“If you are to be the promoter of this new science, I don’t object to studying under you,” he said with a great deal of meaning in his voice.
Phoebe gave him another smile, though she shook her head; and then she turned to the hero on the other side.
“Is it genuine, Mr. Northcote? is it as fine as I thought? There now, I told you, grandmamma! Have you been telling Mr. Northcote how you picked it up? I am sure you will present him with a cup and saucer for his collection in return for his praises.”
“Not for the world,” said Northcote, with profound seriousness; “break a set of cream Wedgwood! what do you take me for, Miss Beecham? I don’t mean to say that I would not give my ears to have it—all; but to break the set—”
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I was not prepared for such delicacy of feeling—such conscientiousness—”
“Ah!” said Northcote, with a long-drawn breath, “I don’t think you can understand the feelings of an enthusiast. A set of fine China is like a poem—every individual bit is necessary to the perfection of the whole. I allow that this is not the usual way of looking at it; but my pleasure lies in seeing it entire, making the tea-table into a kind of lyric, elevating the family life by the application of the principles of abstract beauty to its homeliest details. Pardon, Miss Beecham, but Mrs. Tozer is right, and you are wrong. The idea of carrying off a few lines of a poem in one’s pocket for one’s collection—”
“Now that’s what I call speaking up,” said Mrs. Tozer, the first time she had opened her lips, “that’s just what I like. Mr. Northcote has a deal more sense than the like of you. He knows what’s what. Old things like this as might have been my granny’s, they’re good enough for every day, they’re very nice for common use; but they ain’t no more fit to be put away in cupboards and hoarded up like fine china, no more than I am. Mr. Northcote should see our best—that’s worth the looking at; and if I’d known as the gentleman was coming—but you can’t put an old head on young shoulders. Phoebe’s as good as gold, and the trouble she takes with an old woman like me is wonderful; but she can’t be expected to think of everything, can she now, at her age?”
The two young men laughed—it was the first point of approach between them, and Phoebe restrained a smile, giving them a look from one to another. She gave Reginald his cup of tea very graciously.
“Mr. Northcote prefers the Wedgwood, and Mr. May doesn’t mind, grandmamma,” she said sweetly. “So it is as well to have the best china in the cupboard. Grandpapa, another muffin—it is quite hot; and I know that is what you like best.”
“Well, I’ll say that for Phoebe,” said Tozer, with his mouth full, “that whether she understands china or not I can’t tell, but she knows what a man likes, which is more to the purpose for a young woman. That’s what she does; and looks after folk’s comforts as I never yet saw her match. She’s a girl in a thousand, is Phoebe, junior. There be them as is more for dress,” he added, fond and greasy, looking at her seated modestly in that gown, which had filled with awe and admiration the experienced mind of Mrs. Sam Hurst; “and plays the pianny, and that sort of style of girl; but for one as minds the comforts of them about her—” Tozer turned back to the table, and made a gulp of his last piece of muffin. Eloquence could have no more striking climax; the proof of all his enthusiasm, was it not there?
“Don’t you play, Miss Beecham?” said Reginald, half-amused, half-angry.
“A little,” said Phoebe, with a laugh. She had brought down a small cottage piano out of the drawing-room, where nobody ever touched it, into a dark corner out of reach of the lamp. It was the only accomplishment upon which she prided herself. She got up from the table, when she had poured out another cup of tea for her grandfather, and without saying a word went to the little piano. It was not much of an instrument, and Reginald May was very little of a connoisseur. Northcote, who knew her gifts, gave himself up to listening, but the Tozers looked on, shaking their heads, and it was only after some time had passed, that Reginald began to understand that he was listening to something which he had never heard before. Ursula’s schoolgirl tunes had never interested him very much; he did not know what this was which seemed to creep into his heart by his ears. He got up by and by, and stole towards the piano bewildered.
“It’ll soon be over, sir,” said Tozer, encouragingly. “Don’t you run away, Mr. May. Them are queer tunes, I allow, but they don’t last long, and your company’s an honour. As for the playing, it’ll soon be over; you needn’t run away.”
XXVI
The Hall
It is unnecessary to say that the dinner party in the Hall bore very little resemblance to those simple amusements in No. 6, Grange Lane. There were three or four people to meet Mr. May, who, as an orator and literary man, had greater reputation even such a little way from home than he had in his own town. He was a very good preacher, and those articles of his were much admired as “thoughtful” papers, searching
