Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/256

246[February 13, 1869] —for he could not always smile complacently when she manifested her normal unconsciousness that anybody could have anything to do, not entirely dependent on his or her own pleasure and convenience—"as it happened, I had not to go. A few days after I told his lordship the particulars of the sale of land, I had a letter informing me that the matter was all off for the present."

"Indeed!" said Lord Hetherington, "a doosed bore for Langley, isn't it? He has been wanting to pick up something in that neighbourhood for a long time. But the sale will ultimately come off, I suppose, unless some one buys the land over Langley's head by private contract."

"There's no fear of that, I think," said Mr. Gould; "but I took precautions. I should not like Sir John to lose the slice off Woolgreaves he wants. The place is in a famous hunting country, and the plans are settled upon—like Sir John, isn't it?—for his hunting box."

"I don't know that part of Hampshire at all," said Lord Hetherington, delighted at finding a subject on which he could induce one of his guests to talk, without his being particularly bound to listen. "Very rich and rural, isn't it? Why didn't the—ah, the person—sell the land Langley wanted there?"

"For rather a melancholy reason," replied Mr. Gould, while Lady Hetherington and the others looked bored by anticipation. Rather inconsiderate and bad taste of Mr. Gould to tell about "melancholy reasons" in a society which only his presence and that of the secretary rendered at all "mixed." But Mr. Gould, who was rather full of the subject, and who had the characteristic—so excellent in a man of business in business hours, but a little tiresome in social moments—of believing that nothing could equal in interest his clients' affairs, or in importance his clients themselves, went on, quite regardless of the strong apathy in the face of the countess. "The letter which prevented my going down to Woolgreaves on the appointed day was written by a lady residing in the house, to inform me that the owner of the property, a Mr. Creswell, very well known in those parts, had lost his only son, and was totally unfit to attend to any business. The boy was killed, I understand, by a fall from his pony."

"Tom Creswell killed!" exclaimed Walter Joyce, in a tone which directed the attention of every one at the table to the "secretary."

"I beg your pardon," Joyce went on, "but will you kindly tell me all you know of this matter? I know Mr. Creswell, and I knew this boy well. Are you sure of the fact of his death?"

The paleness of Walter's face, the intensity of his tone, held Lady Caroline's attention fixed upon him. How handsome he was, and the man could evidently feel too! How nice it would be to make him feel, to see the face pale, and to hear the voice deepen, like that, for her. It would be quite new. She had any amount of flirtation always at hand, whenever she chose to summon its aid in passing the time, but feeling did not come at call, and she had never had much of that given her. These were the thoughts of only a moment, flashing through her mind before Mr. Gould had time to answer Joyce's appeal.

"I am sorry I mentioned the fact at so inappropriate a time," said Mr. Gould, "but still more sorry that there is no doubt whatever of its truth. Indeed, I think I can show you the letter." Mr. Gould wore a dress coat, of course, but he could not have dined comfortably, if he had not transferred a mass of papers from his morning-coat to its pockets. This mass he extricated with some difficulty, and selecting one, methodically endorsed with the date of its receipt, from the number, he handed it to Walter.

Lady Hetherington was naturally shocked at the infringement of the bienséances caused by this unfortunate incident, and was glancing from Mr. Gould to Mr. Joyce, from one element of the "mixture" in the assembled society to the other, with no pleasant expression of countenance—when Lady Caroline came to the rescue, with gracefulness, deftness, lightness, all her own, and by starting an easy unembarrassed conversation with the gentleman opposite to her, in which she skilfully included her immediate neighbours, she dissipated all the restraints which had temporarily fallen upon the party. Something interesting to the elevated minds of the party, something different from the unpleasantness of a boy's being killed, whom nobody knew anything about, at a place which did not belong to anybody,—and the character of the dinner party, momentarily threatened, was triumphantly retrieved.

Walter saw that the letter which Mr. Gould handed him was in Marian's writing. It contained an announcement of the calamity which had occurred, and an intimation that Mr. Creswell could not attend to any matters of business at present. That was all. Walter read the brief letter with