perhaps you have heard him?”
“I think I have—he is a German, is he not?”
“Yes, a German, and the most wonderful composer! Of course, he is much too difficult for me; indeed, I am presumptuous to hammer away at him as I do, but his work has the most beautiful feeling, if you understand me.”
“I think so. No doubt you find Mozart a trifle too controlled.”
Julia was just on the point of answering him when a voice on her right broke in.
“I myself am very fond of Mozart,” said d’Arbois, while Julia returned her gaze to him. “Such a grace, such invention! Have you heard his works many times performed?”
“No,” Julia replied. “There is, unhappily, little opportunity to do so in the country. I have heard a little chamber music, and several solo performances, but more than that can not be found in Gloucestershire.”
“Mais quel dommage! Mademoiselle, you must permit me to escort you and your brother to the opera one night. I should be so happy to do it; such a charming demoiselle as yourself must not be allowed to continue in ignorance of Mozart. Please say you will come.”
Julia coloured slightly and glanced at her brother. “I assure you I should like it above all things, but I fear it may not be easy to persuade Fitzgerald to join us. He—he does not fancy the opera, I think.”
“A great pity, mademoiselle. But then we must invite your companion. I am sure you have a lady companion; all English ladies seem to.”
“Yes, of course—Miss Piffin,” said Julia.
“Piffin,” said Mr. Norcross, claiming her attention. “What a singular name.”
“All the English,” said d’Arbois a bit more loudly, “seem to have unusual names.”
“Do you know her lineage? Is her family native to England?” asked Mr. Norcross.
“I made the acquaintance only yesterday,” said the Frenchman, “of a gentleman by the name of Whiffleswit. How unpleasant, to be called Whiffleswit!”
“I knew a Poffin, once, whose family came from Scotland,” Mr. Norcross continued.
And as all these remarks were addressed, of course, exclusively to Julia, and as the gentlemen seemed largely incapable of hearing one another, the hapless damsel twisted from side to side, continually bestowing her gaze on the speaker a little after he had begun to talk and commencing a hundred replies that were destined never to be completed. She had grown to feel an enormous compassion of the shuttlecock used in the game of the same name by the time dessert appeared, and when Mrs. Norcross invited her to withdraw to the drawing room, she was immensely relieved and deeply grateful, and removed herself posthaste.
Mrs. Norcross seated herself on the crimson settee, and drew Julia down beside her. “Now, my dear,” she said, taking her hand, “we shall have the most delicious cose. I go think this is the most delightful part of a dinner, for the gentlemen are obliged to amuse themselves and we may speak freely and recreate ourselves. I have been aching to talk with you alone all evening, such a beautiful girl as you are! Do you know, I believe Monsieur d’Arbois is quite taken with you, and that is an achievement, for his father is terribly wealthy, I am told, and he will some day inherit it all, for he has no brothers or sisters. Shouldn’t you like to be a comtesse? I assure you it would be the most agreeable thing! Do you find him pleasant, my dear? I think he is excessively handsome.”
Such an inquisition would usually have put Julia to the blush, but she understood that her hostess meant only to be kind, and so answered as frankly and calmly as she could. “Indeed, Monsieur is extremely agreeable, but I fear I have not known him long enough to be certain of more than that.”
“Not long enough? How very peculiar, my dear! I assure you, I did not know Mr. Norcross above half-an-hour before I fell in love with him, and a very lucky thing that was, too, for our parents were determined we should marry. To be sure, I am not much in the habit of matchmaking, and so perhaps I do it ill. I tried desperately through the whole of last season to interest Benjy in marriage, but it did not answer at all, for he is frightfully obstinate and would hardly speak to the ladies I chose—though some of them were excessively pretty.
“I declare, the girls on the marriage mart seem to get prettier every year—or perhaps it is only that I grow older and less attractive. In either case, I failed miserably with Benjamin, and I vowed to myself never to attempt such a thing again, but when your stepmother wrote and requested expressly that I find you a husband I resolved to break my vow and find one immediately. Your stepmother has been a most remarkable friend to me, my dear, although she is a good deal younger than I; I daresay no one ever had such a friend—you are quite fortunate to be so nearly allied with her. When I think of the scrapes she has got me out of! And she herself had so much grief so early in life, though if you will have the truth, I do not think she was so much in love with her late husband as I was with Mr. Norcross, so perhaps it is all for the best. I daresay Lord Edgehampton will suit her better than Margate ever did, for he was a shameless scapegrace, you know, and a nasty fellow besides. I wonder she managed to weep at his funeral; really, no one merited more to meet with an accident than he, and well she knew it. But it does not do to speak ill of the dead, though for myself I could never see why, since it seems to be a good deal safer than doing so when they are still alive. But listen to me prattling on about such things when you, poor girl, have so lately been in mourning. Please tell me about your mother; was she very beautiful?”
“Yes,” said Julia, “she was indeed. She was a very gentle and delicate woman, and I have never heard anyone speak ill of her. She was extremely fond of flowers, and very like a flower herself.”
Mrs. Norcross had tears in her eyes, though Julia had spoken as calmly as could be. “The poor dear woman!” she exclaimed, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “To fade away and wither like a rose—so sad,” she murmured, “and so beautiful. But we must not dwell on such mournful topics. Do you know, I like your brother excessively. Such a lively young man, and not at all serious, as my son so often is! We were merry as crickets all through dinner. You must be enormously fond of him.”
“Indeed,” said Julia. “Fitzgerald is very kind to me—much of the time, at least.”
“And do you call him by that dreadful name? Pardon me, my dear, but it is rather a bad one.”
“Of course.” Julia smiled. “He does not like it himself. I am obliged to call him Fitz if I do not wish him to be angry.”
“Fitz!” cried Mrs. Norcross. “The very thing! I shall call him Fitz myself directly he comes in. Come to think of it, where can the gentlemen be? We have been chatting here quite an age, I think. I do hope they have not got drunk and fallen asleep at the table.”
“I am sure they have not,” replied Julia, and indeed she was correct, for within a few moments the gentlemen had entered, Fitzgerald and Mr. Norcross engrossed in a discussion of firearms, and d’Arbois following them with an air of ennui. The two huntsmen resumed the armchairs they had occupied before dinner and continued to talk with animation; d’Arbois drew up a chair close to Julia and proceeded to address that lady and her hostess in his native tongue. Mrs. Norcross, of course, understood not a word, but Julia found the conversation exhilarating and replied in broken French (which d’Arbois insisted was charming) while Mrs. Norcross politely smiled and nodded. Julia found it much more easy and pleasant to converse with d’Arbois than she had at dinner, and an hour slipped rapidly away. Fitzgerald rose at last and, declaring that he was quite fatigued, suggested to his sister that they take themselves off, which they did amid many exclamations of dismay at their departure, and a score of pleasant good-nights.
Once in the carriage, with Kitt yawning at the reins (for he was not much accustomed to late hours), Julia had the opportunity to press her brother for his impressions of their new acquaintances, which opportunity she turned to good account even before they had left the drive of Cross House.
“Did you like them?” she asked.
“I should say so! Mrs. Norcross is a regular goose, but a jolly one at that, and Benjy is a capital fellow—just the sort of man I need for a friend.”
“And d’Arbois?” she inquired anxiously.
“O, agreeable enough, I suppose—a bit too stiff for me. Is he the sort of fellow you wish to marry? You two seemed to get along famously after dinner; I’ve no doubt we’ll be hearing from him soon.”
“Well, yes,” she answered, “he is—he is very pleasant. But…” and here her voice trailed off.
“But?” said Fitzgerald, a trace of curiosity in his voice.
“I have thought so little on the topic of marriage, I hardly know what I desire.”
“Well, never mind,” said her brother, “this is only a beginning. You shall meet lots of gentlemen, if d’Arbois doesn’t suit; wait until the season starts. And if you do like him—well, he seems a right-enough chap; I shouldn’t mind having him for a brother, if you are sure you want him. Interesting story, about his parents and the revolution and all, was it not?”
“Yes,” Julia sighed, and she was obliged to discuss Monsieur d’Arbois all the way to Heathedge, since Fitzgerald seemed to feel obliged to discuss him with her. Upon their arrival, Fitzgerald flung off his cravat, calling it a “dashed nuisance from start to finish,” and took himself off to bed immediately. Julia was unusually quiet while her abigail undressed her, and she waited until she was alone to muse over the rest of her impressions, in the midst of which absorbing occupation she drifted off to sleep.
The next morning Fitzgerald found himself captive as he attempted to leave the dining parlour. “Help ho! Footpads!” cried the young gentleman. “Let me pass, scoundrel!”
“Fitz,” said his sister, for it was she who had been cast as the villain of this piece, “do come and have a cup of coffee with me; I am absolutely famished and I must talk with you.”
“Rogue!” he exclaimed, nonetheless allowing himself to be routed and pulled back towards the table. “Another cup of coffee and I shall drown! Murder! Yet what would this feminine high woman have with me?”
“You are in high spirits this morning,” said Julia, regarding a piece of toast with an interested air.
“Ah, yes,” said Fitzgerald. “High spirits—the privilege of youth,” and he popped a tender young muffin into his mouth. “Delicious,” he said thickly; “heartily endorse them.”
“O, Fitz,” shuddered the lady, “you’ve got crumbs all over your cravat. Do take care.”
“Take care?” Fitz exclaimed. “‘Take care!’ says the lady. Why, my good madam, that muffin very nearly escaped me; lively young thing, it was. But no matter, I took care of it well enough, I daresay. Well, sister? What nasty little scheme are you brooding over now?”
“Good heavens, Fitz! I do not know when I have seen you so gay. Has any thing occurred to account for it?”
“Thing? No, nothing, Lady J. Fine weather, fine morning, fine fellow! Mmmmm,” he went on, “fine toast that looks like—let me have a bite, will you?”
