START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHARMING FELLOW, VOLUME III (OF 3)*** E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Project Gutenberg also has the other two volumes of this novel. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35428 Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35429 Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/charmingfellow03trol A CHARMING FELLOW. by FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE, Author of "Aunt Margaret's Trouble," "Mabel's Progress," etc. etc. In Three Volumes. VOL. III. London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. 1876. Charles Dickens and Evans, Crystal Palace Press. A CHARMING FELLOW. CHAPTER I. There was a "scene" that evening at Ivy Lodge--not the less a "scene" in that it was conducted on genteel methods. Mrs. Algernon Errington inflicted on her husband during dinner a recapitulation of all her wrongs and injuries which could be covertly hinted at. She would not broadly speak out her meaning before "the servants." The phrase shaped itself thus in her mind from old habit. But in truth "the servants" were represented by one plump-faced damsel in a yellow print gown, into which her person seemed to have been inserted in the same way that bran is inserted into the cover of a pincushion. She seemed to have been stuffed into it by means of considerable force, and with less reference to the natural shape of her body than to the arbitrary outlines of the case made for it by a Whitford dressmaker. This girl ministered to her master and mistress during dinner, pouring water and wine, changing knives and plates, handing vegetables, and not unfrequently dropping a spoon or a sprinkling of hot gravy into the laps of her employers. She had succeeded to Slater, who resigned her post after a trial of some six weeks' duration. Castalia, in despair at this desertion, had written to Lady Seely to send her a maid from London forthwith. But to this application she received a reply to the effect that my lady could not undertake to find any one who would suit her niece, and that her ladyship thought Castalia had much better make up her mind to do without a regular lady's-maid, and take some humbler attendant, who would make herself generally useful. "I always knew Slater wouldn't stay with you," wrote Lady Seely; "and you won't get any woman of that kind to stay. You can't afford to keep one. Your uncle is fairly well; but poor Fido gives me a great deal of unhappiness. He eats nothing." Not by any means from conviction or submission to the imperious advice of Lady Seely, but under the yoke of stern necessity, Castalia had consented to try a young woman of the neighbourhood, "highly recommended." And this abigail, in her tight yellow gown, was the cause of Mrs. Algernon's reticence during dinner. The poor lady might, however, have spared herself this restraint, if its object were to keep her servants in the dark as to domestic disagreements; for no sooner had Lydia (that was the abigail's name) reached the kitchen, than she and Polly, the cook, began a discussion of Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Errington's private affairs, which displayed a surprising knowledge of very minute details, and an almost equally surprising power of piecing evidence together. When Lydia was gone, Algernon lit a cigar and drew up his chair to the fireside, where he sat silent, staring at his elegantly-slippered feet on the fender. Castalia rose, fidgeted about the room, walked to the door, stopped, turned back, and, standing directly opposite to Algernon, said querulously, "Do you mean to remain here?" "For the present, yes; out of consideration for you. You dislike me to smoke in the drawing-room, do you not?" "Why should you smoke at all?" Algernon raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, crossed one leg over the other, and made no answer. His wife went away, and sitting down alone on a corner of the sofa in her little drawing-room, cried bitterly for a long time. She was made to raise her tear-stained face by feeling a hand passed gently over her hair. She looked up, and found her husband standing beside her. "What's the matter, little woman?" he asked, in a half-coaxing, half-bantering tone, like one speaking to a naughty child, too young to be seriously reproved or argued with. Now, although Castalia was haughty by education and insolent by temper, she had very little real pride and no dignity in her character. To be noticed and caressed by Algernon was to her a sufficient compensation for almost any indignity. There was but one passion of her nature which had any chance of resisting his personal influence, and that passion had never yet been fully aroused, although frequently irritated. Her jealousy was like a young tiger that had never yet tasted blood. "What's the matter, little woman?" repeated Algernon, seating himself beside her, and putting his arm round her waist. She shrugged her shoulders fretfully, but at the same time nestled herself nearer to his side. She loved him, and it put her at an immense disadvantage with him. "Don't you mean to vouchsafe me an answer, Mrs. Algernon Ancram Errington?" "Oh, I daresay you're very sorry that I am Mrs. Errington. I have no doubt you repent." "Really! And is that what you were crying for?" No reply. "It looks rather as if you repented, madam!" "Oh, you know I don't; unless you like other people better than you like me!" "'Other people' don't cry in my company." "No; because they don't care for you. And because they're----they're nasty, artful minxes!" "Hear, hear! A charming definition! Castalia, you are really _impayable_ sometimes. How my lord would enjoy that speech of yours!" "No, he wouldn't. Uncle Val would never enjoy what vexed me. My lady might; nasty, disagreeable old thing!" "There, I can agree with you. A vulgar kind of woman--though she is my blood-relation--thoroughly coarse in the grain. But now that we have relieved our feelings, and spoken our minds on that score, suppose we converse rationally?" "I don't want to converse rationally." "Why not?" "Because that means that you are going to scold me." "Well--that might be highly rational, certainly; only I never do it." "Well, but you'll manage to make out that I'm in the wrong and you're in the right, somehow or other." "Cassy, I want you to write a letter." "A letter? Whom do you want me to write to?" Her tears were completely dried, and she looked up at him with a faint smile on her countenance, which, however, looked rueful enough, with red nose and swollen eyes. "You must write to my lord, and get him to help us with a little money." Her face fell. "Ask Uncle Val for money again, Ancram? It is such a short time since he sent me some!" "And to-morrow, at this hour, it will be 'such a short time' since you had your dinner! Nevertheless, I suppose you will want another dinner." "I--I don't think Uncle Val can afford it, Ancram." "Leave that to him. Afford it? Pshaw!" Algernon made the little sharp ejaculation in a tone expressive of the most impatient contempt. "But do we really--is it absolutely necessary for us to beg of my uncle again?" "Not at all. Do just as you please," answered her husband, rising and walking away from the sofa to a distant chair. Castalia's eyes followed him piteously. "But what can I say?" she asked. "What excuse can I make? I hate to worry Uncle Val. It isn't as if he had more money than he knew what to do with. And if Lady Seely knew about his helping us, she would lead him such a life!" "Do as you please. It would be a thousand pities to worry your uncle. Let all the worry fall on me." He took up a book and threw himself back in his chair as if he had dismissed the subject. "I don't know what to do!" exclaimed Castalia, with fretful helplessness. At length, after sitting silent for some time twisting her handkerchief backwards and forwards in her fingers, she got up and crossed the room to her husband's chair. "Ancram!" she said softly. "Eh? I beg your pardon!" looking up with an appearance of great abstraction, as if the perusal of his book had absorbed all his attention. "I wish to do what will please you. I only care to please you in the world. But--can't you explain to me a little better why I must write to Uncle Val?" Explain! Of course he would! He desired nothing better. He had brought her to a point at which encouragement was needed, not coldness. And with the singular flexibility that belonged to him, he was able immediately to plunge into an animated statement of his present situation, which sufficed to persuade his hearer that no course of conduct could be so desirable, so prudent--nay, so praiseworthy, as the course he had suggested. To be sure the details were vague, but the general impression was vivid enough. If Algernon's pictures were a little inaccurate in drawing, they were at least always admirably coloured. And the general impression was this: that there never had been a person of such brilliant abilities and charming qualities as Algernon Ancram Errington so unjustly consigned to obscurity and poverty. And no contributions to his comfort, luxury, or well-being were too much to expect and claim from the world in general, and his wife's relations in particular. Common honesty--common decency almost--would compel Lord Seely to make all the amends in his power for having placed Algernon in the Whitford Post-office. And there was an insinuation very skilfully and delicately mixed with all the seemingly unstudied and spontaneous outpourings of Algy's conjugal confidence--an insinuation which affected the flavour of the whole, as an accomplished cook will contrive to mingle garlic in a ragoût, never coarsely obtrusive, and yet distinctly perceptible--to the effect that the hand of Miss Castalia Kilfinane had been somewhat officiously thrust upon her charming husband; and that the family owed him no little gratitude for having been kind enough to accept it. Poor Castalia had an uneasy feeling, at the end of his fluent discourse, that Algernon had been a victim to her great relations, and, in some dim way, to herself. But the garlic was so admirably blended with the whole mass, that it was impossible for her to pick it out, or resent it, or do anything but declare her willingness to help her husband by any means in her power. "Why, my dear girl, it is as much for your sake as for mine! And as to the necessity for it, I must tell you what Minnie Bodkin said to me to-day. Minnie is an excellent creature, full of friendly feeling--a little too conceited and fond of lecturing" (Castalia's face brightened); "but much must be excused to an afflicted invalid, who never meets her fellow-creatures on equal terms." Castalia looked almost happy. But she said, "As to her affliction, it seems to me that she has been growing much stronger lately." "Yes; I am glad to think so too. But let the best happen that can be hoped--let the disease, that has kept her helpless on her couch all these years, be overcome--still she must always be so lame as to make her an object of pity." "Poor thing! I daresay it does warp her mind a good deal. What did she say to you?" Algernon recapitulated a part of Minnie's warnings, but gave them such a turn as to make it appear that the greatest wrath and impatience of the Whitford tradesmen were directed against his wife. "They have a narrow kind of provincial prejudice against you, Cassy, on account of your being a 'London fine lady.' Me they know; and, in their great condescension, are pleased to approve of." "Oh, everybody likes you better than me, of course," answered Castalia, simply. "But I don't care for that, if you will only like me better than anybody." The genuine devotion with which this was said would have touched most men. It might have touched Algernon, had he not been too much engrossed in mentally composing the rough draft of Castalia's letter to her uncle, and putting his not inconsiderable powers of plausible persuasion to the task of making it appear that his wife's personal extravagance was the chief cause of their need for ready money. "Don't tell him that I even know of your writing. My lord will be more willing to come down handsomely if he thinks it's for you only, Cassy," said Algernon, as he drew up his wife's writing-table for her, placed a chair, opened her inkstand, and performed several little acts of attention with a really charming grace and gallantry. So Castalia, writing almost literally what her husband dictated--(although he kept saying at every sentence, "My dear child, you ought to know best how to address your uncle;" "Well, I really don't know, but I think you might put it thus;" and so forth)--completed an appeal to Lord Seely to anticipate by nearly a quarter the allowance he continued to make her for her dress out of his private purse, and, if possible, to increase its amount. One such appeal had already been made and responded to by a gift of money. It had been made immediately after the arrival of the newly-married couple in Whitford, on the ground of the unforeseen expenses attendant on installing themselves in their new habitation. In answering it Lord Seely had written kindly, but with evident disapproval of the step that had been taken. "I cannot, Castalia," he said, "bid you keep anything secret from your husband, and yet I can scarcely help saying that I wish he did not know of the cheque I inclose. I fear he is disposed to be reckless in money matters; and nothing encourages such a disposition more than the idea that aid can be had from friends for the asking. Ancram will recollect a serious conversation I had with him the evening before your marriage, and I can only now reiterate what I then assured him of--that it will be impossible for me to repeat the assistance I gave him on that occasion." "What assistance was that, Ancram?" asked Castalia, who knew not a word of the matter. "Oh, I believe my lord made me the munificent present of two pair of breeches, and an old coat and waistcoat, or so." "Made you a present of an old coat and breeches! What on earth do you mean?" "I mean that he paid a twopenny outstanding tailor's bill for me. And he writes now as if he had conferred the most overwhelming obligation." The fact was that Lord Seely had discharged a great number of Algernon's debts; all of them, as his lordship imagined. But there was clearly no need of troubling Castalia with these details. When the letter was finished and sealed, Castalia still sat musingly tracing unmeaning figures with the point of her pen on the blotting-book. At length she said with some hesitation, "Ancram, how is it that we spend so much money? I don't think I am very extravagant." "'So much money!' Good Heavens, Castalia--but you really have no conception of these things. Our whole income, and twice our income, is a miserable pittance. The Dormers pay their butler more." She was again silent for a little while. Then she said, "Isn't there anything we could do without?" Her husband looked at her in astonishment. It was a quite unexpected suggestion on Castalia's part. "Could you be kind enough to point out anything?" he asked drily. She looked somewhat cast down by his tone, but answered, "There's that last case of wine from town--the Rhine wine. Don't you think we might send it back unopened, and do with a bottle of sherry, now and then, from the 'Blue Bell?' Your mother finds that very good." "Pshaw!" with the accustomed sharp, impatient contempt. "My mother knows no more about wine than a baby. To drink bad wine is absolutely to poison oneself. I can't do it, and I don't mean to let you do it, either. And when one knows that it is only a question of a few months, more or less, and that directly I get a better berth these greedy rascals will be paid their extortionate bills in full--positively, Castalia, it seems to me childish to talk in that way!" It was the same with one or two other suggestions of retrenchment she ventured to make. Algernon showed conclusively (conclusively enough to satisfy his hearer, at all events) that it would not do--that it would be absolutely imprudent, on their part, to make any open retrenchment. All these sharks would come round them at once, if they smelt poverty. "I know these gentry better than you do, Castalia," said he. "There is no way of getting on with them except by not being in a hurry to pay them. Nothing spoils tradespeople so much as any over-alacrity of that kind. They immediately conclude that you can't do without them!" "Oh, they're disgustingly impudent creatures, these Whitford tradespeople! There is no doubt in the world about that," said Castalia, in perfect good faith. "Only I thought you seemed to be made uneasy by what Miss Bodkin said to you on the subject." "To be sure! But, my dear girl, your method would never answer! I do want money, very badly. And I do hope and expect--as I think I have some right to do--that my lord will assist us without delay, and without making one of his intolerable prosy preachments on the occasion. And we must have a few pounds to go on with, and stop the mouths of these rapacious rascals. But no retrenchment, Castalia! No 'Blue Bell' sherry! Good Heavens, it makes one bilious to think of it! I really cannot sacrifice my digestion to advance the commercial prosperity of Whitford. And when one considers it, why should we destroy our peace of mind by worrying ourselves? Lord Seely has got us into this scrape, and Lord Seely must get us out of it. _Voilà tout!_" After that the rest of the evening was spent very harmoniously. Algernon could not repress two or three prodigious yawns, but he politely concealed them. And when Castalia went to her pianoforte, he woke up at the conclusion of an intricate fantasia quite in time to thank her for the performance, and to praise its brilliancy. In a word, so agreeable an evening, Castalia told herself, she had not passed for many weeks, although it had certainly begun in an unpromising way. So softened was she, indeed, by this gleam of happiness, that several times she was on the point of making a confession to her husband, and entreating his forgiveness. But she could not bear to risk bringing a cloud over the light of his countenance, which was the only sunshine in her life. "Ancram would be so angry!" was a thought that checked back words which were on her lips a dozen times. "And since the matter is all over, and he need never know anything about it, I may as well hold my tongue." It needed, however, no confession on Castalia's part to convince Algernon that she had opened his secretaire, and taken Minnie Bodkin's letter thence, instead of having found it lying open on his table, as she had said. For on the next morning, when he entered his private room at the office, his first action was to try the little secretaire, which was unlocked. He then remembered that, after having secured that repository of his private papers, he had re-opened it, to throw Minnie's note into a drawer of it; and, having been called away at that moment, must have forgotten to re-lock it. "Damnably provoking!" muttered Algernon to himself as he stood looking at the little cabinet with gloomy, anxious brows. Then, having first bolted the door of his room, he made a thorough search throughout the secretaire. "Nothing disturbed! She probably flew off to Dr. Bodkin's house directly after reading Minnie's note; and that lay in the little empty drawer right in front. It would be the first she opened." Then he sat down in a mighty comfortable armchair, which was placed in front of an official-looking desk, and meditated so deeply that he forgot to unbolt the door, and was roused by Mr. Gibbs tapping at it, and desiring to speak with him on business. CHAPTER II. Mr. Gibbs's errand was not a pleasant one. He came to speak to his chief of complaints that had reached the office as to lost and missing letters. The most serious case was that of a man living in the neighbourhood of Duckwell, who complained that a money letter had never reached him, although it had been posted in Bristol three weeks back. Some inquiries had previously been made, but without result. And now the Duckwell man declared he would make a fine fuss, and bring the matter before the very highest authorities, if his letter were not forthcoming. "What does the bumpkin mean, Gibbs?" asked Algernon, impatiently tapping with his fingers on the desk before him. "I'm afraid he'll give us a deal of bother, sir," returned Mr. Gibbs slowly. "And I can't understand what has come of the letter. It's very awkward." "Very awkward for him, if he really has lost his money. But I should not be surprised to learn that it never was posted at all." "Humph! I don't know. He swears that the sender at Bristol can prove that it was posted." "And why the deuce do people go on sending bank-notes by post, without the least care or precaution? One must have been connected with a post-office in order fully to appreciate the imbecility of one's fellow-creatures!" "I don't know that it was bank-notes, sir. It may have been a cheque." "Oh, depend upon it, it was whatever was stupidest to send, and most calculated to give trouble; if it was sent, that is to say! If it was sent!" "I can't call to mind such a thing happening for twenty years back; not in this office. But lately there seems to be no end to things going wrong." "Well, don't distress yourself about it, Gibbs. I have full reliance on you in every way." "Oh no, sir! It is unpleasant, but I don't know that I specially need distress myself about it." "Only because you have had the uncontrolled management of the office, Gibbs. And it is too bad, when one has worked so conscientiously as you have, to be worried by blundering bumpkins. I assure you, Gibbs, I am constantly singing your praises to Lord Seely. I tell him frankly, that if it were not for you, I don't know in the least how I should fulfil my onerous duties here! When I'm removed from this place, the powers that be won't have far to look for my successor." This was the most explicit word that had yet fallen from Mr. Errington on the subject of his subordinate's promotion. And it decidedly gratified Mr. Obadiah Gibbs. Nevertheless, that steady individual was not so elated by the prospect held out to him as to dismiss from his mind the business he had come to speak about. "It is the most unaccountable thing!" said he. "Three or four cases of the kind within two months! And up to that time no office in the kingdom bore a better character than Whitford. I hope the thing may be cleared up. But it is next to impossible to trace a stolen letter. The Duckwell man--Heath, his name is; Roger Heath--says he is determined to complain to the Postmaster-General. I suppose we shall be having the surveyor coming to look after us. You see, it isn't like a solitary case. That's the worst of it. There's what you may term an accumulation, sir." Whilst Mr. Gibbs poured forth his troubled mind in these and many more slow sentences, Algernon rose, took his hat, brushed it lightly with his glove, put it on, and was evidently about to depart. Gibbs ventured to lay his hand on his coat-sleeve to detain him. The clerk was not satisfied that the matter should be dismissed so lightly. It might not be possible to do anything, truly; but (in common with a great many other people) Mr. Obadiah Gibbs felt that, where efficacious action was impracticable, it was all the more desirable to mark the gravity of an unpleasant circumstance by copious talking of it. Life would become, in some sort, too frivolous and easy if, when a matter clearly could not be remedied, every one agreed to say no more about it! A vast deal of sage eloquence would thus be choked and dammed up. And Mr. Gibbs, for his special part, was conscious of having some reputation amongst his fellow Wesleyans for a gift of utterance. "I really don't know, sir, what to say to Roger Heath," he persisted. "Oh--tell him inquiries will be made in the proper quarters." "That, sir, has been said already. He has been here twice or thrice." "Then tell him to go to the devil!" said Algernon, sharply jerking his arm away from the clerk's grasp, and walking off. The pious and respectable Mr. Gibbs shook his head disapprovingly at this profane speech, and went back to his stool in the outer office with a lowering brow. Algernon walked along the High Street, and turned down a narrow lane leading towards the river, and past one corner of the Grammar School. The boys were just coming out of school with the usual shrill babble and rush. A party of Dr. Bodkin's private scholars were on their way to Whit Meadow. "Good day, Ingleby," said Algernon, addressing the eldest of them, the same lad who had been Rhoda's squire in the tea-room on the night of Mrs. Algernon Errington's _début_ in Whitford society. "Where are you off to?" "We're going to have a row. I've got a boat, and we're going up the river as far as Duckwell Reach. We have leave from the doctor. Deuce of a job to get it, though!" "Why?" "Oh, because he's nervous about the river; thinks it dangerous, and all that." "Well, you know, Ingleby," said a younger boy, with much eagerness, "lots of people have been drowned in that bit of the river between here and Duckwell Reach." "Lots of people! Gammon!" "Well, two since I've been here!" "Oh, I daresay. Well, if you funk it you needn't come. There's plenty without you." "You know I don't funk it for myself, Ingleby. I can swim." "Yes, my friend. You wouldn't get into my boat if you couldn't. I'm on honour with the doctor to take none but swimmers," said Ingleby, turning to Algernon; "and of course that settles the matter. But, for my part, I should have thought anybody but the quite small boys might walk out of the Whit if they tumbled into it." "Oh no! You do our noble river injustice. You are not a Whitfordian or you would know better than that. There are some very ugly places between here and Duckwell Reach; places where I wouldn't give much for your chance of getting out if once you fell in, swimmer though you are. Good-bye. A pleasant row to you." The boys pursued their way to the boat, and Algernon, turning off at right angles when he reached the bottom of the lane, got into Whit Meadow through a turnstile at the foot of the Grammar School playground. There was a footpath through the meadow, and some fields beyond, which made a pleasant walk enough in fine summer weather, and was then a good deal frequented. But at this season it was damp, muddy, and lonely. The day was fine, but the ground had been saturated by previous rains, and that part of the meadow nearest to the margin of the river was almost a swamp. The path continued to skirt the Whit for some miles, running in the direction of Duckwell, and as Algernon walked along it he saw the windings of the river shining in the sun, and presently there appeared on it the boat full of schoolboys. One of them wore a scarlet cap, and thus made a bright spot of colour in the landscape. The sound of their young voices was carried across the water to Algernon's ears. He stood for a minute or so at the gate of his own garden, which ran down behind the house to the river path, and watched them. The thought crossed his mind that, if any accident should occur to the boat at that spot, there would be little chance of assistance reaching it quickly. Ivy Lodge was the last house on that side of the river between Whitford and Duckwell Reach. And on the willow-fringed shore opposite not a living creature was to be seen, except some cattle grazing in the plashy fields. The whole scene--the vivid green of the marsh grass, the grey willows, the boat with its wet oars flashing at regular intervals, the red-capped boy, and the sound of the fresh, shrill laughter of the crew, all fixed themselves on his mind with that vividness of impression which trivial external things so often make upon a brain labouring with some inward trouble. CHAPTER III. "What a state your boots are in!" exclaimed Castalia, pausing at the foot of the stairs, which she happened to be descending as her husband entered the house. "And why did you come by the back way?" "I was worried, and did not wish to meet people and be chattered to. I thought the meadow-path would be quiet, and so it was." "Quiet! Yes; but how horribly muddy! Do change your wet boots at once, Ancram!" There was little need for her to insist on this proceeding. Algernon hastened to his room, pulled off his wet boots, and desired that they should be thrown away. "They can be dried and cleaned, sir," said plump-faced Lydia, aghast at this order. "My good girl you may do what you please with them. I shall never wear them again. Slight boots of that sort that have once been wet through become shapeless, don't you understand? Take them away." When the master of the house descended to the drawing-room, he found a paper, squarely folded in the shape of a letter, lying in a conspicuous position on the centre table. It was Mr. Gladwish the shoemaker's bill, accompanied by an urgent request for immediate payment. "More wall-paper, Cassy," said her husband, flinging himself on the sofa. "Do you know, Lydia tells me the man was quite insolent!" said Castalia. "What can be done with such people? They don't seem to me to have the least idea who we are!" "Oh, confound the brutes! Don't let us talk about them!" But Castalia continued to talk about them in a strain of mingled wonder and disgust. She did not cease until dinner was announced, and Algernon was by that time so thoroughly wearied by his conjugal _tête-à-tête_, that he even received with something like satisfaction the announcement that Castalia expected the Misses Rose and Violet McDougall to pass the evening at Ivy Lodge. "I daresay your mother will come too," said Castalia, "and bring Rhoda Maxfield with her. I asked her." "Rhoda? Why on earth do you invite that little Maxfield?" "What is your objection to her, Ancram?" "Oh, I have no objection to her in the world. But I should not have thought she was precisely the sort of person to suit you." "That's exactly what Miss Bodkin says! Miss Bodkin tried to keep Rhoda apart from me, I am perfectly sure. And I can't fathom her motive. And now you say the same sort of thing. However, I always notice that you echo her words. But I don't intend to be guided by Miss Bodkin's likes and dislikes. I haven't the same opinion of Miss Bodkin's wisdom that the people have here, and I shall choose my friends for myself. It's quite absurd, the fuss that is made in this place about Miss Bodkin; absolutely sickening. Rose McDougall is the only person of the whole set who seems to keep her senses on the subject." "Rose McDougall will never lose her senses from admiration of another woman," returned Algernon. And then the colloquy was broken up by the arrival of the Misses McDougall, clogged and cloaked, and attended by their maid-servant. After having exchanged greetings with these ladies, Algernon withdrew, murmuring something about going to smoke his cigar. "You'll not be long, Ancram, shall you?" said his wife, in a complaining tone. But he disappeared from the room without replying to her. "I'm so dreadfully afraid that I drive your husband away when I come here, my dear," said Rose McDougall with a spiteful glance at Algernon's retreating figure. "Good gracious, no! He doesn't think of minding you at all." "Oh, I daresay he does not mind me; does not think me of importance enough to be taken any notice of. But I cannot help observing that he always keeps out of the way as much as possible when I am spending an evening here." "Nonsense!" said Castalia, tranquilly continuing to string steel beads on to red silk for the manufacture of a purse. "You might as well say that it is I who drive Mr. Errington away, Rose," put in Violet. "Not at all!" returned her sister, with sudden sharpness. "That's quite a different matter." "I don't see why, Rose!" The true answer to this remark, in the elder Miss McDougall's mind, would have been, "You are so utterly insignificant, compared with me, that you are effaced in my company, and are neither liked nor disliked on your own merits." But she could not quite say that, so she merely repeated with increased sharpness, "That's a very different matter." Rose McDougall was one of those persons who prefer animosity to indifference. That any one should simply not care about her was a suggestion so intolerable that she was wont to declare of persons who did not show any special desire for her society, that they hated her. She was sure Mr. A. detested the sight of her, and Miss B. was her bitter enemy. But, perhaps, in Algernon's case, she had more reason for declaring he disliked her than in many others. He did in truth object to the sort of influence she exercised over Castalia. He knew that Castalia was insatiably curious about even the most trifling details of his past life in Whitford; and he knew that Miss McDougall was very capable of misrepresenting--even of innocently misrepresenting--many circumstances and persons in such a way as to irritate Castalia's easily-aroused jealousy; and Castalia's easily-aroused jealousy was an element of discomfort in his daily life. In a word, there had arisen since his marriage a smouldering sort of hostility between him and Rose McDougall. But he was far from conceiving the acrid nature of her feelings towards him. For his part, he laughed at her a little in a playful way, and contradicted her, and, above all, he did not permit her to bore him by exacting any attention from him which he was disinclined to pay. But there was no bitterness in all that. None in the world! Only he did not reckon on the bitterness excited in Miss Rose's breast by being laughed at and neglected. The graceful and charming way in which the laughter and neglect were accomplished by no means mollified the sting of them; a point which graceful and charming persons would do well sometimes to consider, but to which they are often singularly blind. "And what have you been doing with yourself all day, Castalia dear?" asked Violet with a great display of affection. "Oh--what can one do with oneself in this horrid hole?" "To be sure!" responded Violet. But she responded rather uncertainly. To her, Whitford seemed by no means a horrid hole. She had been content enough to live there for many years--ever since her uncle had brought her and her sister from Scotland in their mourning clothes, and received his orphan nieces into his home. "Don't speak of it, my dear!" exclaimed Rose, on whom the reminiscences of the years spent in Whitford wrought by no means a softening effect. "What possessed Uncle James to stick himself down in this place, of all places, I cannot conjecture. He might as well have buried us girls alive at once." "Oh, well, I suppose you have had time enough to get used to it," said Castalia, coolly. "Violet, will you ring the bell? It is close to you. Thank you.--Lydia," when the girl appeared, "where is your master?" "In the dining-room, ma'am." "What is he doing?" "Smoking and reading, ma'am." "Go and ask him to come here, with my love." "How the woman worrits him! She doesn't leave him a minute's peace," was Lydia's comment to the cook on this embassy. "She worrits everybody, in her slow, crawley kind o' way; but I'm sorry for her sometimes, too. It's a trying thing to care more for a person's little finger than a person cares for your whole body and soul," returned Polly, who had a kind of broad good-nature and candour. But Lydia felt no sympathy with her mistress, and maintained that it was all her own fault then! What did she be always nagging at him for?--having that pitiless contempt for other women's mistakes in the management of their husbands which is not uncommon with her sex. Some such thoughts as Lydia's probably passed through the minds of the Misses McDougall, but, of course, that was not the time or place to express them. They exerted themselves to entertain their hostess with a variety of Whitford gossip, while Castalia--her attention divided between the purse she was making and the drawing-room door, at which she hoped to see her husband presently appear--merely threw in a languid interjection now and then as her contribution to the conversation. At length she rose, and flung the crimson and steel purse down on the table. "Do you want anything, dear?" asked the obliging Violet with officious alacrity. "No; I shan't be long gone. Sit still, Violet." "She's gone to implore her husband to honour us with a little of his society," whispered Rose, when Castalia had shut the door. "I'm certain of it. More fool she!" The sisters sat silent for a few minutes. Then they heard the door of the dining-room open, as though Castalia were coming back, and the sound of voices. Rose was seated nearest to the door, which was separated from that of the little dining-room opposite by a very narrow passage, and she distinctly heard Algernon say, "Pooh! The old girl doesn't want me." And again, "Says I hate her? Nonsense! I look on her with the veneration due to her years and virtues." And then Castalia said, "Well, she can't help her years. Besides, that's not the question. You ought to come, for my sake. It's very unkind of you, Ancram." After that there was a lower murmur of speech, as though the speakers had changed their places in the room, and Rose was able to distinguish no more. When Mrs. Algernon Errington returned to the drawing-room, she found Violet in her old seat near the pianoforte; but Rose had shifted her position, and was standing near the window. "What are you doing there, Rose? Enjoying the prospect?" asked Castalia. The shutters were not closed, but, as the night was very dark, there certainly did not seem to be any inducement to look out of the window. "Can't you persuade your husband to come, dear? I'm so sorry!" said Rose, turning round; and her sister looked up quickly at the sound of her voice, which, to Violet's accustomed ear, betrayed in its inflections suppressed anger. Her face, too, was crimson, and her little light blue eyes sparkled with unusual brightness. Castalia, however, noticed none of these things. "Oh, he'll come presently," she said. "He really was finishing a cigar. I told him that you were offended with him, and----" "I offended with your husband? Oh dear no! Why on earth should I be? You ought not to have said that, Castalia." "Well, you thought he was offended with you, or something of the sort. It's all the same," returned Castalia, with her air of weary indifference. "And he says it's nonsense." "My dear, I am only sorry on your account that he won't come. Really, to myself, it matters very little; very little indeed. What a pity that you have not some one to amuse him! We are none of us clever enough, that is clear." "Oh, you are quite mistaken if you think Ancram cares particularly for clever women!" said Castalia, whose thoughts instantly reverted to Minnie Bodkin. "Even Miss Bodkin, whom everybody declares to be such a wonder of talent, bores him sometimes, I can tell you. Of course he has known her from his childhood, and all that; but he said to me only yesterday that she was conceited, and too fond of preaching. So you see! I daresay, poor thing, she fancies all the time that she is enchanting him by her wisdom." "Dear me," said Violet timidly, and with a sort of strangled sigh. "I think that, as a rule, gentlemen don't like any kind of women except pretty women! Though, to be sure, Minnie is handsome enough if it wasn't for her affliction." "Oh, I wasn't thinking of Minnie," said Rose, viciously twitching at her sewing thread. "I meant it was a pity there was no one here who was clever enough, and who thought it worth while, to play off pretty airs and graces for Mr. Errington's amusement. That's the kind of cleverness that attracts men. And your husband, my dear, was always remarkably fond of flirting." Violet opened her eyes in astonishment, and, from her place a little behind Castalia, made a warning grimace to her sister; but Rose only responded by a defiant toss of the head. Castalia's attention was now effectually aroused, and although she still spoke in the querulous drawl that was natural to her (or had become so from long habit), it was with a countenance earnestly addressed to her interlocutor, instead of, as hitherto, with carelessly averted eyes. "I never heard any one say before that Ancram was fond of flirting," she said. "I should have thought it was not necessary to hear it. You might see it for yourself; unless, indeed, he is very sly about it in your presence. He, he, he!" "See it for myself? Why--there's nobody here for him to flirt with!" This naïve ignoring of any pretensions on the part of her present guests to be eligible for the purposes of flirtation was not lost on Rose. "Not many who would flirt with a married man. No, I hope and believe not! But there are many kinds of flirtation, you know. There's the soft and sentimental, the shy, sweet sixteen style--little Miss Maxfield's style, for instance." "Rhoda!" "Yes; that is her name, I believe. I have never been intimate with the young person myself. Uncle James has always been very particular as to whom we associated with. However, since you have taken her up, my dear, I suppose she may be considered visitable." "We have met her at Dr. Bodkin's, you know, Rose," put in Violet, who was looking and listening with a distressed expression of face. "Oh yes; I believe Minnie asked her there at first to please Algernon. Minnie can be good-natured in that sort of way. But I don't know that it was very judicious." "Why should you suppose it was to please my husband that Rhoda was invited to the Bodkins?" asked Castalia. "I don't see that at all. The girl might have been asked to please Miss Bodkin. I daresay she had heard of her from Mrs. Errington. Mrs. Errington is always raving about her." Rose smiled with tightly-closed lips, and nodded. "To be sure! Poor dear Mrs. Errington--I mean no disrespect to your mother-in-law, Castalia, who is really a superior woman, only in some things she is as blind as a bat." Castalia's sallow face was paler than ever. Her nostrils were dilated as if she had been running fast. "You never told me a word of this before," she said. "My dear creature," said Rose, looking full at Castalia for the first time, "why, what was there to tell? The subject was led to by chance now, and I had not the least idea that you did not know all Algy's old love-stories. Everybody here--except, I suppose, poor dear Mrs. Errington--knew of the boy-and-girl nonsense between him and that little thing. But of course it never was serious. That was out of the question." "I don't believe it!" said Castalia, suddenly. "Well, I daresay the thing was exaggerated, as so often happens. For my part, I never could see what there was in the girl to make so many people admire her. A certain freshness, perhaps; and some men do think a great deal of that pink-and-white sort of insipidity." "At all events, Ancram does not care about her now," said Castalia, speaking in broken sentences, and twisting her watch-chain nervously backwards and forwards in her fingers. "Oh, of course not! I daresay he never did care about her in earnest. But that sort of philandering is a little dangerous, isn't it?" "He does not like me to ask her to the house even." "Doesn't he?" "No; he has said so more or less plainly several times. He said so this very evening." "Did he, indeed? Well, I really am glad to hear it. I scarcely gave Algy--Mr. Errington--credit for so much--prudence!" "Mrs. Errington and Miss Maxfield," announced Lydia at the door of the drawing-room. CHAPTER IV. Mrs. Errington advanced towards her daughter-in-law with her habitual serene stateliness, and Rhoda followed her, modestly, looking very pretty in a new dress, the delicate hue of which set off her fair complexion to great advantage. Castalia received them much as usual; that is to say, without displaying any emotion whatever. But when Mrs. Errington took her daughter-in-law's hand, she exclaimed, "Good gracious, Castalia, how cold you are! A perfect frog! And yet this little room of yours is very warm; oppressively warm to one coming from without." "We find the temperature so comfortable here!" said Violet. "Dear Castalia always has her rooms deliciously warm, we think." "Perhaps, Violet, you are chilly by nature. Some constitutions are so. For myself, I have a wonderful circulation. But it is hereditary. All my branch of the Ancrams were renowned for it. I don't know, my dear Castalia, whether my cousin, Lady Seely, has the same peculiarity?" "I don't know, I'm sure." "With us it was a well-known thing among the Faculty for miles around Ancram Park. Our extremities were never cold, nor had we ever red noses. I believe a red nose was absolutely unknown in our family. No doubt that was part of the same thing; perfect circulation of the blood." With that Mrs. Errington sat down tolerably near the fire and made herself comfortable. "Where is my dear boy?" she asked after a little while. "Not at that dreadful office I hope and trust!" "He is at home," replied Castalia, slowly. "I asked him to come into the drawing-room, and he said he would by-and-by." "Oh, I daresay he will come now, dear," said Rose McDougall, without raising her eyes from her sewing. "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Errington to her daughter-in-law, "and if he does come 'now' you must not be jealous." The two sisters glanced at the good lady in quick surprise, and then at Rhoda. Rhoda was looking, for the hundredth time, at a book of prints. It was her usual evening's occupation at Ivy Lodge. Mrs. Errington proceeded, placid, smiling, and condescending as ever: "You must not be jealous, Castalia, if he does come directly he learns that his mother is here. To be sure a wife ranks first. I have always acknowledged that; and, indeed, insisted on it. I am sure it was my own case with poor dear Dr. Errington, who would never have dreamed of putting any human being into competition with me. Still, allowances must be made for the very peculiar and devoted attachment Algy has always felt for me. He is, and ever was, an Ancram to the core. And this kind of--one may say romantic--affection for their mothers has always distinguished the scions of our house from time immemorial. Good evening, my dear Algy. I find
{'title': 'A Charming Fellow, Volume III by Frances Eleanor Trollope', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}