Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/257

244 sprung from this! Alas! she felt she never could pardon such a dire betrayal. She had come in good spirits, but the mention of Evan’s back-sliding had troubled her extremely, and though she did not say to herself, What was the benefit resulting from her father’s dying, if Evan would he so base-minded? she thought the thing indefinitely, and was forming the words on her mouth, One Harrington in a shop is equal to all! when Evan appeared, alone.

“Why, goodness gracious! where’s your moustache?” cried the Countess.

“Gone the way of hair!” said Evan, coldly stooping to her forehead.

“Such a distinction!” the Countess continued, reproachfully. “Why, mon Dieu! one could hardly tell you, as you look now, from the very commonest tradesman—if you were not rather handsome and something of a figure. It’s a disguise, Evan—do you know that?”

“And I’ve parted with it—that’s all,” said Evan. “No more disguises for me!”

The Countess immediately took his arm, and walked with him to a window. His face was certainly changed. Murmuring that the air of Lymport was bad for him, and that he must leave it instantly, she bade him sit and attend to what she was about to say.

“While you have been here, degenerating, Evan, day by day—as you always do out of my sight—degenerating! no less a word!—I have been slaving in your interests. Yes; I have forced the Jocelyns socially to acknowledge us. I have not slept; I have eaten bare morsels. Do abstinence and vigils clear the wits? I know not; but indeed they have enabled me to do more in a week than would suffice for a lifetime. Hark to me. I have discovered Rose’s secret. Si! It is so! Rose loves you. You blush; you blush like a girl. She loves yon, and you have let yourself be seen in a shop! Contrast me the two things. Oh! in verity, dreadful as it is, one could almost laugh. But the moment I lose sight of you, my instructions vanish as quickly as that hair on your superior lip, which took such time to perfect. Alas! you must grow it again immediately. Use any perfumer’s contrivance. Rowland! I have great faith in Rowland. Without him, I believe, there would have been many bald women committing suicide! You remember the bottle I gave to the Count de Villa Flor? ‘Countess,’ he said to me, ‘you have saved this egg-shell from a crack, by helping to cover it’—for so he called his head—the top, you know, was beginning to shine like an egg. And I do fear me he would have done it. Ah! you do not conceive what the dread of baldness is! To a woman, death—death is preferable to baldness! Baldness is death! And a wig—a wig! Oh, horror! total extinction is better than to rise again in a wig! But you are young, and play with hair. But I was saying, I went to see the Jocelyns. I was introduced to Sir Franks and his lady and the wealthy grandmother. And I have an invitation for you, Evan!—you unnmannered boy, that do not bow! A gentle incline forward of the shoulders, and the eyes fixed softly, your upper lids drooping triflingly, as if you thanked with gentle sincerity, but were indifferent. Well, well, if you will not! An invitation for you to spend part of the autumn at Beckley Court, the ancestral domain, when there will be company—the nobles of the land! Consider that. You say it was bold in me to face them after that horrible man committed us on board the vessel? A Harrington is anything but a coward. I did go—and because I am devoted to your interests. That very morning, I saw announced in the paper, just beneath poor Andrew’s hand, as he held it up at the breakfast-table, reading it, I saw among the Abraham Harrington, of Torquay, Baronet, of quinsy! Twice that good man has come to my rescue! Oh! I welcomed him as a piece of Providence! I turned and said ‘I see they have put poor Papa in the paper.’ Harriet wan staggered. I took the paper from Andrew, and pointed it to her. She has no readiness. She has had no foreign training. She could not comprehend, and Andrew stood on tiptoe, and peeped. He has a bad cough, and coughed himself black in the face. I attribute it to excessive bad manners and his cold feelings. He left the room. I reproached Harriet. But, oh! the singularity of the excellent fortune of such an event at such a time! It showed that our Harrington luck had not forsaken us. I hurried to the Jocelyns instantly. Of course, it cleared away any suspicions aroused in them by that horrible man on board the vessel. And the tears I wept for Sir Abraham, Evan, in verity they were tears of deep and sincere gratitude! What is your mouth knitting the corners at? Are you laughing?”

Evan hastily composed his visage to the melancholy that was no counterfeit in him just then.

“Yes,” continued the Countess, easily reassured, “I shall ever feel a debt to Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay. I dare say we are related to him. At least, he has done us more service than many a rich and titled relative. No one supposes he would acknowledge poor Papa. I can forgive him that! Evan!” the Countess pointed out her finger with mournful and impressive majesty, “as we look down on that monkey, people of rank and consideration in society look on what poor dear Papa was.”

This was partly true, for Jacko sat on a chair, in his favourite attitude, copied accurately from the workmen of the establishment at at their labour with needle and thread. Growing cognisant of the infamy of his posture, the Countess begged Evan to drive him out of her sight, and took a sniff at her smelling-bottle.

She went on: “Now, dear Van, you would hear of your sweet Rose?”

“Not a word!” Evan hastily answered.

“Why, what does this indicate? Whims! Then, you do love?”

“I tell you, Louisa, I don’t want to hear a word of any of them,” said Evan, with an angry gleam in his eyes. “They are nothing to me, nor I to them. I—my walk in life is not theirs.”

“Faint heart! faint heart!” the Countess lifted a proverbial forefinger.

“Thank Heaven, I shall have the consolation of not going about, and bowing and smirking like an impostor!” Evan exclaimed.