Chapter VIII: The Villa

Mrs. Tremenheere rather prided herself on her society; though she had given up so much she had never given up that; the people she knew were not commonplace people, such as you meet everywhere, but persons of high intelligence, of advanced opinions, people known in literature, in art, and in science. Her parties were generally in summer, daylight parties, a combination of outdoor pleasures, concluding with that good dinner which mortal men, even when they are philosophers, love. When the little party arrived from town they found preparations going on for one of these gatherings. Mrs. Tremenheere took Vera through the garden and shady grounds, which were skilfully planted to look double their size, and showed her everything with tender anxiety. “You must help me to receive my friends,” she said, smiling upon her little daughter.

“What would Miss Campbell say? she is not ‘out’ of course,” said Elinor.

“A girl does not require to be ‘out’ when she is by her mother’s side,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a sigh, drawing Vera’s hand within her arm. It was not for Vera she said this, but for the relief of her own mind; but Vera heard it, and ventured to clasp her mother’s arm with a sudden sense of security, such as she thought she had never experienced before.

By her mother’s side--very different from Miss Campbell’s; everything was made natural, everything as it ought to be, by that one fact. She turned round without knowing why, and met Fane’s dark eyes fixed upon her; never before had innocent Vera met such looks; and a soft suffusion, the first blush of tenderest youth, came over her white throat and delicate cheeks. She clung a little closer to her mother’s arm. Yes, even this, the confused sweet guiltiness, the innocent shame where no shame was, all were without danger, without harm there--by her mother’s side.

Then the strangers began to arrive, but first of all came Edward, fresh from school, happy and radiant in the delight of “leave,” and the whole day to himself, though not so happy about “the party.”

“To be sure we can have some croquet,” said Edward, “though that is not much; but with such a terrible set of swells what else can one do?”

“There is a swell coming who will fascinate you, Eddy,” said his mother. The lad shrugged his shoulders with a laugh.

“All right, if they please you, mamma,” he said, putting his arm round her with a happy ease which made Vera wonder. Fancy any one doing that to papa, she said to herself--or Miss Campbell! After a while Edward dragged her off to see the croquet-ground, where the implements of that diversion were all in order. “Between ourselves it is a bore, rather,” he said; “a lot of bigwigs all talking as if to talk was the best thing in the world; but, never mind, it pleases the mother. And then a day’s leave is always a day’s leave,” he added, with good-humored philosophy. It was Edward’s disposition to make the best of everything.

“And I have a day’s leave, too,” said Vera, with a little sigh; “but I can’t have one whenever I please, Eddy, like you.”

“Whenever I please!” he looked at her with natural contempt for her ignorance; but then what can a girl be expected to know? “Why can’t you stay?” he said; “it would be much jollier if you were here. Why can’t we all live together, as we used to do--as we ought to do?” the boy added, suddenly.

This conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Fane, who was never long absent from Vera’s elbow, and by the gradual arrival of the visitors--among whom, as I have said, there was one celebrity of the moment whom it was a very great honor to produce here so far out of town. While the young people were in the garden Elinor Meadows came rushing towards them, her black lace billowing around her, and the rings of her gray hair blown about her forehead.

“Come!” she cried, breathless, “come, before there is a crowd, and be introduced to him, both of you. You, too, Oswald, if you like,--only make haste and come!”

“Who is it?” they all asked in a breath.

“It is the lion--and a real great roaring lion, shaking his mane--none of your make-believes, that don’t know how to keep it up. It is Mr. Buckram Bass, the great African traveller. He has been everywhere where nobody ever was before. Come, you foolish boys and girls. You may never have another such opportunity. Come, Vera; and Edward especially,--you must come!”

“Presently. I shall see him soon enough,” said Edward.

He would not come in. He was busy out of doors, looking after the croquet, showing the finer points of view to one wandering group after another, pointing out the pinnacles of the great school in the distance, telling the names of the distant places, and also the names of the notabilities present to his mother’s guests.

“That is Dr. Jones, the great geologist, I believe--and that lady yonder, in the corner with a lot of people round her, is the lady that plays the fiddle--well, yes, violin, it’s all the same, isn’t it? I daresay my mother will get her to play after dinner. And that is the Bishop of St. James’s, who is an old friend of my mother’s.”

“Will he preach after dinner?” said some one, hoping to be witty.

“I hope not,” said Edward gravely. “I don’t think he is a fool, nor my mother either. There is the editor of the ‘Northerly,’ whom you may have heard of, and Miss Cloots, who writes novels. By the way, I believe there is somebody here who is the very last novelty in the way of travels. The great African man, that----”

“Hush!” said Elinor Meadows, by his side.

“Why should he hush? I wish he had described me as well as he described the rest,” said Mr. Buckram Bass himself, stepping into the circle. “This is Mrs. Tremenheere’s son, the hero of the cricket, and why has he not been introduced to me? There spoke the true spirit of youth! not feelings!--When his time comes, ladies, he will experience them; at present he does not care to have any babbling about them. Bravo! those are my sentiments exactly. Let us shake hands upon it. Yes, what is worth is doing--not to talk, not to read, but to do. Schools! yes, schools are excellent. I do not say a word against schools. I myself was not created by any school, but what does that matter? When I was your age I rebelled against books. I felt myself a slave. To tie me down,” cried the lion, roaring loudly, and grasping his red beard--he was a large man, handsome and even commanding in appearance, and when he spoke, took a large handful of the vast beard which he had grown during his travels--“to tie me down with all my energies fettered, to construe Herodotus! when I knew there were things in the world more wonderful than Herodotus--and true.”

Edward had looked at him, half contemptuously, half suspiciously when he began. Gradually, however, his looks changed. His eyes began to laugh, then to glow. The big man and his beard impressed him. “More wonderful than Herodotus--and true!” He forgot his natural opposition to the lion. After all, if this was a lion, he was so because of what he had done, not of what he had said or written. He began to look eagerly at this new kind of man.

“Do you know anything about Africa?” said the traveller. “No! The great continent of the future!--the real new world, teeming with wealth, full of wonder, from which there is everything to expect. Take a walk with me through your mother’s pretty grounds. ‘That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me.’”

With this the adventurer thrust his great arm through Edward’s and led him away, half pleased, half reluctant. The others who stood round heard his big voice discoursing as he promenaded through the shrubbery.

Nothing more was seen of Eddy that day, except at dinner, during which he was very absent and _distrait_, straining his attention to make out what Mr. Buckram Bass was saying at the other end of the table. He reappeared in the evening, but only in the train of the traveller, who was delighted by the boy’s enthusiasm. Few people noticed even then that it was to Edward he was talking, for the talk was addressed to the whole gathering, as well as to that one particular boy who stood close by him, his eyes gleaming, his whole aspect changed.

“Yes, yes, you are right, and I respect you for it,” said the traveller. “This is not a time for music, for the fine arts, for poetry and feeling. What men want is to be doing. You know where I am going to--what I call the Continent of the future, that great mysterious Africa, to one corner of which the roots of our religion itself still cling. Is it not a work worthy of Christianity to carry freedom and civilization back to the warm, rich, teeming countries where so much wealth and capability lie dormant? Yes, sir, take the question at its lowest, nothing could be more admirable for trade. In that view alone it is worth doing--opening up, not a single nation, like France or Germany, but a crowd of nations, a whole continent to British enterprise. But I don’t profess myself to take that point of view. My mind is burdened with the thought of so many fine, interesting races, so many tribes and peoples, as varied as Europeans, not stupid negroes only, who are living in mud-cabins, under savage laws, decimated by fever and by each other, whom we might help with a little trouble into civilization and humanity. My expedition starts in October. It is not all filled up. How thankful I should be to have volunteers, sportsmen, adventurers, whatever you please to call them. Every new traveller is so much gain.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ada, do something to stop that man,” cried Elinor Meadows, in Mrs. Tremenheere’s ear. “Ask somebody to play; let us do something.”

“Why? I find him very interesting,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, smiling calmly in her friend’s face, “and he always does this, you know, wherever he goes. It is tacitly understood.”

“Look at Edward’s face.”

“Yes, he is interested, poor boy. I am so glad that he should have had his mind roused by some new subject.”

Edward stood by his new apostle, his eyes fixed upon him, swallowing every word with eager interest. Already he saw himself in imagination with a wild retinue of Arabs and negroes trampling through the jungle, pressing over the sands, passing from one savage court to another. He had read all the books upon the subject eagerly, but here was a man who was a living book, who had seen and heard and done, and was about to do again, all these wonders. Edward’s mind, newly aroused within him, expanded and grew. He seemed to feel himself grow strong and daring and patient as he listened. Yes, that was the life--not a sham life at college, making good friends, as his father said, or laboring vainly after scholarship, as his mother wished.