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

go. The day is so very warm, and I have a slight headache already.'

'Go and lose it in the wood, where Rosalind lost her heart-ache. Nothing like a long ramble when one is a little out of sorts. Go and get rid of your basket, and get your sunshade. Where are you going for your botanising?'

'All over the world,' said Bessie; 'just as fancy leads us. If you will promise to meet us anywhere, we'll be there.'

'So be it,' replied Aunt Betsy. 'Suppose we arrange a tea-meeting. I will be ready for you by the Queen Beech, in Framleigh Wood, as the clock strikes five, and we will all come home together. And now run away, before the day gets old. Glad to see you unbending for once in a way, Urania.'

Miss Rylance had been curiously willing to unbend this morning, when Bessie ran in and surprised her at her morning practice with the wonderful tidings of Brian's return. She appeared delighted at the idea of a botanising expedition, though she cared as little for botany as she did for Hebrew. But when a young lady of large aspirations is compelled to vegetate in a village--even after her presentation at court and introduction into society--she is naturally avid for the society of the one eligible man in the parish.

'Mr. Jardine is coming with us,' Bessie told her, as a further temptation.

Urania gave her hand a little squeeze, and murmured, 'Yes, darling, I'll come: Mr. Jardine is so nice. Will my frock do?'

The frock was of the pre-Raffaelite or Bedford-Parkian order, short-waisted, flowing, and flabby, colour the foliage of a lavender bush, relieved by a broad brick-dust sash. An amber necklace, a large limp Leghorn hat with a sunflower in it, and a pair of long yellow gloves, completed Urania's costume.

'Your frock will be spoilt in the woods,' said Bessie; but Urania did not mean to do much botanical work, and was not afraid of spoiling her frock.

They found Mr. Jardine waiting for them at the churchyard gate, and to him Bessie presented her cousin, somewhat reversing the ceremonial order of things, since Brian Wendover was the patron of the living, and could have made John Jardine vicar on the arising of a vacancy.

Brian and the Curate walked on ahead with Miss Rylance, who seemed bent upon keeping them both in conversation, and Bessie fell back a little way with Ida.

'You dearest darling,' she exclaimed, squeezing her arm rapturously.

'What has happened, Bess? Why such unusual radiance?'

'Do you suppose I am not glad of Brian's return?'

'I thought you liked the other one best?'

'Well, yes; one is more at home with him, don't you see. This one was a double-first--got the Ireland Scholarship. Why Ireland, when it was at Oxford he got it? He is awfully learned; knows Greek plays by heart, just as that sweet Mr. Brandram who came last winter to read for the new school-house knows Shakespeare. But I am very fond of him, all the same; and oh, Ida, what a too heavenly thing it would be if he were to fall in love with you!'

'Bessie!' exclaimed Ida, with an indignant frown.

'Don't look so angry. You should have heard how he spoke of you this morning at breakfast; such praise! Approbation from Sir Hubert What's-his-name is praise indeed, don't you know. There's Shakespeare for you!' added Bessie, whose knowledge of polite literature had its limits.

'Bessie, you contrived once--meaning no harm, of course--to give me great pain, to humiliate me to the very dust,' said Ida, seriously. 'Let us have no more such fooling. Your cousin is--your cousin--quite out of my sphere. However civil he may be to me, however kindly he may speak of me, he can never be any more to me than he is at this moment.'

'Very well,' said Bess, meekly, 'I will be as silent as the grave. I don't think I said anything very offensive, but--I apologize. Do you think you would very much mind kissing me, just as if nothing had happened?'

Ida clasped the lovable damsel in her arms and kissed her warmly. And now Mr. Jardine turned back and joined them at the entrance to a wood supposed to be particularly rich in mosses, flowers, and fungi. Urania still absorbed the attention of Mr. Wendover, who strolled by her side and listened somewhat languidly to her disquisitions upon various phases of modern thought.

'What a beautiful girl Bessie has discovered for her bosom friend,' he said, presently.

'Miss Palliser: yes, she is quite too lovely, is she not?' said Urania, with that air of heartiness which every well-trained young woman assumes when she discusses a rival beauty; 'but she has not the purity of the early Italian manner. It is a Carlo-Dolci face--the beauty of the Florentine decadence. I was at school with her.'

'So I understood. Were you great friends?'

'No,' replied Miss Rylance, decisively; 'if we had been at school for as many years as it took to evolve man from the lowest of the vertebrata we should not have been friends.'

'I understand. The thousandth part of an inch, unbridged, is as metaphysically impassable as the gulf which divides us from the farthest nebula. In your case there was no conveying medium, no sympathy to draw you together,' said Brian, answering the young lady in her own coin.

She glanced at him doubtfully, rather inclined to think he was laughing at her, if any one could laugh at Miss Rylance.

'She was frankly detestable,' said Urania. 'I endure her here for Bessie's sake; just as I would endure the ungraceful curves of a Dachshund if Bess took it into her head to make a pet of one; but at school I could keep her at a distance.'

'What has she done to offend you?'

'Done? nothing. She exists, that is quite enough. Her whole nature--her moral being--is antagonistic to mine. What is your opinion of a young woman who declares in cold blood that she means to marry for money?'

'Not a pleasant avowal from such lips, certainly,' said Brian. 'She may have been only joking.'

'After events showed that she was in earnest.'

'How so? Has she married for money? I thought she was still Miss Palliser?'

'She is; but that is not her fault. She tried her hardest to secure a husband whom she supposed to be rich.'

And then Miss Rylance told how in frolic mood his penniless cousin had been palmed upon Miss Palliser as the owner of the Abbey; how she had fallen readily into the trap, and had carried on a clandestine acquaintance which had resulted in her expulsion from the school where she had filled the subordinate position of pupil-teacher.

'I have heard most of this before, from Bessie, but not the full particulars of the practical joke which put Brian Walford in my shoes,' said Mr. Wendover.

He felt more shocked, more wounded than there was need for him to feel, perhaps; but the girl's beauty had charmed him, and he was prepared to think her a goddess.

'How do you know that Miss Palliser did not like my cousin for his own sake?' he speculated presently. 'Brian Walford is a very nice fellow.'

'She did not like him well enough to marry him when she knew the truth,' replied Urania. 'I believe the poor fellow was passionately in love with her. She encouraged him, fooled him to the top of his bent, and then flung him over directly she found he was not the rich Mr. Wendover. He has never been to Kingthorpe since. That would show how deeply he was wounded.'

'The fooling was not all on her side,' said Mr. Wendover. 'She had a right to resent the trick that had been played upon her. I am surprised that Bessie could lend herself to such a mean attempt to put her friend at a disadvantage.'

'Oh, I am sure Bessie meant only the most innocent fun; her tremendous animal spirits carry her away sometimes, don't you know. And then, again, she thinks her chosen friend perfection. She could not understand that Miss Palliser could really marry a man for the sake of his houses and lands. _I_ knew her better.'

'And it was you who hatched the plot, I think,' said Brian.

Miss Rylance had not been prepared to admit as much. She intended Bessie to bear whatever blame there might be attached to the escapade in Mr. Wendover's mind; but it seemed from this remark of his that Bessie had betrayed her.

'I may have thrown out the idea when your cousin suddenly appeared upon the scene. We were all in wild spirits that day. And really Miss Palliser had made herself very absurd by her romantic admiration of the Abbey.'

'Well, I hope this young lady-like conspiracy did no harm,' said Brian; 'but I have a hearty abhorrence of all practical jokes.'

They were in a deep, rutty lane by this time, a lane with banks rich in ferns and floral growth, and here came Blanche and Eva and the youngest boy, released from Latin grammar and Greek delectus at an earlier hour than usual. The car was sent on to the wood, and Bessie and her two sisters produced their fern trowels, and began digging and delving for rare specimens--real or imaginary--assisted by Mr. Jardine, who had more knowledge but less enthusiasm than the girls.

'I can't think what you can want with more ferns,' said Urania, disdainfully; 'every corner at The Knoll has its fernery.'

'Oh, but one can't have too much of a good thing; and then there is the pleasure of looking for them. Aren't you going to hunt for anything?'

'Thanks, no. It is a day for basking rather than work. Shall we go to the end of the lane--there is a lovely view from there--and sit and bask?'

'With all my heart,' replied Mr. Wendover. 'Come, Miss Palliser, of course you'll join the basking detachment.'

Urania would have liked to leave Ida out of the business, but she smiled sweetly at Mr. Wendover's speech, and they all three strolled to the end of the lane, which ascended all the way, till they found themselves upon a fine upland, with a lovely view of woodland and valley stretching away towards Alresford. Here in the warm June sunshine they seated themselves on a ferny bank to wait for the diggers and delvers below. It was verily weather in which to bask was quite the most rapturous employment. The orchestral harmonies of summer insects made a low drowsy music around them. There was just enough air to faintly stir the petals of the dog-roses without blowing them from their frail stems. The dazzling light above, the cool verdure around, made a delicious contrast. Ida looked dreamily across the bold grassy downs, with here and there a patch of white, which shone like a jewel in the sun. It was very pleasant to sit here--very pleasant to listen to Brian Wendover's description of Norway and the Norwegians. A book of travels might have been ever so much better, perhaps; but there was a charm in these vivid pictures of recent experiences which no printed page could have conveyed. And then the talk was delightfully desultory, now touching upon literature, now upon art, now even descending to family reminiscences, stories of the time when Brian had been a Winchester boy, as his cousins were now, and his happy hunting grounds had been among these hills.

Ida talked very little. She was disposed to be silent;