The Golden Calf - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (best books to read ever TXT) 📗

depressing.'

'Well, he paid us a compliment in coming at all,' answered Bessie, 'so we must forgive him for getting tired of us.'

The drive home was very merry, albeit Bessie and her friend were to part next morning--Ida to go back to slavery. They were both young enough to be able to enjoy the present hour, even on the edge of darkness.

Bessie clasped her friend's hand as they sat side by side in the landau.

'You must come to us at Christmas,' she whispered: 'I shall ask mother to invite you.'

Brian was full of talk and gaiety as they drove home through the dusk. He was very different from that ideal Brian of Ida's girlish fancy--the Brian who embodied all her favourite attributes, and had all the finest qualities of the hero of romance. But he was an agreeable, well-bred young man, bringing with him that knowledge of life and the active world which made his talk seem new and enlightening after the strictly local and domestic intellects of the good people with whom she had been living.

With the family at The Knoll conversation had been bounded by Winchester on one side, and Romsey on the other. There was an agreeable freshness in the society of a young man who could talk of all that was newest in European art and literature, and who knew how the world was being governed.

But this fund of information was hinted at rather than expressed. To-night Mr. Wendover seemed most inclined to mere nonsense talk--the lively nothings that please children. Of himself and his Norwegian adventures he said hardly anything.

'I suppose when a man has travelled so much he gets to look upon strange countries as a matter of course,' speculated Ida. 'If I had just come from Norway, I should talk of nothing else.'

The dumb-charades and hide-and-seek were played, but only by the lower orders, as Bessie called her younger brothers and sisters.

Ida strolled in the moonlit garden with Mr. Wendover, Bessie Urania, and Mr. Ratcliffe, a very juvenile curate, who was Bessie's admirer and slave. Urania had no particular admirer She felt that every one at Kingthorpe must needs behold her with mute worship; but there was no one so audacious as to give expression to the feeling; no one of sufficient importance to be favoured with her smiles. She looked forward to her first season in London next year, and then she would be called upon to make her selection.

'She is worldly to the tips of her fingers,' said Ida, as she and Bessie talked apart from the others for a few minutes: 'I wonder she does not try to captivate your cousin.'

'What--Brian? Oh, he is not at all in her line. He would not suit her a bit.'

'But don't you think it would suit her to be mistress of the Abbey?'

Bessie gave a little start, as if the idea were new.

'I don't think she has ever thought of him in that light,' she said.

'Don't you? If she hasn't she is not the girl I think her.'

'Oh, I know she is very worldly; but I don't think she's so bad as that.'

'Not so bad as to be capable of marrying for money--no, I suppose not,' said Ida, thoughtfully.

'I'm sure you would not, darling, said Bessie. 'You talked about it once, when you were feeling bitter; but I know that in your heart of hearts you never meant it. You are much too high-minded.'

'I am not a bit high-minded. All my high-mindedness, if I ever had any, has been squeezed out of me by poverty. My only idea is to escape from subjection and humiliation--a degrading bondage to vulgar-minded people.'

'But would the escape be worth having at the cost of your own degradation?' urged Bessie, who felt particularly heroic this evening, exalted by the moonlight, the loveliness of the garden, the thought of parting with her dearest friend. 'Marry for love, dearest. Sacrifice everything in this world rather than be false to yourself.'

'You dear little enthusiast, I may never be asked to make any such sacrifice. I have not much chance of suitors at Mauleverer, as you know--and as for falling in love--'

'Oh, you never know when the fatal moment may come. How do you like Brian?'

'He is very gentlemanlike; he seems very well informed.'

'He is immensely clever,' answered Bessie, almost offended at this languid praise; 'he is a man who might succeed in any line he chose for himself. Do you think him handsome?'

'He is certainly nice looking.'

'How cool you are! I had set my heart upon your liking him.'

'What could come of my liking?' asked Ida with a touch of bitterness. 'Is there a portionless girl in all England who would not like the master of Wendover Abbey?'

'But for his own sake,' urged Bessie, with a vexed air; 'surely he is worthy of being liked for his own sake, without a thought of the Abbey.'

'I cannot dissociate him from that lovely old house and gardens. Indeed, to my mind he rather belongs to the Abbey than the Abbey belongs to him. You see I knew the Abbey first.'

Here they were interrupted by Brian and Urania, and presently Ida found herself walking in the moonlight in a broad avenue of standard roses, at the end of the garden, with Mr. Wendover by her side, and the voices of the other three sounding ever so far away. On the other side of a low quickset hedge stretched a wide expanse of level meadow land, while in the farther distance rose the Wiltshire hills, and nearer the heathy highlands of the New Forest. The lamp-lit windows of Miss Wendover's cottage glimmered a little way off, across gardens and meadows.

'And so you are really going to leave us to-morrow morning?' said Brian, regretfully.

'By the eight o'clock train from Winchester. To-morrow evening I shall be sitting on a form in a big bare class-room, listening to the babble of a lot of girls pretending to learn their lessons.'

'Are you fond of teaching?'

'Just imagine to yourself the one occupation which is most odious to you, and then you may know how fond I am of teaching; and of school-girls; and of school-life altogether.'

'It is very hard that you should have to pursue such an uncongenial career.'

'It seems so to me; but, perhaps, that is my selfishness. I suppose half the people in this world have to live by work they hate.'

'Allowing for the number of people to whom all kind of work is hateful, I dare say you are right. But I think, in a general way, congenial work means successful work. No man hates the profession that brings him fame and money; but the doctor without patients, the briefless barrister, can hardly love law or medicine.'

He beguiled Ida into talking of her own life, with all its bitterness. There was something in his voice and manner which tempted her to confide in him. He seemed thoroughly sympathetic.

'I keep forgetting what strangers we are,' she said, apologizing for her unreserve.

'We are not strangers. I have heard of you from Bessie so much that I seem to have known you for years. I hope you will never think of me as a stranger.'

'I don't think I ever can, after this conversation. I am afraid you will think me horribly egotistical.'

She had been talking of her father and stepmother, the little brother she loved so fondly, dwelling with delight upon his perfections.

'I think you all that is good and noble. How I wish this were not your last evening at the Knoll!'

'Do you think I do not wish it? Hark, there's Bessie calling us.'

They went back to the house, and to the drawing-room, which wore quite a festive appearance, in honour of Bessie's birthday; ever so many extra candles dotted about, and a table laid with fruit and sandwiches, cake and claret-cup, the children evidently considering a superfluity of meals indispensable to a happy birthday. Blanche and her juniors were sitting about the room, in the last stage of exhaustion after hide-and-seek.

'This has been a capital birthday,' said Horatio, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and then filling for himself a bumper of claret-cup; 'and now we are going to dance. Blanche, give us the Faust Waltz, and go on playing till we tell you to leave off.'

Blanche, considerably blown, and with her hair like a mop, sat down and began to touch the piano with resolute fingers and forcible rhythm. ONE, two, three, ONE, two, three. The boys pushed the furniture into the corners. Brian offered himself to Ida; Bessie insisted upon surrendering the curate to Urania, and took one of her brothers for a partner; and the three couples went gliding round the pretty old room, the cool night breezes blowing in upon them from wide-open windows.

They danced and played, and sang and talked, till midnight chimed from the old eight-day clock in the hall,--a sound which struck almost as much consternation to Bessie's soul as if she had been Cinderella at the royal ball.

'TWELVE O'CLOCK! and the little ones all up!' she exclaimed, looking round the circle of towzled heads with remorseful eyes. 'What would mother say? And she told me she relied on my discretion! Go to bed, every one of you, this instant!'

'Oh, come, now,' remonstrated Blanche, 'there's no use in hustling us off like that, after letting us sit up hours after our proper time. I'm going to have another sandwich; and there's not a bit of good in leaving all those raspberry tarts. The servants won't thank us. _They_ have as many jam tarts as they like.'

'You greedy little wretches; you have been doing nothing but eat all day,' said Ida. 'When I am back at Mauleverer I shall remember you only as machines for the consumption of pudding and jam. Obey your grown-up sister, and go to bed directly.'

'Grown up, indeed! How long has she been grown up, I should like to know!' exclaimed Blanche vindictively. 'She's only an inch and a quarter taller than me, and she's a mere dumpling compared with Horry.'

The lower orders were got rid of somehow--driven to their quarters, as it were, at the point of the bayonet; and then the grown-ups bade each other good-night; the curate escorting Miss Rylance to her home, and Brian going up to the top floor to a bachelor's room.

'Who is going to drive Miss Palliser to the station?' he asked, as they stood, candlestick in hand, at the foot of the stairs.

'I am, of course,' answered Reginald. 'Robin will spin us over the hills in no time. I've ordered the car for seven sharp.'

There was very little sleep for either Bessie or her guest that night. Both girls were excited by memories of the day that was past, and by thoughts of the day that was coming. Ida was brooding a little upon her disappointment in Brian Wendover. He had very pleasant manners, he seemed soft-hearted and sympathetic, he was very good-looking--but he was not the Brian of her dreams. That ideal personage had never existed outside her imagination. It was a shock to her girlish fancy. There was a sense of loss in her mind.

'I must be very silly,' she told herself, 'to make a fancy picture of a person, and to be vexed with him because he does not resemble my portrait.'