CHAPTER VIII

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AT THE CHÂTEAU DE BOURBON.

The château in which some of the banished descendants of Louis the Great had set up their household gods, in the shape of a most exquisite collection of artistic treasures, was only a mile or so distant from Mr. Hillary’s house. It was an old red-brick mansion like the Cedars; and, indeed, the banks of the Thames seem specially rich in red-brick mansions of the Georgian period. It was a noble old house, and had extended itself of late years on either side, until it was almost palatial of aspect. It was a very pretty house, filled to overflowing with art-treasures, about almost every one of which there hung a history as interesting as the object itself. Royalty, the banished royalty of France, inhabited that simple suburban mansion; and on the smooth lawn, where the pennants were flying and the band playing, a quiet-looking gentleman moved about among the visitors, whose grave and noble face was the exact reproduction of another face, to be seen in stained marble under a glass case within the mansion; the face of a gentleman who, in the course of an adventurous career, won some little distinction under the style and title of Henry IV., King of France and Navarre.

It was almost like going back into the past for an hour or so to lounge on that sunny lawn at Twickenham, so strange yet so familiar were some of the names that were heard on the lips of the crowd. There was a mournful kind of interest in those historic titles; and the aspect of the pretty flower-festooned marquees, where elegant women were charging fabulous prices for all manner of absurdities in the way of Berlin wool, recalled the image of tented plains and fields of cloth-of-gold, in the days when the sons of St. Louis had other and more high-sounding business in this world than such gentle works of charity as occupied them pleasantly enough to-day.

Maude Hillary was in her glory in the gardens of the Château de Bourbon. She had plenty of ready money, for once in a way; a crisp little bundle of five-pound notes, which her father had brought from the City on the previous evening; and she distributed her wealth freely among the fashionable stall-keepers, loading herself and her attendant cavaliers with wax dolls and Berlin-wool work, reticules, antimacassars, painted fire-screens, bottles of toilet vinegar, and feather flowers. She knew a great many people, and she was so bright and animated, and happy-looking, that people who were utter strangers to her watched her with a feeling of interest, and asked one another who she was. She was standing amidst a group of aristocratic acquaintance upon the terrace overlooking the river, when she cried out that her papa had arrived, and ran away to meet him, leaving Julia Desmond and the two young men behind her.

“An hour after your time, papa,” she said, putting both her hands into his; “and I’ve spent all my money, and I’ve bought these for you.” She flourished a pair of gorgeously-embroidered slippers before his eyes, and then put her arm through his with an air of proprietorship that was as charming as--every thing else she did.

Lionel Hillary, Australian merchant, of Moorgate Street, London, was a handsome-looking man, tall, and stout, and dark, with iron-grey hair and whiskers, and very unlike his daughter in every respect; for the happy brightness which was the chief element of her beauty found no reflection in his face. He looked very grave, and a little careworn; and Maude, watching him closely, said presently,

“I’m afraid you have one of your headaches again to-day, papa?”

“Yes, my dear; I’ve been working rather hard this morning. Let me introduce you to this gentleman, whom I have induced to come and spend a little of his money for the benefit of the Duchess’s poor people.”

This gentleman was Mr. Francis Tredethlyn, who had been loitering a little in the rear of Lionel Hillary while the merchant talked to his daughter. The two men had become acquainted with each other in the simplest possible manner. Amongst the property Francis Tredethlyn had inherited from his uncle was a bundle of shares in a certain Australian insurance company of which Mr. Hillary was a director. Francis, wanting to make some inquiry about the shares, had been advised to go to Mr. Hillary, and had done so. He found the merchant very cordial and friendly,--he had found a great many people in these dispositions towards him lately,--and with the frankness natural to him had told a good deal of his story to that gentleman; always avoiding any allusion to his cousin Susan. Lionel Hillary, being much pleased with his manner, and being generally very kind and hospitable to any young men who came in his way, had offered to drive his new acquaintance down to Twickenham.

“You must find London miserably dull at this time of year,” he said. “There’s a _fête_, or a fancy fair, or something of that kind, our way. I’ll drive you down, and you shall dine at my place afterwards.”

Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn found himself upon the lawn before the Château de Bourbon, making what he felt to be a very awkward bow, and most heartily wishing that some convulsion of nature might open a ready-made grave in the smooth turf on which he stood, wherein he might hide himself from the bright eyes of Miss Hillary.

She spoke to him in the easiest, friendliest manner; asked him if he had ever been to the château before; if he liked a fancy fair; hoped he meant to spend EVER so much money. She opened her eyes very wide as she said this, and he saw how blue they were, and then felt an actual blush kindling under his brown skin. Such a woman as this had never before walked by his side, talking to him, and smiling at him. He answered her animated inquiries as best he might, and found himself thinking of all manner of incongruous things,--of Maude Hillary’s blue eyes and point-lace parasol, of his own awkwardness and ignorance, of the narrow points of her dove-coloured boots, as they peeped from under her dress now and then, like anything in the world you like _except_ Sir John Suckling’s mice, of the old farmhouse on the Cornish moorland, of little Susy in a white dimity sun-bonnet.

He had never been in such a place before, mixing on equal terms with well-dressed men and women, about most of whom even he, in despite of his ignorance, recognized a nameless something that stamped them as superior to the common run of well-dressed people. That in itself was enough to bewilder him. He had never before seen such a woman as Maude Hillary; and even experienced young men from Government offices found Maude Hillary bewildering. He felt terribly embarrassed and out of place; and after undergoing a sharp ordeal on the terrace, where he was introduced to Miss Desmond, and the two young men staying at the Cedars, he was not a little rejoiced to find himself free for a few minutes, while Mr. Hillary and his daughter talked to a group of new arrivals. He strolled away to the end of the terrace, and lounged upon the marble balustrade, looking down at a lane below--a kind of gorge cut through two separate gardens, in which some of the common folks of the neighbourhood were gathered, listening to the music of the band, and staring at the splendid line of carriages waiting for the guests in the gardens above.

“I didn’t think I was such a fool as to let my brains be muddled like this by a lot of fine dresses and parasols, and flower-beds, and the playing of a brass band,” he thought; “they’re flesh and blood, those people, I suppose, like the rest of us. _She’s_ flesh and blood, just as much as my mother that’s dead and gone, or poor little Susy. But when I looked at her just now, it seemed as if there was a light shining all about her somehow, that almost blinded me. She spoke to me as prettily and as kindly as she spoke to her father; and yet I felt more afraid of her than if she had been my uncle Oliver, and I a little boy again, tumbling down his corn in the valley farm.”

He moved a little way from the balustrade, and stood looking rather sheepishly towards the group he had left, doubtful whether he was expected to rejoin them, or to stroll about by himself, amusing himself as he pleased. He would have given a great deal of money for the poorest treatise on etiquette which would have told him as much as this; and in the mean time he lingered where he was, twirling a very big pair of lavender gloves which he had bought--through the agency of Mr. Hillary’s groom, and with no reference to their adaptability to his own hands--on the way down.

Lingering thus, doubtful of himself, and painfully conscious of being very much out of keeping with the scene around him, he still thought of all manner of incongruous things; and among other fancies one special thought, which could have had no possible connection with the events of the day, kept surging upwards on the troubled sea of his reflections.

“I never loved my cousin Susan,” he thought; “I know now that I never really loved my cousin Susan.”

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