Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/94

86 Countess could eye the field. She was dressed ravishingly; slightly in a foreign style, the bodice being peaked at the waist, as was then the Portuguese persuasion. The neck, too, was deliciously veiled with fine lace—and thoroughly veiled, for it was a feature the Countess did not care to expose to the vulgar daylight. Off her gentle shoulders, as it were some fringe of cloud blown by the breeze this sweet lady opened her bosom to, curled a lovely black lace scarf: not Caroline’s. If she laughed, the tinge of mourning lent her laughter new charms. If she sighed, the exuberant array of her apparel bade the spectator be of good cheer. Was she witty, men surrendered reason and adored her. Only when she entered the majestic mood and assumed the languors of greatness and recited musky anecdotes of her intimacy with it, only then did mankind, as represented at Beckley Court, open an internal eye and reflect that it was wonderful in a tailor’s daughter. And she felt that mankind did so reflect. Her instincts did not deceive her. She knew not how much was known; in the depths of her heart she kept the struggling fear that possibly all might be known; and succeeding in this, she said to herself that probably nothing was known after all. George Uploft, Miss Carrington, and Rose were the three she abhorred. Partly to be out of their way, and to be out of the way of chance shots (for she had heard names of people coming that reminded her of Dubbins’s, where, in past days, there had been on one awful occasion a terrific discovery made), the Countess selected Olympus for her station. It was her last day, and she determined to be happy. Doubtless, she was making a retreat, but have not illustrious Generals snatched victory from their pursuers? Fair, then, sweet, and full of grace, the Countess moved. As the restless shifting of colours to her motions was the constant interchange of her semi-sorrowful manner and ready archness. Sir John almost capered to please her, and the diplomatist in talking to her forgot his diplomacy and the craft of his tongue.

It was the last day also of Caroline and the Duke. The Countess clung to Caroline and the Duke more than to Evan and Rose. She could see the first couple walking under an avenue of limes, and near them Mr. John Raikes, as if in ambush. Twice they passed him, and twice he doffed his hat and did homage.

“A most singular creature!” exclaimed the Countess. “It is my constant marvel where my brother discovered such a curiosity. Do notice him.”

“That man? Raikes?” said the diplomatist. “Do you know he is our rival? Harry wanted an excuse for another bottle last night, and proposed the Member for Fallowfield. Up got Mr. Raikes and returned thanks.”

“Yes?” the Countess negligently interjected in a way she had caught from Lady Jocelyn.

“Cogglesby’s nominee, apparently.”

“I know it all,” said the Countess. “We need have no apprehension. He is docile. My brother-in-law’s brother, you see, is most eccentric. We can manage him best through this Mr. Raikes, for a personal application would be ruin. He quite detests our family, and indeed all the aristocracy.”

Melville’s mouth pursed, and he looked very grave.

Sir John remarked: “He seems like a monkey just turned into a man.”

“And doubtful about his tail,” added the Countess.

The image was tolerably correct, but other causes were at the bottom of the air worn by Mr. John Raikes. The Countess had obtained an invitation for him, with instructions that he should come early, and he had followed them so implicitly that the curricle was flinging dust on the hedges between Fallowfield and Beckley but an hour or two after the chariot of Apollo had mounted the heavens, and Mr. Raikes presented himself at the breakfast table. Fortunately for him the Countess was there. After the repast she introduced him to the Duke: and he bowed to the Duke, and the Duke bowed to him: and now, to instance the peculiar justness in the mind of Mr. Raikes, he, though he worshipped a coronet and would gladly have recalled the feudal times to a corrupt land, could not help thinking that his bow had beaten the Duke’s, and was better. He would rather not have thought so, for it upset his preconceptions and threatened a revolution in his ideas. For this reason he followed the Duke, and tried, if possible, to correct, or at least chasten the impressions he had of possessing a glaring advantage over the nobleman. The Duke’s second bow did not, Mr. Raikes sadly judged, retrieve the character of his first; his final bow was a mere nod. “Well!” Mr. Raikes reflected, “if this is your Duke, why, egad! for figure and style my friend Harrington beats him hollow.” And Mr. Raikes thought he knew who could conduct a conversation with superior dignity and neatness. The torchlight of a delusion was extinguished in him, but he did not wander long in that gloomy cavernous darkness of the disenchanted, as many of us do, and as Evan had done, when after a week at Beckley Court he began to examine of what stuff his brilliant father, the great Mel, was composed. On the contrary, as the light of the Duke dwindled, Mr. Raikes gained in lustre. “In fact,” he said, “there’s nothing but the title wanting.” He was by this time on a level with the Duke.

Olympus had been held in possession by the Countess about half an hour, when Lady Jocelyn mounted it, quite unconscious that she was scaling a fortified point. The Countess herself fired off the first gun at her.

“It has been so extremely delightful up alone here, Lady Jocelyn: to look at everybody below! I hope many will not intrude on us!”

“None but the dowagers who have breath to get up,” replied her ladyship, panting. “By the way, Countess, you hardly belong to us yet. You dance?”

“Indeed, I do not.”

“Oh, then you are in your right place. A dowager is a woman who doesn’t dance: and her male attendant is—what is he? We will call him a fogy.”

Lady Jocelyn directed a smile at Melville and