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

and did his best to amuse this new friend. They sat down where they were sheltered from the gusts of wind, and listened a little to the music, and talked a great deal--though Madge chiefly listened. Madge pretended to be mostly interested in the music, and in the few more people who had now been tempted to come down the pier; but she knew that while her brother and Captain King were very busy talking, the latter was very frequently regarding her. What she did not know was that he was trying to make himself believe that that was Nan who was sitting there.

Then they went for a stroll again, and they looked at the kiosques, and they took refuge from a few passing drops of rain; and they hurried to see a heavy fishing-smack go by the end of the pier, beating out against the south-westerly wind. And although Frank King again and again addressed her, as was demanded of him, she did not enter much into conversation with him. He was Tom's friend, she let it be understood. Nevertheless, she met his eyes once or twice, and she had a pleasant and amiable look.

She began to think that there must be something very striking and attractive about this young sailor, when even her brother Tom--who seemed to consider that the whole world should wait upon his highness--so clearly went out of his way to make himself agreeable. Not only that, but when they had had enough of the pier, and had taken a stroll or two along the King's Road, bringing the time to nearly one o'clock, what must Mr. Tom do but insist that Frank King should come in and lunch with them?

'Well, I will,' said he, 'if you will dine with me at the hotel in the evening. Dining by yourself at a hotel is not exhilarating.'

'But you'd far better dine with us too,' said Mr. Tom, boldly.

'Oh, I can't do that,' said Frank King--but with a slight increase of colour, which showed that he wished he could. 'Even as it is, I am afraid Lady Beresford will think it rather cool if I turn up again now.'

'Oh, you don't know what Brighton is at this time of year,' said Mr. Tom. 'All the resident people like ourselves keep open house, don't you know? and very glad to. We never know how many are coming in to lunch; but then they put up with anything; and it's great fun; it's an occupation for idle people. Then, when you've got a billiard-table, they can turn to that on wet days. Or Edith can give them some music; they say she's rather a swell at it. You see, everybody is in Brighton in December, with friends or in hotels; and, as I say, it's a case of open house and take your chance.'

'We are more formal, and a little duller, in Wiltshire,' said Frank King. 'I wish you'd come to Kingscourt for a few days. We haven't shot the best of the covers yet.'

Those who thought that Tom Beresford was a foolish youth knew nothing about him. Without a hum or a ha he said--

'Yes, I will. When?'

'I'm going back for Christmas. Of course you'll have to stay here with your sisters. As soon after that as you can manage.'

'I could come to you on the 27th or 28th.'

'That's settled then. I will write and let you know about trains and things.'

As luck, good or ill, would have it, there was no other visitor at lunch; the party consisting of Lady Beresford, her two daughters, Mr. Tom, and Captain Frank King. But Mr. Tom was in high spirits over this prospective visit to Kingscourt, and was most amiable to everybody and everything; he even said that he himself would go through to Lewes and fetch Nan home for Christmas.

Now this was odd: that, whenever Nan's name was mentioned, Frank King always glanced up with a quick look, as if he were surprised. Was he beginning to believe, then, as he had tried to make himself believe, that this was the real Nan Beresford now on the other side of the table? Was he surprised to be reminded of the other Nan far away--and now no doubt greatly altered from her former self? Madge Beresford was aware that her neighbour opposite regarded her very frequently--and she pretended not to be conscious of it; but once or twice when she looked up and her eyes met his, she thought there was an oddly wistful or even puzzled expression in those dark blue eyes that Edith was always talking about.

After luncheon Lady Beresford retired to her room, as was her wont; the two young ladies went upstairs to the drawing-room, and Captain King accompanied them, for Madge had asked him to advise her about the rigging of some boats she had been sketching. Mr. Tom remained below to practise the spot stroke.

In the drawing-room Miss Edith hoped that her playing a little would not interfere with their artistic pursuits; and Madge went and got her sketch-book and water-colours, and carried them to a small table at one of the windows, and sat down. Captain King remained standing.

The sketches, to tell the truth, were as bad as bad could be. They were all experimental things, done out of her own head, aiming at a land of the beautiful, unknown to anybody on earth but the chromo-lithographer. The actual sea was out there, staring her in the face, and there were boats on the beach and boats on the water; but instead of trying her hand at anything before her, she must needs imagine lovely pictures, mostly of blue and pink, with goats perched on brown crags, and an ill-drawn eagle soaring over an Alpine peak. There were, however, one or two sketches of mist or moonlight or thunderstorm that had certainly a weird and eerie effect; but it was not necessary to tell the spectator that these had been got in moments of impatience when, after laborious trials at brilliant-hued scenes, the angry artist had taken up a big brush and washed the whole thing into chaos--thereby, to her astonishment, reaching something, she did not know exactly what, that was at all events mysterious and harmonious in tone.

But it was the shipping about which she had sought his advice. The little white dots on blue lakes that were supposed to be feluccas or barchettas he passed; but when it came to a big sailing-boat lying on a beach, and that beach presumably Cornish, from the colour of the rocks, he made a civil and even timid remonstrance.

'I don't think I would have the mast quite in the middle of the boat, if I were you,' said he, gently.

'I thought it always was,' she said--and yet if she had gone to the window she might have seen.

'If it is a lugger, you see,' he continued, giving her all sorts of chances of escape, 'the mast would be at the bow. And if it is a cutter, you would still have to put the mast farther forward, and give her a boom and a bowsprit. Or if it is a yawl, then you would have a little jigger-mast astern--about there----'

'Oh, I can't be expected to know things like that,' she said. 'Scientific accuracy isn't wanted. They're only sketches.'

'Yes; oh yes,' he said.

'Won't that boat do?' she demanded.

'Oh yes, it will do,' he said, fearful of offending her. 'It isn't exactly where they put masts, you know; but then few people know about boats or care about them.'

She was not very well pleased; but she continued to show him more sketches, until Mr. Tom came up to see when they were coming to billiards.

'I shouldn't have shown you these at all,' she said, 'I don't take interest in them myself. I would far rather draw and paint flowers; but we never have any flowers now except those waxen-looking heaths and that flaming pointsettia over there.'

'What did you call it, Madge?' said Mr. Tom.

'I called it pointsettia,' she said, with dignity.

'Gamekeeper's Greek, I should say,' he remarked, with his hands in his pockets. 'A cross between a pointer and a setter. You shouldn't use long words, Madge. Come along down.'

But this mention of flowers put a new idea into the head of Captain Frank King. That very morning he had passed a window where he had seen all sorts of beautiful blossoms, many of them lying in cotton wool--pink and white camellias, white hyacinths, scarlet geraniums, lilies of the valley, and what not. Now might he not be permitted to send Miss Margaret a selection of these rare blossoms--not as a formal bouquet at all, but merely for the purposes of painting? They would simply be materials for an artist; and they would look well in a pretty basket, on a soft cushion of wool.


CHAPTER XV.


A MESSAGE.

Frank King could never exactly define what peculiarities of mind, or person, or manner it was that had so singularly attracted him in Nan Beresford, though he had spent many a meditative hour on board ship in thinking about her. In any case, that boyish fancy was one that a few years' absence might very well have been expected to cure. But the very opposite had happened. Perhaps it was the mere hopelessness of the thing that made him brood the more over it, until it took possession of his life altogether. He kept resolutely abroad, so that he had but few chances of falling in love with somebody else, which is the usual remedy in such cases. When at length he was summoned home, about the first news that reached him was of Nan's contemplated marriage. He was not surprised. And when he consented to go down to Brighton with her brother, it was that he might have just one more glimpse of one whom he always had known was lost to him. He had nothing to reproach her or himself with. It was all a misfortune, and nothing more. But his life had been changed for him by that mere boyish fancy.

Then came that wonderful new hope. Nan was away; Nan was impossible; but here was the very counterpart of Nan; and why should he not transfer all that lingering love and admiration from the one sister to the other who so closely resembled her? It was the prompting of despair as much as anything else. He argued with himself. He tried to make himself believe that this was really Nan--only grown a year or so older than the Nan whom he had last seen at Como. Of course there must be differences; people changed with the changing years. Sometimes he turned away, so that he might only hear her; and her voice was like Nan's.

Now, if Frank King was busy persuading himself that this transference of affection was not only natural and possible, but indeed the easiest and simplest thing in the world, it must be admitted that he obtained every help and encouragement from Madge Beresford herself. She was more than kind to him; she was attentive; she professed great respect for his opinions; and she did her best to conceal--or rather let