Chapter XVIII: Wilmothurst

His changed mood of mind did not escape the attention of his friend Jerry Wilmot, who said to him one day,

'My people at Wilmothurst are getting up a spread, or a dinner, or both, in honour of my august appearance in this world some five-and-twenty years ago. Get leave with me from the Colonel, and we'll start by train from Farnborough. Tell your man to throw your things together; O'Farrel is packing mine, and I am just going to the orderly-room about it.'

Goring agreed to this. The colonel readily granted a few weeks' leave to both, as the spring drills were a long way off, or the alternate mud and dust of the Long Valley were not sufficiently deep for military manœuvres; and they started for Wilmothurst, which was situated in one of the prettiest and most wooded parts of Hampshire, Goring being glad of anything that drew him from his own thoughts and aided him to kill the harassing time.

Jerry's man secured their seats and saw their luggage duly placed in the van.

'Now, O'Farrel,' said he, as the latter saluted and retired, 'don't get drunk at the "Tumble-down-Dick," or you'll never be the Sultan of Turkey.'

Farnborough Station was soon left far behind; Fleet, with its pond and moorlands; Winchfield, Basingstoke, with its market and town-hall. The carriage from Wilmothurst met them at a station some miles eastward of Salisbury, and the short winter evening saw them deposited at the _porte-cochère_ of the stately modern mansion, which occupied the site of an ancient one, and of which Jerry was the lord and owner.

'A fine place this, Jerry,' exclaimed Goring as they alighted; 'the grounds are beautiful.'

'Yes, but the devil of it is that the lands are mortgaged, I believe, to an awful extent; my father was a man of expensive habits and tastes. The old lady _ma mère_ hopes, nay, never doubts, that I shall, with my handsome figure and rare accomplishments, pick up an heiress, as if such prizes were to be found like pips on every hedge; but I have my own fancy to consult in the matter of marriage.'

And Jerry laughed softly as he looked at his watch and added,

'Now to dress for dinner, and then I shall introduce you to the ladies in the drawing-room.'

Jerry had, during the last few weeks, especially since his fancy for Mrs. Trelawney had been cooled by her laughing repulse of his suit, gone much after Bella Chevenix, a former flame, wherever he had met her--a young lady of whom we shall have much to tell anon--but, as yet, he had given no token of his actual feelings towards her, save a rather marked attention, which she--knowing the views, the necessities, and, more than all, the general bearing of Lady Julia Wilmot towards herself--had never in any way encouraged.

Goring followed up the stately, richly-carpeted, and warmly-lighted staircase the valet, who conducted him to his room, where he found his clothes already unpacked, his evening costume placed on a clothes-rail before a blazing fire, and, as he turned to the great mirror and magnificent toilette table, he thought, with a repining sigh, if something like these luxurious surroundings of which Jerry made so light were his, how different might be the fate or fortune of his engagement with Alison Cheyne.

With soldier-like rapidity he and Jerry made the necessary changes in their costume; the latter tapped at his door, and together they descended to the spacious drawing-room, before the blazing fire in which, at the end of a long vista, apparently of pictures, pilasters, and window-draperies, two ladies were seated.

Lady Julia Wilmot (she was an Earl's daughter) received them with a stately grace peculiar to herself, but she was too well-bred to display the least warmth of manner; and Jerry kissed her cheek, then her firm, white hand, and, after introducing 'Goring of Ours,' saluted his pretty cousin.

Lady Julia was a fine-looking woman past her fortieth year, but still very handsome, her complexion brilliantly pure, her face and forehead without a line, for thought and care had been alike unknown to her since she left her cradle. Her delicately pencilled black eyebrows and general outline of features were decidedly what are deemed aristocratic, and she gave her hand to Goring, while receiving somewhat frigidly Jerry's kiss upon her white cheek.

She was not emotional evidently, and deemed that any exhibition of pleasure on seeing her only son after an absence of a few months would be 'bad form.'

Emily Wilmot was decidedly a pretty girl, with blond hair, light blue eyes, a rather _retroussé_ nose, a cherub-like mouth and dazzling skin.

'My cousin Emily,' said Jerry, 'Goring of Ours. I hope you will be great friends, but be careful, Emmy. Bevil is our regimental lady-killer--has passed the Guards' School of Instruction in the science of flirtation.'

'Absurd as ever, Jerry,' said his pretty cousin, tapping his hand with her feather fan, but beginning a conversation at once with Goring.

Aware that Jerry would arrive that day about dinner time, Cousin Emily had made her toilette with unusual care. She wore a rich black silk trimmed with amber satin; ruffles of rich old lace fell around her tapered arms that were white as a lily, and made the delicate lace seem quite yellow. Bracelets of topazes clasped her slender wrists. The colours chosen became the blond character of her beauty--for she was more than pretty--and yet the whole costume, though rather extreme, was not too much for a family dinner.

During the progress of the latter, which was protracted by an infinity of _entrées_ and courses, yet was perfect in all its details, the quartette, on whom the butler and two tall valets were in attendance, found plenty to talk of. The expected departure of the regiment and other troops to the scene of a coming war in Africa; the last run with the Royal Buckhounds; the county news; the coming ball; who were invited and who were not, as ineligible; and some of the conversation on this mooted point reminded Bevil Goring of the proclivities of Sir Ranald Cheyne, as also did the amount of heraldry displayed on plate, the china, and everything, from the great silver epergne to the fruit knives, but it was precisely the same with my Lord Cadbury, the man of yesterday.

Here, however, it was, 'the genuine article;' on a _fesse_ three eagles' heads and as many escalop shells, gules, crested with the eagle's head of Wilmot, given to the first of the name, Wyliamot, who, according to Dugdale, was settled antecedent to the Conquest in Nottinghamshire, though, unfortunately for Dugdale's veracity, the science of heraldry was unknown in England till long after that event.

'Mr. Chevenix wishes to see you on some important business to-morrow, Jerry,' said Lady Wilmot, when the dessert was over and the servants had withdrawn.

'All right, mater; I'll ride over to-morrow probably--nay, certainly. Try the burgundy, Goring; there are Romanée, Conti, and Chablis before you.'

'The latter--thanks, Jerry.'

'Miss Chevenix is at home just now,' observed Lady Wilmot, with a furtive glance at her son.

'I know; she returned, or was to return, yesterday.'

'You seem well aware of her movements; but of what interest are they to you, Jerry?'

'Every pretty girl's movements are of interest to me,' replied Jerry, laughing.

There was a mischievous pout on Cousin Emily's pouting lips, that were like two rose-buds; but his mother's curled slightly with disdain.

'She is handsome, certainly,' said Jerry, emphatically; 'appeal to Goring that she is.'

'And rather good style, considering her origin,' added Lady Wilmot.

'Well, it is better surely to be all that than plain.'

'_Cela dépend_,' laughed Cousin Emily; 'it makes no difference to me.'

But Jerry knew that it did make a difference; however, he said--

'You, Emily, may well afford to hear any woman praised.'

'But what can Mr. Chevenix want with you, Jerry?' asked Lady Julia.

'Can't say, mater dear--business or some such bother, of course.'

'People of his class should wait till they are sent for.'

'His class?'

'Well; he is only a village attorney.'

'A very fine old man, who has had many business transactions with the governor before my time.'

'Slang again, Jerry! Does he pick up all that kind of thing in barracks, Captain Goring?'

'Very probably; it is the style of the day,' replied Goring, laughing.

'It is a very bad style, Jerry dear,' said Emily, gently.

'Yes, I repeat,' said the hostess, haughtily, 'that persons like Chevenix should not send for their superiors, but wait till they are sent for.'

'Like Chevenix; how you run on, mother. One would think that the old days of sitting below the salt had come again!' exclaimed Jerry, with a somewhat ruffled air. 'As the world goes now, how long do you think this vast distinction of class and class will last? Why, nobility itself will one day pass away--nay, respect for it is nearly a thing of the past already.'

'Nobility pass away!' exclaimed Lady Julia, the descendant of twenty earls and more, her pale face growing paler at such unheard-of opinion. 'Where have you picked up such horrid Radical and Communistic ideas, Jerry? Not in the army surely!'

'I pick them up from the public prints, yet don't endorse them. But to me it seems that all will go in time, and quietly now, as no one will care to make a row about it. Don't you see the terrible tendency of the times? I call them terrible from your point of view, mother. Even the dignity of the Crown is slighted in almost every debate in the Lower House now by some fellow or other; and to me all this seems to foreshadow the coming time when the Crown itself may fall into the dust without defenders, for there will be no Cavaliers in England to send their plate to the melting pot and mount their serving men, and no loyal clans in the North to descend again under a Montrose or Dundee.'

'And all this is to come to pass because I don't approve of old Mr. Chevenix,' said Lady Julia, rather scornfully, as she fanned herself; and, then bowing to Goring, she nodded to Miss Wilmot, and both rising sailed away to the drawing-room.

Goring read a peculiar expression in the fine face of the elder lady as she withdrew, and it gave him a clue to some of Jerry's movements lately; but he made no reference to it, nor would it have been courteous to do so, familiar as he and Jerry were.

Jerry twirled his moustaches with a momentary air of annoyance. It was evident that there existed some secret bone of contention between mother and son--a skeleton in the cupboard at Wilmothurst; but who could have supposed that this ghastly personage was in reality the brilliant and blooming Bella Chevenix!

And when, after having a few glasses of wine together, and a cigar in the smoking-room, they rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room, the obnoxious subject was again resumed by Jerry and his mother, somewhat apart from Bevil Goring, who drew a seat near the piano, over the keys of which Miss Wilmot was gracefully idling, or affecting an _andante_ of Beethoven.

'The invitations for the ball in your honour, my dear boy, are all issued,' said Lady Julia; 'and every one has accepted--only think of that! Every one, and here is the list.'

He scanned it, and saw many familiar names that stood high in the county, and said, with a twirl of his moustache,

'I don't see the name of Chevenix here.'

'Chevenix again!' said his mother, with a cloudy eye and curling lip; 'the lawyer man?'

'Who else, mother dear? Now, don't be absurd. There is no other Chevenix in all Hampshire. They must be asked--he and his daughter.'

'The girl is said to look well in a drawing-room.'

'She looks lovely!' exclaimed Jerry, incautiously.

'She was a mere hobbledehoy when you and she used to play at battledore and croquet together.'

'She is, I repeat, a very lovely woman now, mother,' continued Jerry, with enthusiasm.

'You have seen her lately?' asked the elderly lady, in a casual tone.

'Yes; often at a hop in Willis's Rooms, at the camp balls, with the buckhounds, and at Mrs. Trelawney's.'

'Who is Mrs. Trelawney?' asked Lady Julia, languidly, while elevating her delicately pencilled eyebrows.

'A widow who lives near Aldershot, at a place called Chilcote Grange.'

'Ah!'

Jerry laughed softly, as he thought how familiar his lady-mother might have been with the fair widow's name had she not rejected his attention, and laughed him off cavalierly as he thought at the time.

'There is every reason in the world why we must have Miss Chevenix, mother,' persisted Jerry, colouring with vexation as he returned to the charge; 'she is highly accomplished, and sings well.'

'Taught well, no doubt--people of that kind send their children to the best schools now.

'I should like you to hear her voice.'

'Thanks--not here, at all events,' said Lady Julia, shrugging her shoulders, 'the girl must be forward enough--rides with the buckhounds, you say?'

'Every one does.'

'The reason, perhaps, she goes there.'

'I can assure you, mother, that Bel--Miss Chevenix--is a very proud girl.'

'Likely enough--many vulgarians are; but, if she is so proud as you say, we must teach her what her real position is--the daughter of a village attorney--of our local agent--the granddaughter of a farmer.'

'One of the oldest families on the estate.'

'Enough--she will make the hundred and fourth person invited.'

'If she accepts,' said Jerry.

'_If_ she accepts!' repeated his mother, with elevated brows, as she added the girl's name to her list, and tossed the golden pen from her white jewelled fingers.

'At the last meet at Salthill, she came with Miss Cheyne of Essilmont,' said Jerry.

'I have heard of that girl--the daughter of a broken-down Scottish baronet. But all kinds of horrid people go, with the highest in rank, to these rough gatherings.'

'Glad Goring did not hear you,' said Jerry, glancing nervously towards the pair at the piano.

'Why?'

'He is rather spooney in that quarter.'

'Don't use camp slang, Jerry--which quarter--the Chevenix girl?'

'No, Miss Cheyne,' replied her son, in a low voice.

'Emily,' said Lady Julia, 'I have added that girl's name to our list--you will see that an invitation is sent to her and her father to-morrow.'

'Yes, aunt,' replied Emily, with a slight shade of annoyance on her naturally sweet face. 'Was it not she who behaved so shockingly to Colonel Graves, of the Artillery?'

'It was Graves--the utter cad--who behaved shockingly to her, poor girl,' exclaimed Jerry, with warmth.

'Really, Jerry, you must keep your temper. See how you have made Emily blush.'

'Mother!'

'You are quite pugnacious in defence of this young woman; but please now let us drop the subject.'

'My dear mother,' said Jerry, good-humouredly, and kissing her cheek, as he had now gained his point, 'the male public generally, and particularly that portion of it who wear the red rag, are rather subject to the blandishments of the fair sex, and are not all able to resist them, like St. Anthony the Abbot in his wood at Coma.'

'You make a jest of everything, Jerry,' said Lady Julia; 'but,' she added, under cover of Emily's musical performance, 'it has been said that no one knows how people pick up "a knowledge of others' antecedents from their own careless talk;" thus, my dear boy, I am glad you did not become entangled by that dreadful Trelawney woman.'

Jerry, the rogue, thought so now himself, but he coloured deeply at this abrupt remark, as it showed him that his mother knew much more of his movements than he in the least suspected.

His pretty cousin Emily, the orphan daughter of his father's younger brother, evidently had a _penchant_ for him; her jealousy of any rival was easily excited; and thus she shared to the full all his mother's overstrained prejudices against Bella Chevenix, and, finding that he was still somewhat indifferent to her charms, she might doubtless have had no objection to get up a little affair with Bevil Goring. But the latter was too preoccupied to relish her vivacity or respond to it, and, though companionable enough, she found him full of his own thoughts, and at times indifferent to a provoking degree.

When the ladies retired for the night, and Jerry joined Goring in the smoking-room to have a last whiff, with some seltzer and brandy, he found the latter deep in studying the geography of the Mediterranean, a map of which he had pulled out from a stand of maps on rollers.

'What is up, old fellow?' said Jerry; 'going in for cramming again? Thought you were surely done with that beastly work.'

'Thank heaven, yes; but look here!'

Goring had first seen the papers that had come by the evening post, and been cut and laid out by the butler. He had, as usual, turned to the shipping and fashionable intelligence, and to all the paragraphed news, in search of tidings of the lost one, and had alighted at last on an announcement in the _Times_ that Lord Cadbury's yacht, the _Firefly_, 'with Sir Ranald Cheyne and a small but select party on board,' had sailed for the Mediterranean.

Now this was not the case, as the notice had been inserted by Slagg, in obedience to the peer, as a blind to Goring in particular, while the 'small and select party' consisted only of poor Alison herself.

'The Mediterranean,' said Jerry, as he lit a Havanna; 'that is a wide word--you can't make much of that in the hope of overhauling the yacht.'

Bevil acquiesced in the fact, and that it would be almost impossible as yet to trace its route or whereabouts. He had but one comfort, though somewhat a negative one, that her father was with her; yet he knew not the real character of Lord Cadbury, nor the plans he was capable of contriving, encouraged by his own great wealth on the one hand, and the poverty and age of Sir Ranald on the other, with the girl's utter helplessness if she were, by any means, deprived of the latter's protection, now that the stings of jealousy and revenge against himself, Goring, were added to Alison's rejection of his hand, with all the brilliant settlements attached to it.

Then there would come into Bevil's heart fears that without his love to support her, and his occasional presence to sway her gentle spirit, it might be gradually bent, if not broken, under the united influence of Cadbury with his wealth, and her father with his pride and poverty; and he drew many a harrowing picture of promises being perhaps wrung from her, by which she might eventually be lost to him for ever.

As it seemed now, she had been spirited away, taken out of his life suddenly--had passed, as it were, out of the scheme of his existence.

They had been parted roughly, without their hearts resting on the joy of that future which lovers alone look forward to.

Day and night he thought of her, his lost Alison. Gathering--hoarding, as it were, in his inner heart, 'as a miser hoards his gold--memories of passion-laden eyes seeking his, and then often long looks of fondness turned aside' lest others saw their glories, and of stolen kisses, stolen from lips that quivered and trembled for their own temerity and ardour.

He could but think again, alas for the time that has been!

'But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.'