CHAPTER VI.

Everilda Stella, poor Lucy’s unconscious rival, had married out of the schoolroom. Pretty she was not, but with much piquancy of face and manner, and a talent for private theatricals. These advantages, gilded, perhaps, by her reputation as presumptive heiress, attracted, to her a suitor, to whose twenty years’ seniority she felt no objection. Mr. Hartley wooed and won her in the brief space of an Easter holiday; and bore her, nothing loth,—to London, to enjoy the gaieties of the season. Somewhat to the bridegroom’s annoyance, Mr. Durham accompanied the newly-married couple to town, and shared their pretty house at Kensington.

Alan Hartley, a favourite nephew of Dr. Tyke, had, as we know, been very intimate at his house in old days. Now he was proud to present his little wife of sixteen to his uncle and aunt, though somewhat mortified at having also to introduce his father-in-law, whose pompous manners, and habit of dragging titled personages into his discourse, put him to the blush. Alan had dropped Everilda, and called his wife simply Stella; her father dubbed her Pug; Everilda she was named, in accordance with the taste of her peerage-studious mother. This lady was accustomed to describe herself as of a north-country family—a Leigh of the Leazes; which conveyed an old-manorial notion to persons unacquainted with Newcastle-on-Tyne. But this by the way: Mrs. Durham had died before the opening of our tale.

At their first visit they were shown into the drawing-room by a smiling maid-servant, and requested to wait, as Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were expected home every moment. Stella looked very winning in her smart hat and feather and jaunty jacket, and Alan would have abandoned himself to all the genial glow of a bridegroom, but for Mr. Durham’s behaviour. That gentle-man began by placing his hat on the floor between his feet, and flicking his boots with a crimson silk pocket-handkerchief. This done, he commenced a survey of the apartment, accompanied by an apt running comment,—‘Hem, no pictures—cheap engravings; a four-and-sixpenny Brussels carpet; a smallish mirror, wants regilding. Pug, my pet, that’s a neat antimacassar: see if you can’t carry off the stitch in your eye. A piano—a harp; fiddlestick!’

When Dr. and Mrs. Tyke entered, they found the Hartleys looking uncomfortable, and Mr. Durham red and pompous after his wont; also, in opening the door, they caught the sound of ‘fiddlestick!’ All these symptoms, with the tact of kindness, they ignored. The bride was kissed, the father-in-law taken for granted, and Alan welcomed as if no one in the room had looked guilty.

‘Come to lunch and take a hunch,’ said the Doctor, offering his arm to Stella. ‘Mother Bunch is rhyme, but not reason; you shall munch and I will scrunch—that’s both. “Ah! you may well look surprised,” as the foreign ambassador admitted when the ancient Britons noticed that he had no tail. But you won’t mind when you know us better; I’m no worse than a barrel-organ.’

Yet with all Dr. Tyke’s endeavour to be funny, and this time it cost him an effort, and with all his wife’s facile commonplaces, two of the guests seemed ill at ease. Alan felt, as it were with every nerve, the impression his father-in-law must produce, while Stella, less sensitive for herself, was out of countenance for her husband’s sake. Mr. Durham, indeed, was pompous and unabashed as ever; but whilst he answered commonplace remarks by remarks no less commonplace, he appeared to be, as in fact he was, occupied in scrutinizing, and mentally valuing, the plate and china.

‘Charming weather,’ said Mrs. Tyke, with an air of intelligent originality.

‘Yes, ma’am; fine weather, indeed; billing and cooing weather; ha! Ha!’ with a glance across the table. ‘Now I dare say your young ladies know what to do in this weather.’

‘We have no children,’ and Mrs. Tyke whispered, lest her husband should hear. Then, after a pause, ‘I dare say Orpingham Place was just coming into beauty when you left.’

Mr. Durham thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat-pockets, and leaned back for conversation. ‘Well, I don’t know what to say to that,—I don’t indeed; I don’t know which the season is when Orpingham Place is not in beauty. Its conservatories were quite a local lion last winter—quite a local lion, as my friend the Duke remarked to me; and he said he must bring the Duchess over to see them, and he did bring her Grace over; and I gave them a luncheon in the largest conservatory, such as I don’t suppose they sit down to every day. For the nobility have blood, if you please, and the literary beggars are welcome to all the brains they’ve got’ (the Doctor smiled, Alan winced visibly); ‘but you’ll find it’s us city men who’ve got backbone, and backbone’s the best to wear, as I observed to the Duke that very day when I gave him such a glass of port as he hasn’t got in his cellar. I said it to him, just as I say it to you, ma’am, and he didn’t contradict me; in fact, you know, he couldn’t.’

After this it might have been difficult to start conversation afresh, when, happily, Jane entered, late for luncheon, and with an apology for her sister, who was detained elsewhere. She went through the necessary introductions, and took her seat between Dr. Tyke and Mr. Durham, thus commanding an advantageous view of the bride, whom she mentally set down as nothing particular in any way.

Alan had never met Jane before. He asked her after Miss Charlmont and Lucy, after Lucy especially, who was ‘a very charming old friend’ of his, as he explained to Stella. For some minutes Mr. Durham sat silent, much impressed by Jane’s beauty and grace; this gave people breathing-time for the recovery of ease and good humour; and it was not till Dr. Tyke had uttered three successive jokes, and every one, except Mr. Durham, had laughed at them, that the master of Orpingham Place could think of any remark worthy of his attractive neighbour; and then, with much originality, he too observed,—‘Charming weather, Miss Jane.’

And Jane answered with a smile; for was not this the widower of Orpingham Place?

That Mr. Durham’s conversation on subsequent occasions gained in range of subject, is clear from Jane’s quotations in the last chapter. And that Mr. Durham was alive to Jane’s fascinations appeared pretty evident, as he not only called frequently at Appletrees House, but made up parties, to which Dr. and Mrs. Tyke, and the Miss Charlmonts, were invariably asked.