It was dusk when gigs and chaises, dogcarts and clumsy farmers’ phaetons, began to rattle through the village street, and under the windows of the Sun Inn; deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four drew suddenly up beneath the rocking signpost.
It was Sir Michael Audley’s barouche which came to so sudden a stop before the little inn. The harness of one of the leaders had become out of order, and the foremost postillion dismounted to set it right.
“Why, it’s my uncle,” cried Robert Audley, as the carriage stopped. “I’ll run down and speak to him.”
George lit another cigar, and, sheltered by the window-curtains, looked out at the little party. Alicia sat with her back to the horses, and he could perceive, even in the dusk, that she was a handsome brunette; but Lady Audley was seated on the side of the carriage furthest from the inn, and he could see nothing of the fair-haired paragon of whom he had heard so much.
“Why, Robert,” exclaimed Sir Michael, as his nephew emerged from the inn, “this is a surprise!”
“I have not come to intrude upon you at the Court, my dear uncle,” said the young man, as the baronet shook him by the hand in his own hearty fashion. “Essex is my native county, you know, and about this time of year I generally have a touch of homesickness; so George and I have come down to the inn for two or three day’s fishing.”
“George—George who?”
“George Talboys.”
“What, has he come?” cried Alicia. “I’m so glad; for I’m dying to see this handsome young widower.”
“Are you, Alicia?” said her cousin, “Then egad, I’ll run and fetch him, and introduce you to him at once.”
Now, so complete was the dominion which Lady Audley had, in her own childish, unthinking way, obtained over her devoted husband, that it was very rarely that the baronet’s eyes were long removed from his wife’s pretty face. When Robert, therefore, was about to re-enter the inn, it needed but the faintest elevation of Lucy’s eyebrows, with a charming expression of weariness and terror, to make her husband aware that she did not want to be bored by an introduction to Mr. George Talboys.
“Never mind tonight, Bob,” he said. “My wife is a little tired after our long day’s pleasure. Bring your friend to dinner tomorrow, and then he and Alicia can make each other’s acquaintance. Come round and speak to Lady Audley, and then we’ll drive home.”
My lady was so terribly fatigued that she could only smile sweetly, and hold out a tiny gloved hand to her nephew by marriage.
“You will come and dine with us tomorrow, and bring your interesting friend?” she said, in a low and tired voice. She had been the chief attraction of the racecourse, and was wearied out by the exertion of fascinating half the county.
“It’s a wonder she didn’t treat you to her never-ending laugh,” whispered Alicia, as she leaned over the carriage-door to bid Robert good night; “but I dare say she reserves that for your delectation tomorrow. I suppose you are fascinated as well as everybody else?” added the young lady, rather snappishly.
“She is a lovely creature, certainly,” murmured Robert, with placid admiration.
“Oh, of course! Now, she is the first woman of whom I ever heard you say a civil word, Robert Audley. I’m sorry to find you can only admire wax dolls.”
Poor Alicia had had many skirmishes with her cousin upon that particular temperament of his, which, while it enabled him to go through life with perfect content and tacit enjoyment, entirely precluded his feeling one spark of enthusiasm upon any subject whatever.
“As to his ever falling in love,” thought the young lady sometimes, “the idea is preposterous. If all the divinities on earth were ranged before him, waiting for his sultanship to throw the handkerchief, he would only lift his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead, and tell them to scramble for it.”
But, for once in his life, Robert was almost enthusiastic.
“She’s the prettiest little creature you ever saw in your life, George,” he cried, when the carriage had driven off and he returned to his friend. “Such blue eyes, such ringlets, such a ravishing smile, such a fairy-like bonnet—all of a-tremble with heart’s-ease and dewy spangles, shining out of a cloud of gauze. George Talboys, I feel like the hero of a French novel: I am falling in love with my aunt.”
The widower only sighed and puffed his cigar fiercely out of the open window. Perhaps he was thinking of that faraway time—little better than five years ago, in fact; but such an age gone by to him—when he first met the woman for whom he had worn crape round his hat three days before. They returned, all those old unforgotten feelings; they came back, with the scene of their birthplace. Again he lounged with his brother officers upon the shabby pier at the shabby watering-place, listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half flat. Again he heard the old operatic airs, and again she came tripping toward him, leaning on her old father’s arm, and pretending (with such a charming, delicious, seriocomic pretense) to be listening to the music, and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen open-mouthed cavalry officers. Again the old fancy came back that she was something too beautiful for earth, or earthly uses,
