Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/107

. 17, 1863.]

the fair forms crowding to the fête at Deerham Hall had but known how near that fête was to being shorn of its master’s presence, they had gone less hopefully. Scarcely one of the dowagers and chaperones bidden to it but cast a longing eye to the heir, for their daughters’ sake; scarcely a daughter but experienced a fluttering of the heart, as the fond fancy presented itself that she might be singled out for the chosen partner of Sir Edmund Hautley: for the night, at any rate; and—perhaps—for the long night of the future. But when the clock struck six that evening, Sir Edmund Hautley had not arrived.

Miss Hautley was in a fever,—as nearly in one as it is in the nature of a cold single lady of fifty-eight to go, when some overwhelming disappointment falls abruptly. According to arranged plans, Sir Edmund was to have been at home by middle day, crossing by the night boat from the Continent. Middle day came and went; afternoon came and went; evening came—and he had not come. Miss Hautley would have set the telegraph to work, had she known where to set it to.

But good luck was in store for her. A train, arriving between six and seven, brought him: and his carriage—the carriage of his late father, which had been waiting at the station since eleven o’clock in the morning—conveyed him home.

Very considerably astonished was Sir Edmund to find the programme which had been carved out for the night’s amusement. He did not like it; it jarred upon his sense of propriety; and he spoke a hint of this to Miss Hautley. It was the death of his father which had called him home; a father with whom he had lived for the last few years of his life upon terms of estrangement—at any rate, upon one point: was it seemly that his inauguration should be one of gaiety? Yes, Miss Hautley decisively answered. Their friends were not meeting to bewail Sir Rufus’s death; that took place months ago; but to welcome his, Sir Edmund’s, return, and his entrance on his inheritance.

Sir Edmund—a sunny-tempered, yielding man, the very opposite in spirit to his dead father, to his live aunt—conceded the point: doing it with all the better grace, perhaps, that there was now no help for it. In an hour or two’s time the guests would be arriving. Miss Hautley inquired curiously as to the point upon which he and Sir Rufus had been at issue: she had never been able to learn it from Sir Rufus. Neither did it now appear that she was likely to learn it from Sir Edmund. It was a private matter, he said, a smile crossing his lips as he spoke: one entirely between himself and his father, and he could not speak of it. It had driven him abroad she believed, Miss Hautley remarked, vexed that she was still to remain in the dark. Yes, acquiesced Sir Edmund: it had driven him abroad and kept him there.

He was ready, and stood in his place to receive his guests; a tall man, of some five-and-thirty years, with a handsome face and pleasant smile upon it. He greeted his old friends cordially, those with whom he had been intimate, and was laughing and talking with the Countess of Elmsley when the announcement “Lady and Miss Verner” caught his ear.

It caused him to turn abruptly. Breaking off in the midst of a sentence, he quitted the countess and went to meet those who had entered. Lady Verner’s greeting was a somewhat elaborate one, and he looked round impatiently for Decima.

She stood in the shade behind her mother. Decima? Was that Decima? What had she done to her cheeks? They wore the crimson hectic which were all too characteristic of Sibylla’s. Sir Edmund took her hand.

“I trust you are well?”

“Quite well, thank you,” was her murmured answer, drawing away the hand which had barely touched his.

Nothing could be more quiet than the meeting, nothing more simple than the words spoken: nothing, it may be said, more commonplace. But that Decima was suffering from some intense agitation, there could be no doubt: and the next moment her face had turned of that same ghastly hue which had startled her brother Lionel when he was handing her into the carriage. Sir Edmund continued speaking with them a few minutes, and then was called off to receive other guests.

“Have you forgotten how to dance, Edmund?”

The question came from Miss Hautley, disturbing him as he made the centre of a group to whom he was speaking of his Indian life.

“I don’t suppose I have,” he said, turning to her. “Why?”

“People are thinking so,” said Miss Hautley. “The music has been bursting out into fresh attempts this last half-hour, and impatience is getting irrepressible. They cannot begin, Edmund, without you. Your partner is waiting.”

“My partner?” reiterated Sir Edmund. “I have asked nobody yet.”

“But I have, for you. At least, I have as good as done it. Lady Constance—”

“Oh, my dear aunt, you are very kind,” he hastily interrupted; “but when I do dance—which is of rare occurrence—I like to choose my own partner. I must do so now.”

“Well, take care, then,” was the answer of Miss Hautley, not deeming it necessary to drop her voice in the least. “The room is anxious to see upon whom it will be fixed: it may be a type, they are saying, of what another choice of yours may be.”

Sir Edmund laughed good-humouredly, making a joke of the allusion. “Then I must walk round deliberately and look out for myself—as it is said some of our royal reigning potentates have done. Thank you for the hint.”