The Beautiful Wretch, William Black [digital ebook reader .TXT] 📗

went upstairs to the drawing-room, they found it empty.

'They can't be all out,' said Mr. Tom; 'I'll go and find them.'

He left; and Captain Frank began to try to quiet down this uncalled-for perturbation. Why should he fear to see her? The past was over. Never was any decision given more irrevocably; even if there had been any question as to an open future, that had been disposed of by the news that had met him on his return to England. It ought only to be a pleasure to him to see her. He thought she would welcome him in a kind way; and he would show her that he quite accepted circumstances as they were. Only--and this he kept repeating to himself--he must expect to be disillusionised. Nan would no longer be that former Nan. Some of the freshness and the young wonder would be gone; she would be eligible as a friend; that, on the whole, was better.

Well, the door opened, and he turned quickly, and then his heart jumped. No; she had not changed at all, he said to himself, as she advanced towards him with a smile and a frankly extended hand. The same pleasant eyes, the same graceful, lithe figure, the same soft voice, as she said--

'Oh, how do you do, Captain King?'

And yet he was bewildered. There was something strange.

'I--I am very glad to see you again, Miss Anne,' he stammered.

She looked at him for a moment, puzzled, and then she said, with a quiet smile,--

'Oh, but I'm not Nan. I see you have forgotten me. I'm Madge.'


CHAPTER XII.


NEW POSSIBILITIES.

'Many people have told me I am very like what Nan used to be,' continued Miss Madge, pleasantly. 'And there is a photograph of her----. Let me see, where is it?'

She went to a table and opened an album, his eyes following her with wonder and a vague bewildered delight. For this was a new acquisition to the world--another Nan, a Nan free from all hateful ties, a Nan not engaged to be married. Presently she returned with a card in her hand.

'It was taken at Rome the time Nan went to Italy. That's more than three years now. I think myself it is like me, though it is rather too young for me.'

It was indeed remarkably like this Madge who now stood beside him. But yet sure enough it was Nan--the Nan that he remembered walking about the brilliant hot gardens at Bellagio. Here she was standing at a table, her head bent down, her hand placed on an open book. It was a pretty attitude, but it hid Nan's eyes.

'Yes, it would do capitally as a portrait of you,' he said quickly; 'no wonder I was mistaken. And your sister Edith, has she grown up to be like your eldest sister in the same way?'

'Oh no; Edith never was like the rest of us. Edith is dark, you know.'

Any further discussion of Miss Edith's appearance was stopped by the entrance of that young lady herself, who was preceded by her mamma. Lady Beresford received Captain King very kindly, and repeated her son's invitation that he should dine with them that evening. And had he seen the Strathernes since his return? And how long did he propose remaining in Brighton? And which hotel was he staying at?

The fact is, Captain King was still a little bewildered. He answered as he best could Lady Beresford's questions, and also replied to some profound remarks of Miss Edith's concerning the rough weather in the Channel; but all the time his eyes were inadvertently straying to the younger girl, who had gone to restore Nan's portrait to its place, and he was astonished to see how this family likeness could extend even to the pose of the figure and the motion of the hand. He could almost have believed now that that was Nan there, only he had been told that the real Nan--no doubt very much altered--was for the time being staying with some friends at Lewes.

In due time he went away to his hotel to dress for dinner--an operation that was somewhat mechanically performed. He was thinking chiefly of what Mr. Tom had told him at the Waterloo Club concerning the young gentleman who had been warned off by the Vice-Chancellor. He had taken little interest in the story then; now he was anxious to recollect it. Certainly Miss Madge did not seem to have suffered much from that separation.

When he returned to Brunswick Terrace he found that the only other guest of the evening had arrived, and was in the drawing-room with the family. From the manner in which this gentleman held himself aloof from Miss Edith, and did not even speak to her or appear to recognise her presence, Frank King concluded that he must be Miss Edith's suitor--no other, indeed, than the person whom Mr. Tom had called Soda-water. Soda-water, if this were he, was a man of about five-and-thirty, of middle height, fresh complexioned and of wiry build, looking more like an M. F. H., in fact, than anything else. His clothes seemed to fit well, but perhaps that was because he had a good figure. In the middle of his spacious shirt front shone a large opal, surrounded with small diamonds.

Captain King had the honour of taking Lady Beresford down to dinner, and he sat between her and Miss Madge. It soon became apparent that there was going to be no lack of conversation. John Roberts, the soda-water manufacturer, was a man who had a large enjoyment of life, and liked to let people know it, though without the least ostentation or pretence on his part. He took it for granted that all his neighbours must necessarily be as keenly interested as himself in the horse he had ridden that morning to the meet of the Southdown foxhounds, and in the run from Henderley Wood through the Buxted covers to Crowborough village. But then he was not at all bound up in either foxhounds or harriers. He was as deeply interested as any one present in the fancy-dress ball of the next week, and knew all the most striking costumes that were being prepared. No matter what it was,--old oak, the proposed importation of Chinese servants, port wine, diamonds, black Wedgwood, hunters, furred driving coats, anything, in short, that was sensible, and practical, and English, and conduced to man's solid comfort and welfare in this far too speculative and visionary world,--he talked about all such things with vigour, precision, and delight. The substantial, healthy look of him was something in a room. Joy radiated from him. When you heard him describe how damsons could best be preserved, you could make sure that there was a firm and healthy digestion; he was not one of the wretched creatures who prolong their depressed existence by means of Angostura bitters, and only wake up to an occasional flicker of life at the instigation of sour champagne.

This talk of the joyous Roberts was chiefly addressed to Lady Beresford, so it gave Frank King plenty of opportunity of making the acquaintance of Nan's youngest sister. And she seemed anxious to be very pleasant and kind to him. She wanted to know all about Kingscourt, and what shooting they had had. She told him how they passed the day at Brighton, and incidentally mentioned that they generally walked on the pier in the morning.

'But you won't be going to-morrow, will you?' he said quickly.

'Why not?' she said.

'I am afraid the weather promises to be wild. The wind is south-west, and freshening. Listen!'

There was a faint, intermittent, monotonous rumble outside, that told of the breaking of the sea on the beach.

'That ground swell generally comes before a storm,' he said. 'I thought it looked bad as I came along.'

'Why should you prophesy evil?' she said, petulantly.

'Oh, well, let us look at the chances on the other side,' he said, with good-humour. 'The best of Brighton is that there is nothing to catch and hold the clouds: so, with a fresh southerly wind you may have them blown away inland, and then you will have breaks of fine weather. And then the streets dry up quickly in Brighton.'

'But all that means that it's going to be a wet day,' she said, as if he were responsible.

'With breaks, I hope,' he answered, cheerfully. 'And then, you know, living at Brighton, you ought to be half a sailor--you shouldn't mind a shower.'

'Oh, but I do,' she said. 'It's all very well for Nan to get on her thick boots and her waterproof and go splashing away across ploughed fields. I wonder what the house would be like if every one went on in that way, and came home all over mud.'

However, Madge soon repented of her petulance, and was quite attentively kind to the new guest, even reproving him for not attending to his dinner, and letting things pass.

Dinner over, Mr. Tom took his mother's seat, and somewhat grandly sent round the wine. As nobody took any, and as starting subjects of interest was not Mr. Tom's strong point, he suddenly proposed that they should go into the billiard-room and send for the girls. This was acceded to at once.

Now billiards is a game in which a good deal of favour can be shown, in a more or less open way. Mr. Tom, having no one of sufficient skill to match himself against, chose to mark, and directed the remaining four to have a double-handed game. Mr. Roberts immediately declared that Madge and himself would play Captain King and Miss Edith. This was assented to in silence, though Madge did not look well pleased, and the game began.

Very soon Mr. Tom said--

'What's the matter with you, Madge? Are you playing dark? Have you got money on?'

Frank King followed Madge, and it was most extraordinary how she was always missing by a hairsbreadth, and leaving balls over pockets.

'What do you mean, Madge?' Mr. Tom protested. 'Why didn't you put the white ball in and go into baulk?'

'I don't play Whitechapel,' said Madge, proudly.

Frank King and his partner seemed to be getting on very well; somehow, Madge and the joyous Roberts did not score.

'Look here,' said Mr. Tom, addressing the company at large after she had missed an easy shot, 'she's only humbugging; she's a first-rate player; she could give any one of you thirty in a hundred and make you wish you had never been born. I say it's all humbug; she's a first-rate player. Why, she once beat me, playing even!'

But even this protest did not hinder Frank King and Edith coming out triumphant winners; and Madge did not seem at all depressed by her defeat, though she said apologetically to Mr. Roberts that one could not play one's best always.

Mr. Tom perceived that this would not do, so he fell back on pool (penny and sixpenny), so that each should fight for his own hand. He himself took a ball, but, being strong and also magnanimous, would have no more than two lives.