The Golden Calf, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

great god Pan.

Sad was it for Bessie and all the junior Wendovers when the seventh of September dawned with gray skies, or east winds, rain, or hail. It was usually a brilliant day. The clerk of the weather appeared favourably disposed to the warm-hearted Bessie.

On this particular occasion the preparations for the festival were on a grander scale than usual, in honour of Ida, who was on the eve of departure. A cruel, cruel car was to carry her off to Winchester at six o'clock on the morning after the birthday; the railway station was to swallow her up alive; the train was to rush off with her, like a fiery dragon carrying off the princess of fairy tale; and the youthful Wendovers were to be left lamenting.

In six happy weeks their enthusiasm for their young guest had known no abatement. She had realized their fondest anticipations. She had entered into their young lives and made herself a part of them. She had given herself up, heart and soul, to childish things and foolish things, to please these devoted admirers; and the long summer holiday had been very sweet to her. The open-air life--the balmy noontides in woods and meadows, beside wandering trout streams--on the breezy hill-tops--the afternoon tea-drinking in gardens and orchards--the novels read aloud, seated in the heart of some fine old tree, with her auditors perched on the branches round about her, like gigantic birds--the boating excursions on a river with more weeds than water in it--the jaunts to Winchester, and dreamy afternoons in the cathedral--all had been delicious. She had lived in an atmosphere of homely domestic love, among people who valued her for herself, and did not calculate the cost of her gowns, or despise her because she had so few. The old church was lovely in her eyes; the old vicar and his wife had taken a fancy to her. Everything at Kingthorpe was delightful, except Urania. She certainly was a drawback; but she had been tolerably civil since the first day at the Abbey.

Ida had spent many an hour at the Abbey since that first inspection. She knew every room in the house--the sunniest windows--the books in the long library, with its jutting wings between the windows, and cosy nooks for study. She knew almost every tree in the park, and the mild faces of the deer looking gravely reproachful, as if asking what business she had there. She had lain asleep on the sloping bank above the lake on drowsy afternoons, tired by wandering far a-field with her young esquires. She knew the Abbey by heart--better than even Urania knew it; though she had used that phrase to express utter satiety. Ida Palliser had a deeper love of natural beauty, a stronger appreciation of all that made the old place interesting. She had a curious feeling, too, about the absent master of that grave, gray old house--a fond, romantic dream, which she would not for the wealth of India have revealed to mortal ear, that in the days to come Brian's life would be in somewise linked with hers. Perhaps this foolish thought was engendered of the blankness of her own life, a stage on which the players had been so few that this figure of an unknown young man assumed undue proportions.

Then, again, the fact that she could hear very little about Mr. Wendover from his cousins, stimulated her curiosity about him, and intensified her interest in him. Brian's merits were a subject which the Wendover children always shirked, or passed over so lightly that Ida was no wiser for her questioning; and maidenly reserve forbade her too eager inquiry.

About Brian Walford, the son of Parson Wendover, youngest of the three brothers, for seven years vicar of a parish near Hereford, and for the last twelve years at rest in the village churchyard, the young Wendovers had plenty to say. He was good-looking, they assured Ida. She would inevitably fall in love with him when they met. He was the cleverest young man in England, and was certain to finish his career as Lord Chancellor, despite the humility of his present stage of being.

'He has no fortune, I suppose?' hazarded Ida, in a conversation with Horatio.

She did not ask the question from any interest in the subject. Brian Walford was a being whose image never presented itself to her mind. She only made the remark for the sake of saying something.

'Not a denarius,' said Horry, who liked occasionally to be classical. 'But what of that? If I were as clever as Brian I shouldn't mind how poor I was. With his talents he is sure to get to the top of the tree.'

'What can he do?' asked Ida.

'Ride a bicycle better than any man I know.'

'What else?'

'Sing a first-rate comic song.'

'What else?'

'Get longer breaks at billiards than any fellow I ever played with.'

'What else?'

'Pick the winner out of a score of race-horses in the preliminary canter.'

'Those are great gifts, I have no doubt,' said Ida. 'But do eminent lawyers, in a general way, win their advancement by riding bicycles and singing comic songs?'

'Don't sneer, Ida. When a fellow is clever in one thing he is clever in other things. Genius is many-sided, universal. Carlyle says as much. If Napoleon Bonaparte had not been a great general, he would have been a great writer like Voltaire--or a great lawyer like Thurlow.'

From this time forward Ida had an image of Brian Walford in her mind. It was the picture of a vapid youth, fair-haired, with thin moustache elaborately trained, and thinner whiskers--a fribble that gave half its little mind to its collar, and the other half to its boots. Such images are photographed in a flash of lightning on the sensitive brain of youth, and are naturally more often false guesses than true ones.

There was delightful riot in the house of the Wendovers on the night before the picnic. The Colonel had developed a cold and cough within the last week, so he and his wife had jogged off to Bournemouth, in the T-cart, with one portmanteau and one servant, leaving Bessie mistress of all things. It was a grief to Mrs. Wendover to be separated from home and children at any time, and she was especially regretful at being absent on her eldest daughter's birthday; but the Colonel was paramount. If his cough could be cured by sea air, to the sea he must go, with his faithful wife in attendance upon him.

'Don't let the children turn the house quite out of windows, darling,' said Mrs. Wendover, at the moment of parting.

'No, mother dear, we are all going to be goodness itself.'

'I know, dears, you always are. And I hope you will all enjoy yourselves.'

'We're sure to do that, mother,' answered Reginald, with a cheerfulness that seemed almost heartless.

The departing parent would not have liked them to be unhappy, but a few natural tears would have been a pleasing tribute. Not a tear was shed. Even the little Eva skipped joyously on the doorstep as the phaeton drove away. The idea of the picnic was all-absorbing.

The Colonel and his wife were to spend a week, at Bournemouth. Ida would see them no more this year.

'You must come again next summer, Mrs. Wendover said heartily, as she kissed her daughter's friend.

'Of course she must,' cried Horry. 'She is coming every summer. She is one of the institutions of Kingthorpe. I only wonder how we ever managed to get on so long without her.'

All that evening was devoted to the packing of hampers, and to general skirmishing. The picnic was to be held on the highest hill-top between Kingthorpe and Winchester, one of those little Lebanons, fair and green, on which the yew-trees flourished like the cedars of the East, but with a sturdy British air that was all their own.

The birthday dawned with the soft pearly gray and tender opal tints which presage a fair noontide. Before six o'clock the children had all besieged Bessie's door, with noisy tappings and louder congratulations. At seven, they were all seated at breakfast, the table strewn with birthday gifts, mostly of that useless and semi-idiotic character peculiar to such tributes-ormolu inkstands, holding a thimbleful of ink--penholders warranted to break before they have been used three times--purses with impossible snaps--photograph frames and pomatum-pots.

Bessie pretended to be enraptured with everything. The purse Horry gave her was 'too lovely.' Reginald's penholder was the very thing she had been wanting for an age. Dear little Eva's pomatum-pot was perfection. The point-lace handkerchief Ida had worked in secret was exquisite. Blanche's crochet slippers were so lovely that their not being big enough was hardly a fault. They were much too pretty to be worn. Urania contributed a more costly gift, in the shape of a perfume cabinet, all cut-glass, walnut-wood, and ormolu.

'Urania's presents are always meant to crush one,' said Blanche disrespectfully; 'they are like the shields and bracelets those rude soldiers flung at poor Tarpeia.'

Urania was to be one of the picnic party. She was to be the only stranger present. There had been a disappointment about the two cousins. Neither Brian had accepted the annual summons. One was supposed to be still in Norway, the other had neglected to answer the letter which had been sent more than a week ago to his address in Herefordshire.

'I'm afraid you'll find it dreadfully like our every-day picnics,' Bessie said to Ida, as they were starting.

'I shall be satisfied if it be half as pleasant.'

'Ah, it would have been nice enough if the two Brians had been with us. Brian Walford is so amusing.'

'He would have sung comic songs, I suppose?' said Ida rather contemptuously.

'Oh, no; you must not suppose that he is always singing comic songs. He is one of those versatile people who can do anything.'

'I don't want to be rude about your own flesh and blood Bess, but in a general way I detest versatile people,' said Ida.

'What a queer girl you are, Ida! I'm afraid you have taken a dislike to Brian Walford,' complained Bessie.

'No,' said Ida, deep in thought,--the two girls were standing at the hall-door, waiting for the carriage,--'it is not that.'

'You like the idea of the other Brian better?'

Ida's wild-rose bloom deepened to a rich carnation.

'Oh, Ida,' cried Bessie; 'do you remember what you said about marrying for money?'

'It was a revolting sentiment; but it was wrung from me by the infinite vexations of poverty.'

'Wouldn't it be too lovely if Brian the Great were to fall in love with you, and ask you to be mistress of that dear old Abbey which you admire so much?

'Don't be ecstatic, Bessie. I shall never be the mistress of the Abbey. I was not born under a propitious star. There must have been a very ugly concatenation of planets ruling the heavens at the hour of my birth. You see, Brian the Great does not even put himself in the way of falling captive to my charms.'

This was said half in sport, half in bitterness; indeed, there was a bitter flavour in much of Ida Palliser's mirth. She was thinking of the stories she had read in which a woman had but to be young and lovely, and all creation bowed down to her. Yet her beauty had been for the most part a cause of vexation, and had made people hate her. She had been infinitely happy during the