A Mere Chance: A Novel. Vol. 1. Ada Cambridge

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      The great man entered with a springing step, bowing elaborately. His glossy hair (some people said it was a wig, but it was not) was curled to perfection; his moustaches were waxed to the finest needle-points; he wore flashing diamond studs on an embroidered shirt front; and there was a Marshal Neil rose in his button-hole, not very fresh, and too much blown to be any ornament to a fine gentleman's evening toilet, hanging its yellow head heavily from a weak and flabby stalk.

      CHAPTER III.

      MR. KINGSTON'S QUESTION

      WHILE her aunt and cousin were discussing her downstairs, Miss Fetherstonhaugh was dressing herself for dinner in her little chamber at the top of the house. This was a part of the daily ceremonial of her new life, in which she took a deep and delighted interest. The whole thing, in fact, was charming to her. To come sweeping down the big staircase in dainty raiment, all in the spacious light and warmth – to have the doors held open for her as she passed in and out – to go into the dining-room on her uncle's arm, and sit at dinner with flowers before her – seeing and feeling nothing but softness and colour, and polish and order everywhere – was at this time to realise her highest conception of earthly enjoyment.

      Her bedroom was not magnificent, but it had everything in it that she most desired – the whitest linen, the freshest chintz and muslin, a fire to dress by, an easy chair, and above all, a cheval glass, in which she could survey her pretty figure from head to foot. She stood before this cheval glass to-night a thoroughly happy little person. Hitherto, with a mirror twelve inches by nine, that had a crack across it, she had seen that her face was fair and fresh, and that her hair had a wonderful red-gold lustre where the light fell upon it; but she was only now coming to understand what perfection of shape and grace had developed with her recent growth into womanhood, to make the tout ensemble charming.

      She looked at herself with deep content – no doubt with a stronger interest than she would have looked at any other lovely woman, but in much the same spirit, enjoying her beauty more for its own sake than for what it would do for her – more because it harmonised herself to her tastes and circumstances, than because it was a great arsenal of ammunition for social warfare and conquest.

      She was still in mourning for her father, and had put on a simple black evening dress. Her natural sense of the becoming dictated simple costumes, but education demanded that they should be made in the latest fashion; and she regarded the tightness of her skirt in front, and the fan of her train behind, with something more than complacency.

      As yet the lust for jewels had not awakened in her, which was very fortunate, for she had none. The tender, milky throat and the round white arms were bare; and all the ornament that she wore, or wanted, was a bouquet of white chrysanthemum and scarlet salvia on her bosom, and another in her hair.

      Pretty Rachel Fetherstonhaugh! If Roden Dalrymple could have seen her that night, only for five minutes, what a deal of trouble she might have been spared!

      The dinner bell rang, and she blew out her candles hurriedly, and flitted downstairs. On the landing below her she joined her uncle – a small, thin, sharp-faced person, with wiry grey hair, and "man of business" written in every line of his face – as he left his own apartment; and they descended in haste together to the drawing-room, where four people were solemnly awaiting them.

      The first thing that Rachel saw when she entered was her Marshal Neil rose. She glanced from that to its wearer's face, eagerly turned to meet her, full of admiring interest; and, as a matter of course, she blushed to a hue that put her scarlet salvias to shame.

      Why she blushed she would have been at a loss to say; certainly not for any of the reasons that the assembled spectators supposed. It was merely from the vaguest sense of embarrassment at being in a position which she had not been trained to understand.

      An hour or two before, her aunt had made that rose the text of a discourse in which many strange things had been suggested, but nothing explained; and now they all looked at her, evidently with reference to it, yet with painful ambiguity that perplexed her and made her uneasy; and she could only feel, in a general way, that she was young and ignorant and not equal to the situation. Much less than that was amply sufficient to cover her with a veil of blushes.

      At dinner she sat between Mr. Reade and her uncle, and, being on the best of terms with both of them, she confined her conversation to her own corner of the table, and scarcely lifted her eyes; but when dinner was over – dinner and coffee, and the drive to the opera-house – then Mr. Kingston, deeply interested in his supposed discovery of a new kind of woman, and piqued by her shy reception of his generally much-appreciated attentions, set himself to improve his acquaintance with her, and found the task easy. They were standing on the pavement, in the glare of the gaslight, with a lounging crowd about them.

      Mrs. Hardy had dropped a bracelet, for which she and her son-in-law were hunting in the bottom of the brougham, and Mrs. Reade was chatting to an acquaintance, whose hansom had just deposited him beside her – a bearded young squatter, enjoying his season in town after selling his wool high, who stared very hard at Rachel through a pair of good glasses, as soon as he had a favourable opportunity.

      Mr. Kingston stood by the girl's side, staring at her without disguise. The shadow of the street fell soft upon her gauzy raiment and her white arms and the lustre of her auburn hair, but her face was turned towards the gaslight – she was looking wistfully up the long passage which had something very like fairy land at the end of it – and he thought he had never seen any face so fresh and sweet.

      "You like this kind of thing, don't you?" he said, gently, as if speaking to a child, when in turning to look for her aunt she caught his eye.

      "Oh, yes," she replied, promptly, "I do, indeed! I like the whole thing; not the singing and the acting only, but the place, and the people, and the ladies' dresses, and the noise, and the moving about, and the lights – everything. I should like to come to the opera every night – except the nights when there are balls."

      Mr. Kingston laughed, and said he should never have guessed from what he had seen of her that she was such a very gay young lady.

      "You don't understand," she responded quickly, looking up at him with earnest, candid eyes; "it is not that I am gay – oh, no, I don't think it is that! though perhaps I do enjoy a spectacle more than many people. But it is all so new and strange. I have never had any sightseeing – any pleasure like what I am having now, that is why I find it so delightful."

      "Come, my dear!" cried Mrs. Hardy sharply (she had found her bracelet and overheard a part of this little dialogue), "don't stand about in the wind with nothing over you. What have you done with your shawl?"

      "It is here, aunt," replied Rachel meekly, lifting it from her arm.

      Her cavalier hastened to take it from her and adjust it carefully over her shoulders. During this operation Mrs. Hardy swept into the lobby, taking the arm of her big son-in-law; and Mrs. Reade, having parted from her friend, glanced round quickly, followed her husband, and put herself also under his protection. Mr. Kingston, smiling to himself like Mephistopheles under his waxed moustache, was left with Rachel in the doorway.

      "How does it go?" he said, fumbling with a quantity of woolly fringe. "All right – there's no hurry. It is not eight o'clock yet. Pray let me do it for you."

      She stood still, while he dawdled as long as he could over the arrangement of her wrap, but she cast anxious looks after the three receding figures, and she was the colour of an oleander blossom. He was a little disconcerted at her embarrassment; it amused him, but it touched him too.

      Poor little timid child! Who would be so mean as to take advantage of her inexperience? СКАЧАТЬ