While her senses of sight and scent were absorbing the beauty and perfume of the room, Mrs. Vansittart came in from a walk with the nurse and baby, and her son made haste to introduce his sister’s guest.
“Mother, this is Miss Marchant,” he said briefly, and Eve rose blushing to acknowledge the elder woman’s greeting.
He would not commit himself, forsooth. Why, in the look he gave her as she rose shyly to take his mother’s hand, in the tenderness of his tone as he spoke her name, he was committing himself almost as deeply as if he had said outright, “Mother, this is the woman I love, and I want you to love her.”
Mrs. Vansittart, prejudiced by much that she had heard of the Marchant household, could but acknowledge to herself that the Colonel’s eldest daughter was passing fair, and that this sensitive countenance in which the bloom came and went at a breath, had as candid and innocent an outlook as even a mother’s searching eye could desire in the countenance of her son’s beloved. But then, unhappily, Mrs. Vansittart had seen enough of the world and its ways to know that appearances are deceitful, and that many a blushing bride whose drooping head and gentle bashfulness suggested the innocence that might ride on lions and not be afraid, has afterwards made a shameful figure in the Divorce Court.
VII
He Would Take His Time
The luncheon at Redwold Towers was a very sociable meal. Lady Hartley was at all times a gracious hostess, and she was perhaps a little more attentive to Colonel Marchant’s daughters than she would have been to guests of more assured position.
The meal was abundant, and served with the quiet undemonstrative luxury which steals over the senses like the atmosphere of the Lotus Island, with its suggestion of a world in which there is neither labour nor care, no half-empty mustard-pots, or stale bread, or flat beer, or unreplenished pickle-jars.
There was plenty of game, and there were those appetising kickshaws, Russian salads, and suchlike, which Vansittart had bargained for, and cold and hot sweets in profusion. Hetty and Peggy eat enormously, urged thereto by Mr. Tivett, who sat between them; but Eve had no more appetite than might have been expected in a sensitive girl who finds herself suddenly in a new atmosphere—an atmosphere of unspoken love, which wraps her round like a perfume. Vansittart remonstrated with her for eating so little after a long walk and a morning on the ice; but she could but see that he eat very little himself, and that all his time and thoughts were given to her.
The cup of coffee after lunch was the most fragrant she had ever tasted.
“If I could only make such coffee as that father wouldn’t grumble as he does at his after-dinner cup,” she said.
“The still-room maid always uses freshly roasted coffee,” said Lady Hartley. “I believe that is the only secret of success.”
She felt in the next moment how foolish it was to talk of still-room maids to this girl, whose household consisted of two faithful drudges, and who no doubt had to do a good deal of housework herself.
Miss Marchant had enough savoir faire to depart very soon after luncheon. She only lingered long enough to look at the flowers which Mrs. Vansittart showed her, during which brief inspection the elder lady spoke to her very kindly.
“You are the head of the family, I am told,” she said. “Isn’t that rather an onerous position for one so young?”
“I was twenty-one last November, and I begin to feel quite old,” answered Eve; “and then our family is not a difficult one to manage. My sisters are very good, and accommodate themselves to circumstances. We live very simply. We have none of those difficulties with servants which I hear rich people talk about.”
“You and your sisters look wonderfully well and happy,” said Mrs. Vansittart, interested in spite of herself.
“Yes, I think we are as happy as people can be in a world where everybody must have a certain amount of trouble,” Eve answered, with the faintest sigh. “We are very fond of each other, and we have great fun out of trifles. We contrive to be merry at very little cost. Peggy and Hetty are very amusing. Oh, how they have eaten today! It will be a long time before they forget Lady Hartley’s banquet.”
“It does children good to go out now and then. They must come again very soon. I know my daughter will like to have them; but my son and I are going home almost immediately.”
“Home.” Eve looked a little crestfallen as she echoed the word. “You don’t live very far off, I think, Mrs. Vansittart?”
“No. Only an hour’s journey. We live in a region of pine and heather; and I have a garden and an arboretum, which are my delight. But our country is not any prettier than yours, so I mustn’t boast of it.”
“This is not my country,” said Eve. “I feel like a foreigner here, though we have lived at the Homestead a good many years. Yorkshire is my country.”
“But surely you must prefer Sussex. Yorkshire is so far away from everything.”
The two girls came to Eve and hung about her. They had put on their gloves and little fur tippets—spoil of rabbit or cat—and were ready for the start. Mrs. Vansittart noticed their coarse serge frocks, their homely woollen stockings and village-made boots. They were tidily clad, and that was all that could be said of them. A village tradesman’s children would have been smarter; and yet they looked like young ladies.
“These are your two youngest sisters, and you have two older—five daughters in all,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “Colonel Marchant ought to be very proud of such a
