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 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
 
 NEW THREE-VOLUME NOVELS AT 
 ALL LIBRARIES. 
 
 FOXGLOVE MANOR. By Robert Buchanan. 
 PRINCESS NAPRAXINE. By Ouida. 
 DOROTHY FORSTER. By Walter Besant. 
 A DRAWN GAME. By Basil. 
 SAINT MUNGO'S CITY. By Sarah Tytler. 
 
 HEART SALVAGE BY SEA AND LAND. By 
 
 Mrs. Cooper. 
 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, Piccadilly, W.
 
 Beauty and The Beast 
 
 ^ fio^zl 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' THE BRIDE'S PASS,' * WHAT SHE CAME THROUGH,' 
 'saint MUNGO's city.' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 %o ntJo n 
 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1884 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 8S3 
 
 V. 1. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTKR PAGE 
 
 I. THE BEAST - . - _ - ^ 
 
 II. jenny's struggles - - - - 6 
 
 III. THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE - - 13 
 
 IV. WHITEHILLS - - - - - 29 
 V. NEIGHBOURS - - - - - 50 
 
 VI. BEAUTY ------ 68 
 
 L- Vn. BY LADY THWAITE'S WORK-TABLE - - 87 
 
 'u VIII. SIR WILLIAM'S FIRST FAMILY DINNER - - 109 
 
 IX. THE CARD-TABLES- - _ > _ 126 
 
 X. LADY termor's NEIGHBOURLY WAYS - - 140 
 
 XL RIVAL CLAIMS - - - - - 152 
 
 *0 XIL A HAND IN NEED- - - - - 176 
 J- 
 
 J XIIL A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM - - 199 
 
 * XIV. MISS compton's ball - - - - 219 
 
 T^V. IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT - - 241 
 
 4^" 
 
 «XVI. THE COTILLON ----- 279 
 
 4
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/beautybeastnovel01tytl
 
 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEAST. 
 
 The wtiite glare of an Indian sun was 
 beginning to beat on the parade-ground at 
 !Rhilpoor. The English regiment, which had 
 been summoned for early drill, was detained 
 to witness a painful piece of discipline, which 
 the authorities trusted would prove a salutary 
 warning. A young soldier named Thwaite, a 
 fine, manly fellow in spite of his faults, had, 
 in the course of several years' service, risen to 
 the rank of sergeant. This desirable result 
 w^as the efiect of energy, daring, an obliging 
 temper when he was not crossed, and a clever 
 aptitude for a soldier's duties, born of mother- 
 wit, sharpened by a rather better education 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 2 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 than was usual in his grade. Unfortunately 
 his merits were counterbalanced by defects, 
 which not even the promotion he had attained, 
 calculated as it was to open his eyes to the side 
 on which his bread was buttered, had been able 
 to check. He was as rash and reckless as he 
 was dauntless and enduring. He had an un- 
 certain temper, spoilt by what' was understood 
 to have been a hard youth. He was careless 
 of the company he kept, and careless of the 
 excesses into which he fell in bad company. 
 He had an elder sister, married to a cousin 
 of the same name in the troop, but in spite • 
 of her efforts, and notwithstanding the staid 
 example of her husband, who was a pattern 
 of prudence, though he had not the wit to rise 
 in the world, young Will Thwaite had been 
 going from bad to worse lately, and had in- 
 dulged in one fit of dissipation after another. 
 They were beyond being hidden ; they could 
 not escape punishment ; and both offence and 
 punishment were totally incompatible with his 
 position as a noncommissioned officer. 
 
 His best friends had grown weary of plead- 
 ing for grace, which was so often abused. A 
 court-martial could only come to one con- 
 clusion, especially as the Colonel of the regiment
 
 THE BEAST. 3 
 
 was somewhat of a martinet, and had never 
 entertained any great favour for Will. The 
 commandinof officer resolved the sero^eant 
 should be made an example of. 
 
 It was in anticipation of the spectacle that 
 a certain solemn stir went through the mechani- 
 cally controlled body, drawn out in strict 
 order. The culprit was brought forth to con- 
 front the Colonel, who proceeded to see the 
 sentence carried into effect, without any 
 symptom of dislike to the duty. William 
 Thwaite was reduced to the ranks, and in sign 
 of the degradation the signal was given for 
 the usual official to remove, in the presence of 
 the man's comrades and subordinates, the 
 stripes on the arm of his jacket, which were 
 the token of his grade. 
 
 Till then Will Thwaite had stood like a 
 statue, thoutrh liis face was sullen and lower- 
 ing. But the moment he felt the offensive 
 touch on his arm he sprang aside, and before 
 anyone could anticipate the action, tore the 
 stripes from his coat by one wrench, and flung 
 them right in the face of the Colonel, with a 
 savage shout : 
 
 * Take that from a better man than your- 
 self!' 
 
 1—2
 
 4 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Blank consternation was the first result of 
 the lawless defiance. The deed was such a 
 gross breach of military discipline, such an 
 unseemly violation of authority, that the poor 
 Colonel gasped, and could hardly believe his 
 senses, while the junior officers and soldiers 
 gaped in harmony with their senior's gasp ; 
 and for an instant every energy was paralyzed. 
 
 Thwaite did not take any advantage of the 
 second's pause to attempt a flight, which would 
 have been as mad as what had gone before it. 
 He stood at ease w^ith the angry grin still on 
 his face, till the whole company recovered 
 themselves. He was put under arrest a 
 second time, without ofi'ering any resistance,, 
 and marched back to durance, while the dis- 
 missed soldiers formed into groups and dis- 
 cussed the event of the day, filling the barrack- 
 yard with subdued commotion. 
 
 The orator who spoke beneath his breath 
 with greatest horror of the outrage which had 
 been committed, and wagged his head with 
 most reprobation and foreboding, was Lawrie 
 Thwaite, Will's cousin and brother-in-law. 
 It was not Lawrie who, as might have been 
 expected, carried to his poor wife, said to he 
 devoted to her brother, the news of his fresh.
 
 THE BEAST, 5 
 
 unpardonable outbreak, and the imminent 
 dano^er in which he stood of somethino^ to 
 beo^in with still worse than beino; drummed 
 out of the regiment. A gabbling straggler 
 sought out Jenny, and, without preparation, 
 divulo-ed to her the miserable incident. 
 
 Jenny wrung her hands, prematurely 
 withered and drawn by much washing to 
 the troop. Well might she lament and cower 
 in apprehension. The next court-martial 
 weighed out the terrible, but warrantable, 
 almost compulsory retribution, that Will 
 Thwaite should undergo a certain number 
 of lashes before being^ dismissed from the 
 service.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 jenny's struggles. 
 
 Jenny Thwaite, a hard-featured, hard- work- 
 ing middle-aged woman, was more attached to 
 her brother than to her husband. Indeed, it 
 was alleged that she had married Lawrie 
 Thwaite principally that she might have a 
 chance of following Will to India and being 
 still near him. The reason for this perversion 
 of natural regard might exist in the fact 
 that while poor Will, smart as he was, had 
 sore need of such protection as she could 
 afford him, there was no question that Lawrie 
 Thwaite was quite capable of taking care of 
 himself In addition, Jenny had never borne 
 a child, which might have broken the old 
 allegiance, while Will had all along been like 
 her child, seeing that he was nearly fifteen 
 years her junior. She had looked after him 
 in these old hard days of his youth ; she
 
 JENNYS STRUGGLES, 7 
 
 had toiled to procure for Mm an education 
 that might be more in keeping ^vith his future 
 than with his present fortunes ; she had 
 suffered the keen disappointment of seeing him 
 grow up wild and unsteady, until he forsook 
 the trade to which he had been apprenticed — 
 only stopping short of breaking his indentures 
 and leaving Jenny to pay the forfeit — and 
 enlisted into an infantry regiment under 
 marching orders for India. Then Jenny 
 consented to marry her cousin, who was in 
 the same regiment, while he stoutly denied 
 ever having decoyed ^\^ill into the service. 
 
 Lawrie was more Jenny's contemporary 
 than Will's, and having been on the look-out 
 for a careful, manaoino- T^ife, who mio^ht wash, 
 or do dressmaking, or perhaps keep the girls' - 
 school, and so gi'eatly multiply his resources, 
 he had hovered about Jenny Thwaite with 
 matrimonial intentions for years. 
 
 Jenny had not been a weak woman so as to 
 remain blind to her boy's delinquencies ; 
 had rated and reproached him, and sometimes 
 was not on speaking terms with him for days ; 
 but it was all for his good. She loved him 
 faithfully through his worst scrapes, and was 
 secretly serving him, even while she was
 
 8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 submitting to be shunned by him ; nay, taking 
 the initiative in declining for a brief space 
 to hold intercourse with him. She was 
 the first to hail a sign of amendment ; she was 
 extravagantly proud of his promotion, insisting 
 that he would never stop till he got a 
 commission, which would be no more than 
 his due, though she must give up her washing, 
 and it would be as well that Lawrie had 
 served his time before that day came round. 
 
 The process of retrogression, even when it 
 reached its extremity, did not shake Jenny's 
 fidelity ; instead, it knit her so closely to her 
 brother that she ceased to protest against his 
 folly. Was it a time to be picking out holes 
 in his coat and pointing to his errors, when 
 the poor lad was in trouble and brought to so 
 sorry a pass that he needed every grain of love 
 to fight for him, cleave to him, and, if it were 
 yet possible, save him ? 
 
 Jenny would leave Lawrie to play the 
 cautious, cold-hearted, judicial part — to draw 
 back in case of incurring reflected blame, to 
 stand aloof, though with a decent show of 
 reluctance to join in the chorus of blame. 
 Neither did Jenny greatly censure her husband 
 for his conduct. It belonged to the poor
 
 jenny's struggles. 9 
 
 man's nature, as she had known when she 
 married him; and so long as he did not propose 
 to stop her in the most desperate exertions 
 she might undertake on her brother's behalf, 
 according to the original bargain between the 
 pair, honest Jenny could not see that she 
 had any title to sit upon her husband. 
 
 It might have been otherwise if Jenny's 
 conviction of her husband's fulfilling his 
 bargain had been shaken, or if she had 
 guessed that the great secret of her independ- 
 ence lav in the meanness, rather than in the 
 phlegmatic magnanimity of the man she had 
 married, that he dreaded to offend her high 
 spirit mortally, lest he should lose the constant 
 harvest of her skilled work which found many 
 channels of outlet. Jenny never dreamt of a 
 separate purse, neither would the scapegrace 
 Will have consented to touch a farthing of her 
 wages, so long as he could work for his own 
 hand. 
 
 Jenny moved heaven and earth to deliver 
 her brother from the barbarous infliction of the 
 lash. She knew well that it would be the 
 death of his moral nature, the brand that 
 would enter his soul, even if his high-strung 
 physical system recovered from the shock it
 
 to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 Would receive. If it had been possible to 
 administer the punishment vicariously, with- 
 out Will's knowledge, she could have been 
 wrought up to bare her brave shoulders like 
 the Russian women to the knout, and like 
 another Godiva have faced ignominy, so that 
 the victim, who was her own flesh and blood, 
 her darling since her early girlhood, might be 
 permitted to go free. That resource was im- 
 possible. All that Jenny could do, and she 
 had only a few days to do it in, was to wander 
 day and night, praying for a commutation 
 of the sentence. She appealed here and urged 
 there. She worked upon the chaplain to 
 draw up a petition for her. She vexed the 
 souls of men with her sometimes speechless, 
 but never-failing importunity, and the dry- 
 tongued anguish of her despair. She declined 
 to be repulsed, though she had been rather 
 a proud little woman in her better days. She 
 won over gentle, illogical, enthusiastic ladies 
 to espouse her cause, and to plague their 
 husbands never to mind precedents, not even 
 justice, but for dear mercy's sake to grant 
 Jenny Thwaite's prayer. She was the most 
 careful washer and clear-star cher, the best 
 darner, the nicest sewer of plain seam, the
 
 jennVs struggles, h 
 
 most trustworthy nurse on a pinch tliey had 
 ever found. The whole men would fare the 
 worse, and every officer's household be in 
 straits, if they drove Jenny beside herself. 
 Why, the poor woman must go mad ; she 
 would die on their hands, and they would 
 have two ruined lives, two deaths at their 
 door. Was that what their stupid, stubborn 
 bondage to form wanted ? Colonel Bell was 
 not a bit the worse of the insult. He had 
 not so much as a scratch on the face ; and 
 was a poor fellow to be treated like a brute, 
 because, for once in his life, he had forgotten 
 himself, and behaved like a baby.^ Did not 
 Bertie or Charlie throw his toys at anyone 
 ^A'ho came in his way — at papa himself, when 
 the child was in a rage ? Don't speak to 
 the ladies of the demoralizing effect on the 
 other soldiers, the loss of prestige where the 
 rule of the officers was concerned, of mutiny, 
 and insurrection, and chaos come again. Xo 
 such horrors ensued in the nursery from 
 making as little as possible of Bertie or 
 Charlie's nauo^htiness, and leavino; the child to 
 come to himself. 
 
 Jenny wound up her vehement representa- 
 tions by what sounded in the circumstances
 
 12 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 like wild romances, of the Thwaites having 
 grand connections, with the likelihood that 
 the family would rise in the world some day, 
 when certainly the officers would be sorry for 
 the cruel, base punishment they had inflicted. 
 These unreasonable and passionate statements 
 on the whole did harm to the woman's suit. 
 Nobody had time to ask or give confirmatory 
 details of the improbable story, which aj)peared 
 to rest on no foundation, unless it were a 
 little vapouring of Will in his cups, and some 
 wary conceited bragging on the part of his 
 brother-in-law. It was either a credulous 
 delusion or a pure invention. It actually 
 impaired the respectability of the pleader. 
 
 In the meantime, Jenny had no encourage- 
 ment from those most interested in the 
 affair. 
 
 ' It is of no use, Jenny,' said her husband 
 with ostentatious dismalness, doing little to 
 second her in her frantic exertions. 
 
 'Never mind, Jen,' said poor Will, when 
 she visited him. ' It will soon be over,' turn- 
 ing away to hide a shuddering recoil. ' Every- 
 thing will soon be over, and you'll be well 
 rid of a rascal who has only been a trial and 
 grief to you.'
 
 CHAPTER^ III. 
 
 THE RESCUE AXD THE SACRIFICE. 
 
 Jenny's fond, piteous struggles proved in 
 vain. Law and order were inflexible. The 
 oflPence was too outrageous. The welfare of 
 the British army was at stake. Will Thwaite 
 was to be flogged, though many a kind heart 
 resented the necessity, or waxed rueful 
 under it. 
 
 The morning of the flogging rose as sultry 
 as the day on which Will had grossly insulted 
 his commandino^ officer in the discharg-e of 
 his duty. Will never forgot the airless heat 
 of his . cell as he lay on his face and awaited 
 the summons to public shame and torture; 
 compared to the last the sharp shock and sting 
 of a pistol-bullet, and the smart of a cut from 
 a sabre, of which he bore the scars, could have 
 been as nothing. 
 
 Jenny did not lie on her face idle, though
 
 14 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 her door was shut, and it was in shrouding 
 darkness that she busied herself with a dumb 
 intensity of preparation, in gathering together 
 fomentations, unguents, rags, and bandages, 
 and in filling a disused kit with wearing 
 apparel and provisions for a journey. 
 
 But the post-runners came in before the 
 hour for drill, and among the letters for the 
 Colonel was one from a firm of London 
 lawyers, which filled the scrupulous man with 
 disturbance and dismay. There could be no 
 mistake about it. He knew by name the 
 respectable firm that applied to him, and their 
 communication was carefully attested. 
 
 The laws of the service were as the laws 
 of the Medes and Persians. Never had there 
 been a more scandalous contempt of discipline 
 than that shown by Will Thwaite on the 
 parade-ground. But though the welfare of 
 the British army ought to be the first consider- 
 ation, there was also something — a great deal, 
 according to Colonel Bell's ideas — to be said 
 in support of aristocratic privileges and pre- 
 judices. Good heavens ! a baronet and squire 
 of many acres and long descent could not be 
 flogged in the presence of a regiment of 
 soldiers ; some of whom represented his social
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE, 15 
 
 equals and future associates, while the rest 
 were his undoubted inferiors. This was what 
 the matter had come to. 
 
 The lawyer's letter to Colonel Bell con- 
 tained the document which was to buy off 
 William Thwaite, private in the regiment, on 
 the oTounds that he had succeeeded to the 
 rank and property of a grand-uncle, and was 
 now Sir William Thwaite, of Whitehills, in 
 Eastham, and it was not fit either for the 
 rank and file of the army, or for the honour- 
 able fi^aternity of baronets and squires, that 
 he should continue a day longer than was 
 necessary a private soldier, even in the most 
 select and distino-uished reo^iment. 
 
 What would the firm think if the tidins^s 
 were flashed to them that the baronet and 
 squire was about to receive his deserts in the 
 form of corporeal punishment ? 
 
 Xo, it could not be ; the sentence, stringent 
 as the obligation was, must be quashed — 
 whether on the plea that the negotiation for Sir 
 William's discharo;e had o-one a certain leno^th 
 before he committed the offence, whether that 
 Will Thwaite and Sir William, of Whitehills, 
 were two different and distinct indi^-iduals, or 
 fi:'om some other flaw in the indictment.
 
 i6 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 An informal council or court of astonished, 
 scandalized officers was held, Colonel Bell 
 assumed the responsibility with the War 
 Office, and it was announced to a yet wider 
 circle of open-eyed, open-mouthed, interested 
 persons, that no flogging was to be performed. 
 For William Thwaite, or more properly, Sir 
 William Thwaite, had already ceased to belong 
 to the service, therefore his misconduct had 
 been dealt with under a false assumption. If 
 he were still to be held accountable it must 
 be before another tribunal. 
 
 The news found Sir William too stunned 
 to take in its meaning beyond the two items 
 that he was delivered at the eleventh hour 
 from indelible obloquy, and that he was at 
 liberty to depart from scenes which had 
 become odious to him. 
 
 He staggered out into the blinding sun- 
 shine, doggedly enduring the measured ex- 
 planations and shy, awkward congratulations 
 of his recent superiors and judges, and im- 
 patiently shaking off the rougher and readier 
 good wishes of his former allies. He went 
 straight to his sister's without waiting for an 
 invitation from Lawrie Thwaite, who, to be 
 sure, looked more taken aback with the ex-
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE. 17 
 
 traordinary change in his brother-in-law's 
 fortunes even than Colonel Bell had appeared. 
 The Colonel, after the first shocked sense of 
 incongruity and confusion, detestable to a 
 man of his precise cast of mind, did not testify 
 any vindictiveness or unwillingness to admit 
 that the scales had undergone a sudden re- 
 versal in a comrade's case. But Lawrie 
 shrank into himself, looked blue and green, 
 and could hardly furbish up the thankfulness 
 that was called for from him. 
 
 ' Did you ever see a chap hang his head as 
 if his nose was bleeding, because his brother- 
 in-law weren't walloped, and had come into a 
 pot of money and a handle to his name? It 
 ain't always not lost what a friend gets,' 
 remarked a shrewd observer. 
 
 * Could this fellow have counted on any 
 chance of his coming into the succession ? He 
 is a cousin of the other beci:o;ar's, and he mio;ht 
 have calculated on this Will's never getting 
 the better of the beastly consequences of his 
 precious performance, drinking himself to 
 death, or shooting himself. I have known a 
 
 an pull the trigger on less provocation,' sur- 
 mised a more thoughtful speculator on the event, 
 which was the talk of the station for weeks 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
 V
 
 i8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 to come. ' Well, I for one am glad that the 
 luck has fallen to the first. He has the thews 
 and sinews of a man ; a clean-made, well-knit 
 fellow, and would have been a first-rate 
 soldier if he could have learnt self-control. I 
 remember his dragging Roberts out of the 
 enemy's range in the encounter in the 
 Little Ghaut, when he first came out, and we 
 had some brisk business doing. But he was 
 always getting into a mess, and this last 
 spurt of insolence threatened to put on the 
 finishing-touch. He will go to the dogs as 
 it is, taking a little longer time perhaps.' 
 
 Nobody save the two saw and heard the 
 ecstasy of Jenny's recovery of her brother and 
 recognition of his changed estate. 
 
 Nobody — Jenny included — doubted that 
 Sir William would immediately start for 
 England, where much business, the irksome- 
 ness of which would be splendidly gilded, 
 must await him. The lawyers had sent 
 ample funds for his travelling expenses, and 
 there was nothing to detain him. Indeed, 
 Sir William and his comrades had rubbed 
 shoulders with such an extremely awkward 
 contretemps that they felt mutually abashed 
 and inclined to get rid of each other.
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE, 19 
 
 But a sorrowfiil, peremptory impediment 
 sprang up on tlie eve of Will's starting. 
 Jenny ^as worn by long years of work, and 
 her constitution had not been improved by 
 the climate of India. She was further spent 
 by the burmng anxiety and incredible exer- 
 tions of the last few days, in the hottest of 
 the hot season. She fell a ready victim to 
 the fever hovering about the native town, and 
 the disease from the commencement assumed a 
 hopeless aspect. 
 
 There was no want of interest and sym- 
 pathy. The mingled sensations which Sir 
 William's story had excited relieved them- 
 selves in a crowd of attentions to the invalid. 
 Jenny had many more shapes of jelly, bottles 
 of wine, and preparations of iced milk sent to 
 her than she could have possibly swallowed, 
 thouo^h her short illness had been indefinitely 
 prolonged. Her former employers waylaid 
 Sir William and Lawrie Thwaite every time 
 they stirred abroad, with inquiries, offers of 
 service, even proposals to come and share the 
 task of nursing the patient. These demon- 
 strations proceeded quite as much from the 
 romance of the situation, with the melancholy 
 nature of poor Jenny's final part in Sir 
 
 2—2
 
 20 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 William's good fortune, as from interested 
 motives. 
 
 Lawrie Thwaite did not fail in attention to 
 his wife, though he had never recovered from 
 the combined shocks of his kinsman's dis- 
 honour and honour. He was a plain man, he 
 said, and could not stand such flights of 
 fortune. But he knew a good wife w^hen he 
 had her. He was persuaded — drawing the 
 deduction from his own disposition, that it 
 would be the last blow ; everything would be 
 up with him if Jenny died, and not only de- 
 prived him of her services, but severed the 
 near connection between him and Sir William. 
 'Drat Will Thwaite, that he should bear a 
 title like an alderman or a dook.' 
 
 But Jenny, who had always been courageous 
 and self-denying, was resigned to her fate and 
 the will of God. She tried her best to meet 
 and overcome the passionate rebellion of her 
 brother. Her heart was still so full of grati- 
 tude and joy on his account that she had no 
 room for sorrow herself It appeared as if 
 she had come to see that all was for the best, 
 and could feel an unearthly satisfaction in this 
 last offering up of herself for the lad. 
 
 * You won't want me any more, Will ; I
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE. 21 
 
 should only have been in your way/ she said 
 faintly. 
 
 ' Jen/ he protested in his vehement depths 
 of love and sorrow, * you know I would 
 rather have lived in the most miserable den, 
 and had nothing except potatoes and salt to 
 keep me from starving, with you, than without 
 you be master of the finest house in the king- 
 dom, and have grand furniture and delicate 
 dishes at my command. So don't go for to 
 leave me, Jen — don't, if you ever cared a 
 farthing for a scamp who was never worth the 
 trouble you took for him, and the fondness 
 you wasted on him.' 
 
 ' No, no, my dear; I have my reward when 
 I think of you as a gentleman among the best. 
 I do know that it is sore for you to give me 
 up, for we've come through the hards together, 
 that we 'ave ; but we've seen the last of 
 poverty and knocking about, and it is all for 
 the best. A pretty like figure I should have 
 made as a baronite's sister ! Why, Will ' — 
 raising herself up with difficulty, a smile on 
 her wan face — ' you'll get a fine young lady 
 for your wife, as good as she is fine. You 
 won't miss your sister Jen, though your kind 
 heart will never let you forget her.'
 
 22 BEAUTY AND 7 HE BEAST. 
 
 ' I don't want a fine young lady/ said Will 
 hoarsely. ' What should I do with such 
 cattle? They would only laugh at me and 
 despise me. I only want you, Jen.' 
 
 ' Ah, lad, you don't know what is good for 
 you. Eest content ; there is One as knows, 
 and He don't make no mistakes, though it 
 ain't the thing we fancy we want He gives us 
 mostly. But there is something you can do 
 for me, lad, before I go — a single favour I'm 
 bold to ax.' 
 
 * Ax all I have, and you are welcome to it. 
 Don't put your request in that way,' said 
 Will reproachfully. 
 
 ' N^ay, it is the fitting way, since you are 
 the head of the house — Sir William, no less ' 
 — dwelling on the words in her weak voice 
 with loving triumph. ^ If I am not the first 
 to do you honour, who should be ? But I 
 ha'n't too much breath to spare. Will, dear, 
 it is the drink that has been your ruin; not 
 that you're ruined — far from it — and you ain't 
 a sot — God forbid! — ^but you've gone your 
 own way, and not been too peticklar about 
 the -company you kep' — judging others as you 
 did yourself, like a innocent 'igh- spirited chap 
 — not always looking out for number one,
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE. 23 
 
 keeping out of mischief yourself, and leaving 
 others to pay the piper, like poor Lawrie, and 
 the drink has done the rest; when it was on 
 you it has driven the ^vit clean out, and made 
 your temper work like mad. Promise you will 
 have no more to do with the drink, for it 
 tempts gentle and simple, in one shape or 
 another, as I've seen in some of the tip-top 
 bungalows, where I've gone to do a day's 
 washino^. Your beino^ Sir Wil'am and a 
 squire will not keep you straight, but will 
 only make your fall the greater, if you let the 
 drink get the better of you. I'll not rest in 
 my grave if that day come. Promise me, 
 Will, you'll have done with the drink, and 
 I'll die 'appy.' 
 
 ' I swear I'll never put my lips to a glass 
 from this day forth, if that will content you. 
 It is the least I can do for you, that has done 
 everything for me since mother left me a 
 whining baby,' the young man vowed 
 solemnly. 
 
 ' And I can answer for your keeping your 
 word — that's my good lad,' declared the dying 
 woman, with growing feebleness and perfect 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Will roused her afresh.
 
 24 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 * Is there anything more I can do for you, 
 Jen ?' he implored — ' not for myself, but for 
 yourself or any other person you mind about/ 
 
 ' Bless the lad ! what should I desire now 
 but to 'ave him sitting there, where my eyes 
 can fall upon him, the last thing. Well, there 
 is, Lawrie. I doubt poor Lawrie will miss 
 me a bit,' muttered Jenny, rather in a tone 
 of benevolent consideration than of keen 
 sympathy. ' You might spare a trifle and 
 settle summat on Lawrie. He's your cousin, 
 as well as my goodman — a poor relation of 
 the family, such as you were wont to be when 
 no helping-hand was held out to you ; but it's 
 forget and forgive where I'm going. With 
 that and his pension, when his time is out, 
 he'll fare well enough, without feeling the 
 likes of me gone, and no more money coming 
 in to eke out his pay.' 
 
 ' He may have the half of all I'm to get for 
 your sake, Jen. I don't feel to care about it,' 
 said the new squire in his despondency. . 
 
 * The half of your inheritance ! Have you 
 taken leave of your senses, lad ?' cried Jenny, 
 almost springing back to life and energy at 
 the extravagance of the proposal. ' What 
 would Lawrie Thwaite do with a gentleman's
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE, 25 
 
 allowance ? You could never make a gentle- 
 man of him. He would only hoard it, and 
 run the risk of being robbed and murdered, or 
 be cheated out of it by some fair-tongued 
 scoundrel, for Lawrie ain't wise, though I've 
 heard him called a wiseacre. Between you 
 and me he's greedy and cunning, poor soul ! 
 but there ben't no great harm in him, and he 
 ha'n't much of a head-piece. Xo, Will, I said 
 a trifle out of your abundance ; stick to that, 
 and I 'ont be displeased or troubled with the 
 fear that I did wrong in marrying Lawrie to 
 follow you, and so mebbee hung a millstone 
 round your neck. AYe're but weak critters, 
 and don't see an inch before our noses. For 
 his sake as well as for yours, let it be no more 
 than is in keeping with what he has been used 
 to, and what he needs. It is another thing 
 with you, who are to be a grand gentleman, a 
 benefactor to your kind, like old General 
 Leigh with his soldiers and the natives. 
 You remember him and the monster funeral 
 he had ? Ay, but I would have liked to see 
 you at the height of your glory !' cried Jenny, 
 beginning to wander. ' I would have liked to 
 have seen Whitehills just once, and then crept 
 down into the dark hole. Whitehills, with
 
 26 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 its floors of gold and its gates of pearls, and 
 you among your ivory and your apes and 
 peacocks. But we'll meet again in a better 
 place, Will — a better place, where there's no 
 more parting.' 
 
 Jenny was dead and buried. There had 
 been a most respectable attendance at her 
 funeral. It seemed perfectly natural that her 
 brother, Sir William, should act as chief 
 mourner, paying his sister all the respect 
 which she had so richly merited, in his first 
 appearance in public after his accession to 
 rank and fortune. The company were 
 actually at the grave's mouth before an 
 awkward omission was remarked. The 
 widower had not joined the little cavalcade. 
 
 Will took himself severely to task because 
 he had shut himself up with his sorrow and 
 only come out when he was sommoned to 
 walk at the head of the coffin. He went im- 
 mediately on his return to seek his brother- 
 in-law, and take the first steps in the arrange- 
 ment which had been agreed upon between 
 Will Thwaite and his sister. It was too late ; 
 the wretched man had hanged himself. 
 
 The catastrophe was classed as a singular 
 instance of wedded love and despair in a man
 
 THE RESCUE AND THE SACRIFICE, 27 
 
 wlio had not been demonstrative in his regard 
 for his partner during her lifetime. Para- 
 doxical, pensive spirits pointed to it as a case 
 of repressed emotion and mismiderstood devo- 
 tion. 
 
 The sorry truth was that Laurence Thwaite 
 had been goaded beyond the utmost stretch of 
 his endurance by the cruel chapter of accidents, 
 which had thwarted all his crafty plans and 
 secret hopes. Why had events happened so 
 promiscuously, and yet with such horrible 
 fortuitousness for Will ? Why had his 
 prodigal course been stopped, before folly and 
 the climate had sent him post-haste and 
 betimes beyond the succession to a baronetcy 
 and a squire's acres ? Why had the indignity 
 and ansruish of the floo^oino; been remitted ? 
 Why had old Sir John Thwaite, after he had 
 lived beyond his three- score-and-twenty years, 
 not hung out just another month, but insisted 
 on dying in the very nick of time ? Why 
 had the post-runners not slackened their speed 
 and delayed the mail, if but for one hour ? 
 And now the last misfortune had happened. 
 Jenny, who was so clever a bread-winner and 
 manager, had taken it upon her to die out of 
 hand. There had been no love lost between
 
 28 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 him and Will in the past. Will would seize 
 the opportunity of Jenny's death and his 
 departure to enter on his possessions, to get 
 rid of Lawrie, as Lawrie, in similar circum- 
 stances, would have got rid of Will. Lawrie 
 would be reduced to his poor pay, with the 
 prospect of greater indigence in his old age, 
 after he had been let down from a condition of 
 comparative comfort, and shut out from the 
 intoxicating prospect of a great inheritance. 
 
 It was more than the miserable man could 
 bear. He counted himself hardly dealt with, 
 both by God and man ; his brain reeled, and 
 he flung up the game in a sudden fury, which 
 altogether overcame his caution and delibera- 
 tion. 
 
 As for Will, he was cut to the heart by what 
 struck him as the ghastly result of his swift, 
 selfish unfaithfulness to Jenny's trust ; though 
 he could not pretend to regret, on any other 
 grounds than those of horror and pity, his 
 kinsman's fate. It sank into Will's spirit 
 that no good had come, or would come, of his 
 prosperity. It had saved his worthless credit 
 and life, but it had cost Jenny her life, and it 
 had driven Lawrie Thwaite to destruction.
 
 / 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 WHITEHILLS. 
 
 The Thwaites of Whitetiills were one of the 
 oldest families in Eastham, but, like many 
 another old family, all its members had not pre- 
 served its dignity intact, or behaved with the 
 decorum which ought to have accompanied 
 blue blood. Two generations before, a foolish 
 lad had alienated his kinsfolk by a low 
 marriage with the daughter of one of the 
 keepers. He had consummated his evil-doing 
 in the eyes of the head of the house, by de- 
 clining to come begging for pardon, and to 
 submit to the authority which should mete 
 out to him at once his punishment and such 
 assistance as might enable him to make the 
 best of his bad bargain and refrain from dis- 
 gracing his family further. He was only too 
 willing in his refractoriness to drink as he had
 
 20 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 brewed ; but since such culprits are not often 
 gifted with the strength of character and 
 determination of mind which mark the suc- 
 cessful architects of their own fortunes, the 
 drink he consumed grew very thin indeed. 
 He sank lower and lower in the social scale, 
 and ended by becoming a considerable burden 
 on his father-in-law, the keeper. He had, as a 
 matter of course, been dismissed from White- 
 hills ; but as he was a capable, industrious 
 man, master of his calling, and had not been 
 privy to his daughter's love and ambition, he 
 succeeded without much difficulty in getting 
 employment in another part of the county. 
 
 The matter, though a source of mortifica- 
 tion and pain to the Thwaites of that day, 
 was of less consequence, apart from family 
 pride and affection, inasmuch as the delin- 
 quent was not the heir, and had more than 
 one elder brother. 
 
 There was no lack of sons then at White- 
 hills ; but time sometimes works havoc 
 among the strongest of such stays. Time 
 was rather slow in its work in this instance, 
 and as a cousin who has descended in the 
 social ranks is not like a brother fallen into 
 low life, the successors of the erratic Thwaite
 
 WHITEHILLS, 31 
 
 who was at the bottom of the miscliief were 
 still more left to their fate by their illustrious 
 relatives. 
 
 The poor Thwaites, inheriting the good 
 and evil of the paternal temper, had the rare 
 grace not to obtrude themselves on the notice 
 of their loftier kindred, though the plebeian 
 branch kept up the recollection of their 
 descent. One of them had even gone so far 
 as to make, on one of his few holidays, at a 
 considerable sacrifice, an incognito journey in 
 third-class carriages and on the tramp, to 
 gaze, from a respectful distance, with gloat- 
 ing, covetous eyes on what, in picturesque 
 lano^uao^e, mio^ht be called the cradle of his 
 race. He kept the expedition jealously con- 
 cealed from people who had even a nearer 
 interest in it. Xo doubt it added to the live- 
 liness of the interest, that the news had 
 filtered somehow to those most concerned of 
 the gradual sweeping away of the elder branch 
 of the stock. Deaths at home and abroad, 
 old bachelors whose rights perished with 
 them, childless couples equally without repre- 
 sentatives, left the last Sir John, in the direct 
 line, limited to his family and to the alien 
 Thwaites for the preservation of the title and
 
 32 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 land in connection with the original name. 
 He had no power by the terms of the entail to 
 will away the inheritance — even so far as heirs 
 female, while there existed the remotest heirs 
 male who could prove their descent and pro- 
 duce their registers. 
 
 In view of the exigency of the situation, 
 Sir John seized the opportunity of marrying 
 twice — first in early manhood and again late 
 in life. A third opportunity was not vouch- 
 safed to him. In the first instance, the 
 children died in infancy. In the second, the 
 sole child born was a boy, weak both in body 
 and mind. 
 
 There seemed no resource for Sir John save 
 to make himself acquainted with his poor rela- 
 tions, and cultivate them diligently while there 
 was yet time to provide a decent wearer of his 
 honours. But the old man was of an arrogant, 
 narrow temper. He clung to the last, with as 
 much passionate pride as human feeling, to 
 the hope that his poor boy, with all the aid 
 which his position could give him, would grow 
 stronger and wiser as he grew older, and when 
 that trust was stamped out by the death of the 
 little fellow, the father would not consent to 
 put a low bumpkin in his son's place. He
 
 WHITEHILLS. ZZ 
 
 washed his hands of the whole matter, the 
 error of his ancestor and the misfortune of an 
 illiterate, underbred master of Whitehills. Sir 
 John peevishly refused to do what he could to 
 set the wrong right. If Providence had chosen 
 it was to be so, why should he plague himself 
 to concoct a partial remedy ? On the con- 
 trarj^, he did his best to become enamoured of 
 the Frenchwoman's motto, ' Apres moi le 
 deluge/ 
 
 All that Sir John would attempt for the 
 credit of the name and the good of the place 
 was to live as long as he could and keep the 
 interloper out till his last breath. This he 
 contrived to do till he was an octoofenarian 
 with four or ^n^ years to spare. 
 
 The Thwaites with the puddle in their blue 
 blood had not been longer lived or more pro- 
 ductive of heirs than the main line had shown 
 itself. At last the inferior branch resolved 
 itself into Will and Jenny Thwaite, the son 
 and daughter of the elder grandson of Dicky 
 Thwaite, who fell from his station by marry- 
 ing the keeper's daughter, and Lawrie Thwaite, 
 the grandson of the younger son of the same 
 worthy. There was no confusion of numbers 
 or difficulty in tracing the proper descendant 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 from the man who formed the link to the 
 baronetcy and estate. Perhaps the wonder 
 was that no long-sighted individual had anti- 
 cipated the end, and insisted on advancing 
 money, or otherwise bettering the condition of 
 the future Sir William. But Will and Jenny 
 would have looked shyly on such overtures, 
 and their going out to India put temptation 
 more out of their reach. 
 
 Sir William had never seen Whitehills before 
 the day that he drove down to it with his 
 lawyer, one of the leading members of the 
 well-reputed firm, a clever little gentleman- 
 like man, who honestly wished to do his best 
 by his strange client, but could not make 
 much of him, as he watched him curiously at 
 a crucial epoch of his history. Sir William 
 was a personable enough young fellow of ^^^ 
 or six -and -twenty. He was not above ^\^ 
 feet eight inches in height ; but his sinewy 
 figure was well developed. His carriage was 
 good, though it partook a little of the ram- 
 rod ; but that defect was sometimes to be 
 found in the bearing of field-marshals. Thanks 
 to his soldiering, Sir William was delivered 
 from the clumsy, loutish shuffle or slouch of 
 a day-labourer or a mechanic, and from the
 
 WHITEHILLS, 35 
 
 jerking gait or skip of a journeyman trades- 
 man or counter-jumper. His close-cropped 
 hair was chestnut ; the florid colouring of his 
 face had not yet lost the bronze of India and 
 the tan of a sea voyage. It was a complexion 
 which was not a bad match for that of a 
 colleo'e imderoraduate who went in for athletic 
 sports, or of a country gentleman who had his 
 year strictly divided into fishing, shooting, and 
 hunting seasons. 
 
 In some respects the lad looked younger 
 than his years, though he was of manly make. 
 In others — in a slight massiveness peculiar to 
 his features, and in what had become the in- 
 flexible gravity of his aspect, he gave one the 
 idea of maturer age than he had attained. 
 The best and the most striking things in his 
 face consisted of two marked traits. The 
 natural sweep of his hair made an ample 
 corner on each side of his forehead, disclosing 
 a full brow above, well- apart eyes and eye- 
 brows, which lent an impression of honesty 
 and fi'ankness, as well as of intellectual 
 capacity. His eyes were dark blue, and though 
 they sparkled oftener than they melted, would 
 have gone a long way to confer beauty on a 
 woman's face. The worst points were incon- 
 
 3—2
 
 36 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 gruous and contradictory in the inferences to 
 be drawn from them. The jaw inclined to 
 dogged squareness, while the chin was ill- 
 defined and boded weakness. 
 
 Mr. Miles the lawyer, dming the necessary 
 detention of Sir William in town, had in the 
 most delicate manner suggested an outfit in 
 accordance with the change of rank. This 
 and other considerate attentions had provoked 
 no restiveness on the part of their object, such 
 as might have been apprehended from a feather- 
 headed fool suddenly raised to an elevation 
 altogether beyond his level, with the etiquette 
 of which he was necessarily unfamiliar. Sir 
 William adopted a tweed morning-suit and a 
 dinner -dress without making any difiiculty. 
 What he did in trifles was a happy sign of 
 what he might accomplish in weightier matters. 
 His mode of meeting the hints given him 
 raised him in the opinion of the late Sir 
 John's agents. But the instructions could 
 not be more than hints, for with all his 
 rusticity and simplicity, there was something 
 about the heir which kept sensible, self- 
 respecting men, gentlemen themselves, at a 
 proper distance. 
 
 On the other hand, there was nothing about
 
 WHITEHFLLS, yj 
 
 Sir William which could force his prompters 
 to look down upon him, while they should be 
 under the necessity of taking the upper hand 
 with him. The lawyers found their client 
 had fair parts, and could understand what 
 was explained to him, even though it had to 
 do with business out of his accustomed rut. 
 He had received a very tolerable education in 
 the three great primitive R's and of one R 
 he had availed himself pretty considerably, in 
 what appeared, at first sight, untoward cir- 
 cumstances. He had a taste for reading, and 
 in spite of his admitted wildness, had taken 
 advantage of the regimental library. 
 
 AltoDfether, what with the o;ain of his foreio^n 
 experience and military training — granted that 
 the last was in the ranks — he might at least 
 hold his own, on the score of ordinarv in- 
 tellectual knowledge, with those young Eng- 
 lish gentlemen who have no taste for the 
 classics, have been plucked over and over again 
 in their examinations, frequent stables and 
 kennels instead of drawing-rooms, and never 
 open a book except the Field or BelVs 
 Life. 
 
 Messrs. Miles and Dickinson were rather 
 proud of their client. They had dreaded
 
 38 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 something very different ; now they augured 
 quite hopefully of his future — a quiet fellow, 
 not at all without common- sense, which was 
 "better than uncommon genius, who had done 
 with sowing his wild oats, and pulled up 
 effectually so far as anybody could judge. He 
 might not make such a mess of the baronetcy 
 and property as some very fine gentleman 
 would have done. Manners, of course, he 
 had none \ but no manners were a great im- 
 provement on bad manners. He had every- 
 thing to learn there, but comparatively little 
 to unlearn. He had his drop of good blood, 
 which people would be particularly ready to 
 recognise, seeing it was now fitly balanced by 
 an old title and good landed property. The 
 last, no agricultural depression, or vindictive 
 policy of old Sir John in granting long leases 
 at low rents, and pensioning dependents in- 
 ordinately, could greatly impair. In those 
 days, when landowners had a strong call to 
 fall back into gentlemen farmers working their 
 own land, against odds too, Sir William might 
 not be amiss as a plain country gentleman. 
 Let him marry well — 
 
 * A penniless lass with a long pedigree,'
 
 WHITEHILLS, 39 
 
 and sai'oir faire to her finger-tips, and be 
 amenable to his Tvife in those respects in which 
 she was his superior, and there was no fear of 
 him. He seemed a finish fellow in the main, 
 both in physique and morals. 
 
 What puzzled and disconcerted Mr. Miles 
 in his otherwise satisfactory charge, was the 
 inflexible gravity and inscrutable reserve with 
 which Sir William made acquaintance with 
 his prospects, and at last with his place. It 
 was surely unnatural, especially at his age, 
 that he should express no rejoicing, hardly 
 even satisfaction, at his accession. He had 
 lost his sister very recently, but the death of 
 an elderly married woman, though she had 
 brought him up, was not likely to affect so 
 deeply a young fellow with the ball at his 
 foot. 
 
 Sir William and Mr. Miles were driving 
 over from the nearest station in a trap which 
 the lawyer had appointed to be ready for 
 them. He had thought it better not to order 
 the Whitehills carriage to meet them, with its 
 announcement that the new master was come, 
 and its proclamation of the news to everybody 
 they might pass on the road. The wiser ar- 
 ran element was for Sir WiUiam to arrive
 
 40 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Without attracting particular attention. If a 
 demonstration were demanded and found de- 
 sirable, let it come later, when everybody 
 should be better acquainted and prepared for 
 what was to happen. When Sir William's 
 wishes were asked on the subject, he em- 
 phatically acquiesced in Mr. Miles's judicious 
 plan. 
 
 The day was in spring, during blustering, 
 but not uncheery March weather. The land- 
 scape was as flat as most of the scenery of 
 Eastham ; but it was not without its charms 
 in the absence of picturesqueness. It was 
 wide and free, even to its broad, rutted, 
 shaggy green lanes, in which a gipsy encamp- 
 ment, or the evicted Shakers might pitch a 
 tent or two, and still leave ample room for 
 the small traflic, principally of carts or 
 waggons and day-labourers passing that way. 
 There was a certain rugged sincerity in the 
 unpretending homeliness of the fields, to- 
 gether with a shade of sadness and sombre- 
 ness oftener attributed to some descriptions 
 of French, than to any examples of English 
 landscape. 
 
 This suspicion of pathos had a complex 
 origin. This corner of Eastham had never
 
 WHITEHILLS, 41 
 
 been in the van of agricultural progress, and 
 was as moderately productive as it was in- 
 adequately cultivated. It had plenty of well- 
 preserved, carefully stocked coverts for game, 
 and bore a hunting reputation; but the low 
 value of the land in other respects was evident, 
 not merely in the spaciousness and frequency 
 of the lanes, but in the recurring wedges of 
 ground covered with straggling, sodden grass 
 and rushes. 
 
 The country here was very scantily popu- 
 lated. Anything like market towns or tillages 
 worthy of the name were separated by six or 
 eight miles. In general, a village was repre- 
 sented by half-a-dozen thatched or tiled 
 houses — not even clustering together, but 
 standing with wide gaps, till the dwellings 
 extended over a quarter of a mile — by solitary 
 road-side inns, and road-side shops which j^ar^ 
 took of the character of Australian stores. As 
 for the small, ancient, often beautiful churches, 
 they seemed to exist principally in connec- 
 tion with their rectories, sometimes equally 
 beautiful in their mellow, red-brick multi- 
 plicity of angles and luxuriant green drajDeries. 
 The mansions of the nobility and gentry were 
 largely conspicuous by their absence, and the
 
 42 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 squires' seats had sunk into farmhouses, 
 dating in more than one instance from pre- 
 Elizabethan times, which would have delighted 
 the antiquary or the archaeologist. There was 
 an arrested, isolated, half- clownish, poverty- 
 stricken aspect about what was, in fact, one 
 of the most primitive districts in England, 
 though it had not been furnished with any 
 barricade of hills or rivers. 
 
 The working people, consisting almost en- 
 tirely of day-labourers, the moment they had 
 passed their first youth, looked dull and 
 apathetic, on rare occasions fierce and savage, 
 as if heart and spirit had either been crushed 
 out of them, or raised into sullen revolt by 
 the grinding toil necessary to keep soul and 
 body together. It was probable that William 
 the Conqueror's Doomsday Book attested the 
 region — what with Norman castles, Saxon 
 homesteads, and religious houses, squatters 
 on waste territory, fishers of pike and tench 
 and shooters of wild-fowl — more populous 
 and fully as thriving as it was to-day. 
 
 So much for the sombreness of what was 
 comparatively waste, half-inhabited and down- 
 trodden in this section of Eastham ; but there 
 was no gloom which a March wind and a
 
 WHITEHILLS. 43 
 
 cliangeful ]\Iarcli sky could not relieve and 
 carry off. There was a flavour of liberty and 
 a feelinof of room to breathe in the un crowded 
 earth and the un vitiated, though somewhat 
 moist and heavy air. The patches of blue in 
 the sky were matched by the springing green 
 corn, and the banks studded with primroses. 
 There were more than primroses gemming the 
 little watercourses and the long grass by 
 the sides of the ditches ; there were such 
 quantities of purple and white violets unseen 
 by the travellers, that they lent a subtle 
 sweetness to the scent of decajing leaves and 
 freshly turned-over earth. Rooks were wheel- 
 ing and cawing over the ploughing and the 
 sowing in the fields. Small birds were stirring 
 and chirping in the coverts, where the twigs 
 of the underwood had swollen with the bour- 
 geons and acquired the bluish-purple tint of 
 the bloom on a plum. Colts, calves, and 
 lambs were kicking up their heels and frisking 
 in the meadows. 
 
 ' That is Whitehills, Sir William. Let me 
 congratulate myself on being the first to point 
 out to you the home of your ancestors,' said 
 Mr. Miles, betrayed into tall language by the 
 importance of the occasion, as the trap turned
 
 44 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 the bend of the road which brouofht the 
 mansion-house into view. 
 
 ' Just so. Thank you, sir/ said Sir William, 
 who had not got over the last form of address, 
 and who spoke mechanically and almost as 
 apathetically as any native. He did not even 
 spring up to a standing position to catch a 
 better glimpse of the house ; what he did see 
 of it, perhaps, was not calculated to strike him 
 much, unless he were blinded by the sense of 
 ownership. He was neither antiquary nor 
 archaBologist, and what he distinguished be- 
 tween the leafless branches of the trees of 
 the park w^as only a long, low white building, 
 with the remains of a moat in a gleaming 
 pond — a common feature of all the old ^ halls ' 
 in that part of Eastham. The house was not 
 likely to impress his ignorant, underbred taste. 
 He felt rather inclined to contrast the reality 
 a little sadly and sardonically with his poor 
 Jen's delirious dreams — in which she con- 
 founded earth and heaven — of floors of gold 
 and gates of pearls. 
 
 Mr. Miles had cleared his throat and began 
 to talk of the origin of the name. There were 
 no hills in Eastham, and hardly even one 
 elevation here. Some people thought that
 
 WHITEHILLS. 45 
 
 * hills ' referred to remote cromlechs or mounds 
 over illustrious dead, whether Danes or Nor- 
 mans, Saxons or Britons, and that the adjec- 
 tive * white ' meant either the unsullied purity 
 of their patriotism, or the clear light of that 
 land to which their souls had fled. 
 
 Old Sir John had pensioned his domestics 
 so liberally, that they had retired in a body, 
 for the most part, to enjoy the idleness and 
 domesticity secured to their declining years. 
 One or two, who had been more Lady 
 Thwaite's servants than Sir John's, went to 
 form the nucleus of a comfortable establish- 
 ment for the wxll-jointured widow at the 
 dowager-house of Xetherton, four miles off. 
 Mr. Miles had taken care that a new staff 
 should be put in office, and had enlarged to 
 his wife on the great gain of a discreet butler 
 and a staid, efficient housekeeper. The first 
 performance of these important minor actors 
 in the drama was perfectly satisfactory, and 
 did credit to Mrs. Miles' s selection. They 
 behaved with the silent, attentive civility 
 which was all that was wanted from them. 
 If they could practise imperturbability in 
 addition to the quiet discharge of their duties, 
 it might be as well ; though Mr. Miles began
 
 46 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 to hope more and more that Sir William 
 would not from the beginning tax too severely 
 the nerves of his domestics, or outrage their 
 standards. No doubt a gentleman from the 
 ranks might hold his tongue to his agent, and 
 yet not preserve his distance from the inferiors 
 with whom he would come in constant con- 
 tact. For that matter, these would hardly 
 have held him their social equal of old. But 
 Mr. Miles was fain to anticipate better things 
 from Sir William. 
 
 The heir had crossed the fine old hall, 
 really a choice specimen of a low-roofed, but 
 spacious, many-recessed entrance hall, where 
 black and white marble had preceded tiles, 
 and a great fireplace, sending forth a ruddy 
 glow of light and heat, difiiised a grateful 
 warmth, that took out the sting implanted by 
 the March winds, and offered a kind of 
 physical welcome home. 
 
 From the equally balmy atmosphere of a 
 corridor, rich in pictures, cabinets, and the 
 superseded Lady Thwaite's fancy in flower- 
 stands and low ottomans, Sir William had 
 entered the library, with its entire lining of 
 books, its classic busts, and faint perfume of 
 generations of culture transmitted by the
 
 WHITEHILLS, Ar7 
 
 medium of old Eussia leather. It had been 
 Su" John's study, though he was neither a 
 scholar nor a student, and it had never 
 struck him as out of keeping with its pos- 
 sessor. But it was here that the sense of the 
 contrast between his past and present position 
 seized upon Sir John's successor and stag- 
 gered him. 
 
 It was easy enough to guess that the 
 change might be too great to be pleasant, 
 though none save Will Thwaite himself knew 
 the whole story of that Xhilpoor, where he 
 had lain on his face groaning, awaiting the 
 brutal punishment of the lash. The scene 
 rose up before him with sickening, revolting 
 vividness. Just so it would arise and fill him 
 with a kind of dire bewilderment and terror 
 as of discovery, exposure, and the awakening 
 from a mad beguiling dream, on many a 
 future occasion, which would otherwise have 
 been among the gladdest and brightest expe- 
 riences of his life. Xot the den at Xhilpoor 
 alone, for that had not been the first instance 
 of his lying under arrest in a dog-hole, neither 
 had he been a martyr to mihtary tyranny and 
 his commanding officer's persecution. He 
 had deserved all he had got and more. The
 
 48 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 gulfs of low debauchery in whicli he had been 
 sinking deeper and deeper, from which Jen 
 had striven in vain to warn and snatch him, 
 stood out as plainly written in letters of fire 
 on his brain. From the moment he had bent 
 over Jen's bed and known himself powerless 
 to save her, his remorse for those grievous 
 sins against her devotion, which had cost her 
 life, smote him with throes of self-disgust, 
 convulsing his nature and threatening to 
 remain an indelible accusing record on his 
 conscience, quickening any original sensitive- 
 ness, which had been hardening for years, and 
 rendering it morbid for life. He could not 
 agree with her that she would have cut but a 
 poor figure wherewith to adorn his elevation 
 in rank. If that were true, then perish the 
 elevation, for he knew, if none else did, how 
 far she was his superior. He had slain the 
 creature who had done everything for him, 
 and was so much better than he. It was over 
 her grave that he had stepped to his promo- 
 tion. He had even in his wretched self- 
 engrossment neglected her last charge and 
 suffered Lawrie to perish. If it were not for 
 his pledge to Jen, he would not care what 
 became of him when everybody was singing
 
 WHITEHILLS. 49 
 
 out the mocking lie that he had been so lucky 
 in coming into a fortune and all that rubbish. 
 But for Jen's sake he must keep his word, 
 and deny himself to the last the one antidote 
 to his misery. He must die game and sober. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 Sir William had paused on the threshold of 
 the library, and Mr. Miles, who was watching 
 his companion, saw him get first red and 
 then white, and hang his head. The next 
 moment the master of the house walked to 
 one of the windows, and, as if to mask any 
 disturbance he had betrayed, asked, in the 
 slow, measured speech which attaches to 
 speakers who weigh every word they utter: 
 
 * What is that house to the right ? Who 
 occupies it?' 
 
 ^ There is only one house within sight, I 
 think,' said Mr. Miles, in the easy, unaffected 
 tone he sought to establish between the two, 
 joining the speaker as he spoke. ' That is 
 Lambford; it belongs to Lord Termor. He 
 is in his dotage, and Lady Fermor rules for 
 him. She is your nearest neighbour. I am
 
 NEIGHBOURS, 51 
 
 sorry to say she cannot be called a good 
 neighbour.' 
 
 Sir William's curiosity was easily satisfied. 
 
 N'aturally it was not the first time that the 
 lawyer had dined with his client. Mr. Miles 
 had already found the opportunity of noting 
 two things. One was that the young Baronet 
 conducted himself very much according to 
 ordinary rules. He had assisted as an orderly 
 at mess dinners ; he had come home first-class, 
 and, being surrounded by an odour of good 
 fortune, his presence had been welcomed in- 
 stead of tabooed at the table cVhote. He was 
 too proud to subject himself to ridicule by 
 failing to acquire habits which the practice of 
 a little observation and self-restraint could 
 quickly teach him. A smart soldicj^ clean 
 and neat to finicalness, tutored to one species 
 of etiquette, has always the making of a con- 
 ventional gentleman in him, however far he 
 may be from the higher type, and Will Thwaite, 
 apart from his fits of dissipation, had been a 
 very smart soldier. 
 
 The second peculiarity which had attracted 
 Mr. Miles' s attention was that Sir William 
 drank nothing save water. Taken by sur- 
 prise, the elder man was tempted to rally the 
 
 4—2 
 
 DNIVERSITV OF
 
 52 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 younger gently, for the former was already 
 doubtful whether the latter were a fellow at 
 whom his neighbours could safely poke fun. 
 ' Are you a Good Templar ? Have you taken 
 the pledge ?' 
 
 Sir William did not appear to see the joke. 
 ' No, I am not, though there are some of the 
 sort in India,' he said with his accustomed 
 gravity; ' but I have taken a pledge, though 
 it is not of the kind you mean.' 
 
 ' All right,' answered Mr. Miles. ' Every 
 man should judge for himself.' At the same 
 time he was reflecting in his own mind, ' I 
 wish you may keep it. Possibly these are the 
 safest lines for you.' 
 
 So it was the butler, and not Mr. Miles, 
 who received a shock from the man's master's 
 decided waiving aside of his attentions with, 
 ' I don't want any wine.' 
 
 ' '^o wine, Sir William ? I beg pardon, sir, 
 but I think I must be mistaken. Do you 
 mean neither sherry nor chablis, nor hock? — 
 I have them all here with the liqueurs, and 
 the claret and port later. Perhaps you prefer 
 a liqueur first. Some of the gentlemen I have 
 been with always began with a liqueur.' 
 
 * No ' — Sir William stopped himself just in
 
 NEIGHBOURS, 53 
 
 time from saying, ' Xo, thank you, sir,' to the 
 black-coated dignitary hanging anxiously on 
 his ^'ords — ' I drink nothing but water, my 
 man,' floundering into the opposite extreme of 
 too affable familiarity this time. ' You need 
 not trouble to have out these things,' indi- 
 catinof the old cut wine-oiasses and decanters, 
 with a fine indifference, ' unless, of course,' 
 stammering a little as he corrected himself, 
 for the obhgations of hospitality are strong 
 in the class from which he had just emerged, 
 ' when any gentleman is here who drinks 
 wine.' 
 
 The butler knew that his master had been 
 a grub before he became a butterfly, but the 
 sentence about the wines floored the subor- 
 dinate considerably. ' I say,' he remonstrated 
 with himself, ' I can't stand this. " My man," 
 indeed! from one who has pipe-clayed his own 
 belts and poUshed his own shoes. Why, the 
 Dean called me as often "* Mr. Cumberbatch" 
 as not. Good wao^es, lia'ht work, and time to 
 one's self is all verv well, and an inducement 
 to put up with a master who has risen from 
 the dirt, thouo-h he were the rio-ht heir, and is 
 a likely enough young gentleman to look at. 
 When it comes to that we're all Adam's sons.
 
 54 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 But what are we coming to when wine ain't 
 countenanced at a squire and baronet's table ? 
 There will be no broken bottles of claret, or 
 sherry, or nothin' for the hall-table ; and beer 
 will vanish next. We're to be tea-tottlers, if 
 not saints. What about the plate ? Is silver 
 or silver-gilt sinful ? Are we all to eat off 
 coarsest hearthenware, and sport sackcloth 
 and ashes ?' 
 
 From the caustic irony of his thoughts the 
 reader may judge how deeply the butler was 
 moved. Nevertheless Mr. Cumberbatch was 
 able to bring in a note on a salver, and pre- 
 sent it in a respectful 1}^ reproachful way to 
 Sir William. He took it, opened and read it, 
 and then handed it with a mystified air to his 
 companion; yet it was no more than one of 
 those notes which fly about the world launched 
 by idly busy hands, and do not even require 
 an answer. 
 
 It had only one reason for making a mark 
 on reaching its destination. It was the dain- 
 tiest note Sir William had ever received, 
 written on black-edged note-paper like satin, 
 supplied with both a crest and a monogram — 
 a tiny version of what, in an enlarged form, 
 had been shown and explained to Sir William
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 55 
 
 as the two hounds in a leash under an oak- 
 tree, which constituted the heraldic bearings 
 of the Thwaites, together with a fanciful 
 miniature A. T. 
 
 The clear writing was a little bold for so. 
 small an epistle, while it conveyed the frankest, 
 most courteous, and magnanimous of greet- 
 ings. 
 
 ' Dear Sir Willia:^! ' (it said), 
 
 ^ I cannot help calling you so, and 
 desiring to be the first to bid you welcome to 
 the charming old place, which I know so well, 
 and where I have been so happy. That you 
 are in the room of my dear husband and 
 beloved child is only an additional reason 
 why I should have the most cordial interest 
 in your welfare, if you will allow me to say 
 so. I trust I shall soon have the pleasure of 
 seeing you, and knowing you as a friend and 
 near neighbour.' 
 
 ' Believe me, dear Sir William, 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 * Ada Thwaite.' 
 
 ' "Well, Sir William ?' said Mr. Miles tenta- 
 tively, with a smile, while he was tm^ning
 
 5^ BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 over rapidly in his mind the considerations 
 which the note suggested. ' What can she 
 want? She does not intend to become Lady 
 Thwaite the Second by captivating young Sir 
 William after she has disposed of old Sir 
 John. Oh dear, no ! She is a great deal too 
 astute, while she is too mild and well-bred an 
 adventuress for so violent and vulgar a dodge. 
 She must be ten or fifteen years his senior. 
 Mischief, not malice ; pickings, not plunder- 
 ings, are her cue. I know her of old. The 
 prestige of becoming, by the assertion of a 
 prior right, first and best acquainted with the 
 gentleman, and then of trotting him out to 
 the neighbourhood, on the qui vive for his 
 arrival, if he turn out a decent specimen of 
 resuscitated gentility, will count for something. 
 There may be certain dowager perquisites over 
 and above the bond, though she has a very 
 pretty jointure, and he is saddled with a life 
 almost as good as his own on the property. 
 She will have the use of his horses when he 
 does not require them, with ofierings of game 
 and fruit beyond what Netherton can produce. 
 She will have the advantage of continuing the 
 first female influence at Whitehills till he gets 
 a wife.'
 
 NEIGHBOURS. $7 
 
 Mr. Miles's speculations were interrupted. 
 
 ' I suppose it is Sir John's widow, and it is 
 good of her not to mind,' said Sir William 
 slowly. ' But what am I to do about her ? 
 What does she expect me to do ? I have no 
 acquaintance with people of her kidney. I 
 am not fit to go into such company; at least, 
 not yet a bit/ 
 
 It was as if Sir William had proposed to 
 reply to the note dashed off in a few minutes, 
 by sitting down at his desk, squaring his 
 arms, and inditing with care and deliberation, 
 and not without the assistance of a dictionary, 
 a formal, frozen letter, so precisely to the 
 point that it might have been printed ; and for 
 that matter, its clear, firm, upright characters 
 were not unlike print. 
 
 ' Oh, you will find no difficulty!' said Mr. 
 Miles cheerfully. ' I know Lady Thwaite 
 quite well, and will introduce you if you like. 
 She is not a hard person to get on with, and 
 she may, in turn, make you acquainted with 
 the neio'hbourhood, which, in the sense of 
 society, is not extensive — the less reason for 
 you to withdraw into a shell. Let me oppose 
 that line with all the weio'ht vou will allow 
 me. It never did any man or woman good to
 
 $8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 shun Ms or her kind, and hold them at arm's- 
 length ; any amonnt of difficulties and rubbing 
 the wrong way is preferable. Lady Thwaite 
 means to be gracious, and it will not do for 
 you — I speak as your friend and senior by 
 thirty years — to meet her advances ungra- 
 ciously. You must condone all former neglect, 
 or anything that strikes you as forward in the 
 present overture. I will confess to you that 
 I do not give her credit for the finest percep- 
 tions or the most exquisite tact. But the 
 world, which is not too nice in its tastes, does 
 not agree with me. It counts her as pleasant 
 and clever as she is good-natured, and votes 
 her its greatest popularity. She is certainly 
 good-natured, but she can be offended, though 
 she is not very spiteful. She might do you 
 harm by driving her pair of ponies all over 
 the country, and airing her rebuff in the spirit 
 of an accomplished gossip, who finds food for 
 her calling everywhere. She can treat the 
 matter either as a grievance or as a good joke, 
 which would be rather the worst treatment of 
 the two.' 
 
 ' I don't care a rap,' cried Sir William, 
 swelling a little with indignation ; ' she may, 
 if she likes, for me. I shall be a poor creature.
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 59 
 
 indeed, if I mind what a parcel of old women 
 say/ 
 
 ' Softly, softly, my dear fellow !' asserted 
 Mr. Miles, seeking to keep the peace. * Xo 
 man can afford to be so independent. In the 
 second place. Lady Thwaite is not an old 
 woman. What put such a shocking idea into 
 your head ? I shall be surprised if you take 
 her for more than five-and-twenty — about 
 your own age — when you see her. In reality 
 she is a handsome, well-preserved woman be- 
 tween five-and-thirty and forty — no more.* 
 
 ' I shall think the worse of her if she is 
 made up to look what she is not, like a horse 
 at a fair/ said Sir William a little doggedly, 
 and with brutal plain speaking, as a recollec- 
 tion flashed across his mind of his sister Jen, 
 with her spare, worn figure and face, and her 
 patches of grey hair. Where had he read — for 
 this ex-sergeant had been given to reading in 
 his wiser moments — of such ashen patches as 
 flakes of heaven's sunshine? 
 
 ' You must remember she has a claim upon 
 your forbearance,' represented Mr. Miles 
 adroitly, not noticing the ebullition which 
 smelt of the hole whence Sir William had 
 been dug. ' Your first impulse to regard
 
 6o BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 it as good of her to write to you was not 
 altogether wrong. Poor soul ! the fate of her 
 boy cut her up considerably.' 
 
 ^ Very well, I'll go and see her if that will 
 be of any use. I expect that is what it will 
 come to/ said Sir William, as if he were sub- 
 mitting to a disagreeable necessity. 
 
 Mr. Miles had to be content with the con- 
 cession. Holding intercourse with Sir William 
 at this date partook a good deal of the nature 
 of a one-handed conversation, and the one- 
 handedness seemed to increase when the only 
 share of the host in the post-prandial con- 
 viviality consisted in passing the decanters, 
 which Sir William was scrupulous to do. 
 The situation began to get intolerably heavy 
 to a town-bred man accustomed to a very 
 different description of dining out — something 
 that he was used to regard complacently 
 as having to do with ' the feast of reason and 
 the flow of soul.' 
 
 ' The cub is not a bad cub,' he grumbled, 
 ' but I hope Lady Thwaite, or some one 
 else, will have licked him into shape, so as to 
 render him livelier, before I visit Whitehills 
 again. Funeral baked meats would be a 
 hilarious entertainment in comparison with 
 this orgy on entering into possession/
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 6r 
 
 As a little variety after coffee had been 
 sent in, Mr. Miles proposed a stroll in tlie 
 dusk, comforted by the sense that things 
 would not be so unsocial, since Sir William 
 had not abjured a pipe along with a 
 glass. 
 
 The two men went as far as one of the 
 park gates, and stood leaning over, looking 
 into the darkeninsr hio^h-road. It was as 
 empty as most country roads at the season 
 and hour, when all at once a close carriage 
 appeared in the distance, looming out of the 
 obscurity, jolting rather than bowling along. 
 
 Mr. Miles grew quite excited by this little 
 adventure, though it was hardly within the 
 bounds of possibility that it could bring other 
 visitors to Whitehills. As the carriage drew 
 nearer he had, at least, the satisfaction of 
 announcing that he knew it. It was one of 
 the Lambford carriages ; he had seen the 
 liveries when he was down at WhitehiUs 
 before. Lady Fermor must have been at 
 Knotley to her banker or shopping. The old 
 lady still did her business for herself, though 
 it was a mercy to think she was too old for 
 much which had made her earher career 
 notorious.
 
 62 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Mr. Miles's scandal against Queen Elizabeth 
 was brought to an abrupt conclusion. The 
 carriage stopped, the coachman kept his post, 
 while a groom alighted. Presently it became 
 evident that Lady Fermor wished the lamps 
 lit before she proceeded farther, and that the 
 groom was bound for the porter's lodge to get 
 a light. For anything that the two lookers-on 
 knew, they might be unseen by the occupants 
 of the carriage. But it did not accord with 
 Mr. Miles's old-fashioned politeness to remain 
 hidden while he could help a lady. He had 
 met Lady Fermor at old meets and hunting 
 breakfasts at Lambford. He opened the gate, 
 stepped briskly forward, leaving Sir William 
 behind, and went up, hat in hand, to the 
 window, which had been drawn down. 
 
 * Can I do anything for you. Lady Fermor?' 
 he asked with the civility of a man of the 
 world. ' I dare say you have forgotten me. 
 My name is Miles. At one time I was often 
 down from town on law business of poor 
 Sir John's, and I had the pleasure of getting 
 a little sport and enjoying Lord Fermor's 
 hospitality when the scent held and we could 
 get a run across country.' 
 
 Lady Fermor's old head, in a somewhat
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 63 
 
 juvenile bonnet, was thrust out of the window 
 at once. Hauteur or reserve had never been 
 among her faults. 
 
 *I remember you perfectly, Mr. Miles. I 
 am glad to renew our acquaintance. Will 
 you be so good as to see that my groom lights 
 the lamps so that one or other does not go out 
 after the first hundred yards ? I have been 
 to Knotley, and stayed too long — let myself be 
 benighted like a dissipated old woman. But 
 what brings you down here just now ? Is it 
 anything about your new clown of a 
 baronet ?' 
 
 ^ Hush ! he is just behind me.' Mr. Miles 
 was forced to warn her. 
 
 ' There, bring him forward at once and 
 present him to me, and to my grand- daughter. 
 Iris is in that corner. Are you awake, child? 
 Were you ever introduced to Mr. Miles ?' 
 
 ' I think not ; but I shall be happy to 
 undergo the ceremony now,' answered a fresh 
 young voice. 
 
 ' Many thanks for the permission, Miss 
 Compton ; but, if you please, we'll agree to 
 defer the ceremony along with the presenta- 
 tion to Sir William. I can scarcely see you 
 two ladies. We are only just come. The
 
 64 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 time is not propitious ; let us wait for another 
 and a happier clay.' 
 
 Mr. Miles retreated on the plea of giving 
 some directions about the lamps. 
 
 ' I am not going to be the man to introduce 
 Jezebel to him/ he was resolving. * Let 
 us be thankful she has, in a great measure, 
 outlived her sorceries and power of ruin ; 
 but they say she has taken to play in her 
 age, like the most accomplished performer at 
 Homburg in its worst days, or Monte Carlo. 
 I believe the grand -daughter, poor thing ! is a 
 nice girl to have come out of so bad a nest,' 
 still pursuing his reflections. 
 
 Mr. Miles was hampered by the fear that 
 Lady Termor's personal remark might have 
 reached the young man ; but as the carriage 
 disappeared in the darkness from which it 
 had emerged, and the lawyer rejoined his 
 companion, he felt bound to deliver his testi- 
 mony that danger had been near. 
 
 Sir William anticipated him by a remark in 
 which a shade of doubt and discontent was 
 just audible. 
 
 ^ I thought you said the Fermors were 
 a bad lot.' 
 
 ' A shocking bad lot, so far as Lord and
 
 NEIGHBOURS, 65 
 
 Lady Fermor go,' corroborated Mr. Miles 
 emphatically. 
 
 ' And yet you are quite thick '^ith them.' 
 The pupil suddenly turned the tables on his 
 Mentor, still with the suspicion of mystification 
 and annoyance in his manner. 
 
 ' Xot thick in your sense,' answered Mr. 
 Miles promptly; ' not more than common 
 courtesy demands. I am sorry that your 
 nearest neighbours are the Termors, Sir 
 William. He, poor old wretch, may be 
 reckoned nowhere now ; but she — well, she 
 forfeited her place in ladies' society ages ago. 
 She has, in course of nature, given up hunt- 
 ing, and there are no more hunting breakfasts, 
 or stud dinners, or election banquets at Lamb- 
 ford. The place used to be a great rearing 
 ground for hunters ; and both host and hostes? 
 went in strongly for jDolitics — at least, as far 
 as the hurly-burlv of elections. You will 
 not come across him, and you mav not 
 encounter her ; which, let me tell vou, will be 
 no loss for any young man who wishes to 
 keep himself straight and avoid temptation. 
 It is my duty to make you acquainted with 
 the rumour that high play goes on whenever 
 she can call up the ghost of company at 
 Lambford.' 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
 S
 
 66 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 ' Does nobody go near her, tlien T said 
 Sir William, dwelling on the isolation. The 
 sharp ears of his adviser detected that it had 
 a fascination for a lad who might be a pariah 
 in his own person. Mr. Miles was induced 
 to qualify his statement in policy as well as in 
 verity. 
 
 ^ Oh, not so bad as that ! She raised with 
 reason the hue and cry of the world against 
 her, but it is an old, half- forgotten story: shie 
 has lived long enough to survive her punish- 
 ment so far. The household at Lambford 
 has been outwardly quiet enough for a dozen 
 years. If people choose to lose money over 
 napoleon or vingt-et-un, or no worse than 
 whist, it is entirely their own doing, and is 
 quite another matter from a public scandal. 
 They say she is kind to poor old Lord 
 Termor. There has never been a word against 
 Miss Compton, the grand -daughter, and she is 
 likely to inherit her grandmother's savings — 
 although there are other grandchildren, not 
 Comptons — Dugdales and Powells, the children 
 of two daughters of Lady Fermor by her first 
 husband. As far as I have heard, they have 
 never been near Lambford; but Lady Fermor 
 has taken up her relations, or they have taken
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 67 
 
 up her, again of late years. Even Lord 
 Fermor's heir-at-law does not hold it wise 
 to keep up a quarrel with the present mistress 
 of the house. Lady Fermor, at her worst, 
 maintained what I should call a brazen 
 adherence to her Church whatever it had to 
 say to her, and I have no doubt subscribes 
 handsomely to parish charities ; so her rector 
 and rectoress, with their staff, must extend a 
 certain amount of countenance and support to 
 her: whether or not they regard her in the 
 light of an interesting penitent, I cannot tell. 
 Between the obli^^on into which her past 
 is falling, forbearance with her as an old 
 woman, and pity for an innocent victim like 
 Miss Compton, there is some amount of 
 neighbourly amnesty. If I remember rightly, 
 I have heard Lady Thwaite say she called 
 at Lambford and had Miss Compton with her, 
 though Sir John was not too well pleased. 
 Her ladyship pretended that he wished to keep 
 the acquaintance for his own entertainment, 
 while she could not see that she was bound to 
 know scandal which had happened before she 
 was born. Shall we drive over to the 
 quarries I told you of to-morrow, Su- 
 WilHam ? 
 
 5—2
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 Lady Fermok was a bad woman; slie had 
 been a bad daughter and sister, a bad wife, 
 mother, and grandmother. She had been 
 weighed and found wanting in every relation. 
 Lord Fermor was not her first husband, 
 neither was she his first wife. It had only 
 been after passing through the divorce court 
 in a specially scandalous suit that she had 
 attained her present position. 
 
 But that was half a century ago, years prior 
 to the birth of Iris Compton's mother. Lady 
 Fermor' s only child to Lord Fermor. For 
 many a long day the respectable world refused 
 absolutely to condone the heinous offence. 
 But time will serve to obliterate the blackest 
 stains, and two facts were in Lady Fermor's 
 favour. The sinner had for a period, which 
 was equivalent to a moderately long lifetime,
 
 BEAUTY, (9 
 
 refrained from her old sins against moral and 
 social laws, and she was now an aged woman. 
 These facts upheld self-interest, easy-minded 
 tolerance, and charity in granting some re- 
 newal of the lady's passport to mix with other 
 than the utterly reckless and polluted of her 
 sex. Though Eastham was largely conserva- 
 tive, and its population was by comparison 
 stationary, and in this respect far removed 
 from the shifting inhabitants of a great town, 
 Lady Fermor had neighbours nowadays who 
 in the rising of new generations, the necessary 
 prohibition of some topics from free discussion, 
 and the reluctance of honourable people to 
 touch pitch and be defiled, knew nothing- 
 further of the mistress of Lamb ford than that 
 there had been somethino- wronof where she 
 was concerned, long, long ago, something 
 which was better kept out of hearing, and 
 gradually lost sight of 
 
 Lady Termor was too wise a woman not 
 to avail herself of the slow, shy relenting, 
 though she felt more contemptuous of it than 
 grateful for it. She had never cared for the 
 members of her own sex, while she had always 
 been able to be on ' hail-fellow-well-met ' 
 terms with a wide circle of men, so lone as
 
 70 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 she was young enougli to love company and 
 enjoy her part in it. Such was the law of the 
 world in which she lived. Nevertheless there 
 was a small triumph to Lady Fermor in sur- 
 mounting what she considered milk-and-water 
 and bread-and-butter scruples. Besides, it 
 was desirable for Iris, her grand-daughter, for 
 whom her guardian had some consideration 
 though little affection, that she should have 
 the entrance to respectable houses presided 
 over by women on whose reputations sus- 
 picion had not so much as breathed. 
 
 Lady Fermor had not secured the last 
 boon for her daughter, Iris's mother; she had 
 moved in none but the most Bohemian sets, 
 and as a natural result had married ill, in 
 every light save a worldly one, at her mother's 
 instigation. She had led a wretched life, in 
 which even the price for which she had sold 
 herself had failed her. She had not possessed 
 either spirit or power to rebel against her fate. 
 Both she and her husband had died young, 
 and she had left a helpless child, another girl, 
 to the care of her mother's nearest relatives, 
 who had made shipwreck of her fortunes. 
 
 Hard, heartless, coarse, and corrupted as 
 Lady Fermor' s career had left her, she felt
 
 BEAUTY, 71 
 
 that she owed some reparation to her un- 
 happy daughter's child, and she did not mean 
 that Iris's history should resemble that of 
 her mother. Lady Fermor put herself to the 
 pains to secure an excellent governess, who 
 did not refuse to enter the family at Lamb- 
 ford. She placed the pupil entirely under the 
 teacher's charge. 
 
 The mistress of the house did not interfere, 
 except it can be called interference, that in 
 the early days of Miss Burrage's domestica- 
 tion, Lady Fermor did not consider it any 
 breach of the contract or source of 2^eril to 
 her scheme, to encourage the little girl when 
 she came to the drawdng-room to mimic the 
 small peculiarities and gaucheries of her 
 schoolmistress, and to reward these exhibi- 
 tions of talent by herself furnishing lessons 
 in this histrionic school distinguished by its 
 lack of generosity and tenderness and by its 
 insolence. She was a well-qualified j^rofessor, 
 and showed up poor Miss Burrage's weak- 
 nesses so as not only to cause the child Iris 
 to dance with delight, but to awaken universal 
 laughter among the drawing-room groups, 
 made up of the fastest men and the shadiest 
 women in that corner of the kingdom.
 
 72 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Iris used to cry bitterly, a little later in lier 
 life, over her share in the game, and she would 
 wonder in her troubled mind whether the 
 hard, flippant, or affectedly languid laughter 
 was that crackling of thorns under a pot of 
 which the psalmist wrote. It was not any 
 direct word or act of Miss Burrage's which 
 aroused the remorse and suggested the simile. 
 On the contrary, when the poor lady could 
 not help learning the extent to which so 
 modest and retiring a person as she was had 
 contributed to the entertainment of the draw- 
 ing-room, she contented herself with discharg- 
 ing a delicate duty faithfully. She was forced 
 for conscience' sake and in Iris's interest to 
 say to the weeping girl, insisting in an agony 
 of contrition on confessing her falseness to the 
 obligations of friendship : 
 
 ' Very true, my dear, it is not right or kind 
 to mock at your friends behind their backs, 
 especially for such physical misfortunes — 
 which are not merely bad tricks, as a lisp, or 
 short sight, or a queer gait. But don't worry 
 about it, only don't do it again. I am sure 
 you never will. Do you think I cannot say 
 all my absurdities off by heart at my age, or 
 that I mind much other people's noticing
 
 BEAUTY. 73 
 
 them, especially as many persons have a 
 strong sense of the ridiculous which they 
 cannot easily curb ? You must remember 
 jesting and laughter break no bones, though 
 the fun might sometimes be suppressed with a 
 good grace, and the suppression, strange to 
 say, rather tend to increase true merriment.' 
 
 Miss Burrage was a very remarkable Avoman, 
 though she could be guilty of lisping, and 
 blinkinof, and stalkino; as she walked. She 
 was not merely well informed and accom- 
 plished, a capital teacher with a high cha- 
 racter for uprightness, steadiness, and kind- 
 ness to her pupils. She had come to Lambford 
 well aware of what she was doing, mthout 
 saying anything to anybody — not even to 
 herself, unless in the vaguest way, untempted 
 by the salary her employers offered, undazzled 
 by their rank, much as she ^vould have gone 
 into a Zenana or a lazar-house. 
 
 * I shall take no harm,' she told herself, 
 ^ and while I know I have not ten years' more 
 work left in me, I should like to do some- 
 thing apart from earning my bread, for love's 
 sake.' 
 
 Miss Burraofe did more than srive Iris a new 
 experience, she brought to her a revelation.
 
 74 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 In that intensely worldly house, where there 
 was hardly a law save that of wayward incli- 
 nation, when it was not that of vicious self- 
 indulgence, Iris came into closest contact with 
 a woman to whom the Divine command of 
 duty was the ruling, well-nigh the sole power. 
 At Lambford the pursuit of pleasure, though 
 it had cooled from its passion and fever, and 
 was now more of a hard, hackneyed round 
 than a headlong race, continued to be the 
 entire business of life. But Iris heard of 
 work, not as the degrading curse, but as the 
 ennobling blessing of man's earthly sphere. 
 
 Lady Fermor scarcely owned allegiance to 
 mortal, simply paying the compliment to 
 Lord Fermor, who had sacrificed all that was 
 best worth having for her, of behaving to him 
 with a mixture of careless, boisterous geniality 
 and half- scornful forbearance. Yet she was 
 capable of being mortified by her exclusion at 
 the hands of the Lord Chamberlain from 
 figuring in the Drawing-room lists. She 
 would have grasped greedily at the slightest 
 notice from her Queen, at whose honour- 
 able, virtuous life Lady Fermor nevertheless 
 flouted, since it was beyond her compre- 
 hension.
 
 BEAUTY, 75 
 
 Miss Burrage, somewliat homely and dowdy 
 in those points of personal appearance and 
 dress which were extravagantly valued at 
 Lambford, in the humdrum drudgeries which 
 seemed to many to constitute her calling, did 
 not hesitate to believe that from no material 
 throne but from the blue sky, high as heaven 
 above her, God saw her and loved her, and 
 held blessed communion with her as in the 
 old-world Hebrew stories, when the same God 
 w^alked among the trees of the Garden of Eden 
 and spoke with the first man, Adam, and 
 called the jDatriarch Abraham His friend. 
 
 It was not in Lady Fermor's bargain, as she 
 had read it, to allow her grand-daughter to 
 be reared an enthusiast, with a vocation for 
 religion and virtue quite out of the common, 
 and a troublesome, impracticable forte for 
 righteousness. Lady Termor considered that, 
 with all her slips and stumbles, she had not 
 been a bad church woman on the whole ; she 
 had always stuck to Mother Church as ^ good 
 form ' to say the least, and she had her reward. 
 She was willing that Iris should go farther 
 and be more consistent in her walk; but as to 
 her becoming over-pious and over-upright, a 
 benevolent platform scold, or a meek martyr,
 
 76 BEAUTY AND IHE BEAST, 
 
 a silent rebuke to lier neighbours in general, 
 Lady Fermor would sooner have Iris a lunatic 
 at once and dispose of her in the safe seclusion 
 of an asylum. 
 
 As soon as Lady Fermor perceived the 
 mischief which was at work — and it was her 
 thorough scepticism which rendered her blind 
 to it in the beginning — she did her best to 
 stop the evil by dismissing Miss Burrage sum- 
 marily, and taking Iris, who was then a girl of 
 sixteen, into her grandmother's charge, to be 
 cured by a course of such knowledge of the 
 world and unrestricted gaiety as Lady Fermor 
 could administer to her. But the harm was 
 done ; rather the bent was given to the twig 
 and the inscription carved on the grain, which 
 not all the king's horses and all the king's 
 men could untwist and efface. There had been 
 a seal set on Iris Compton's modest forehead, 
 which Lady Compton's brow at its smoothest, 
 least guileful stage had never borne. Iris was 
 not wax, though she had proved pliant to the 
 highest culture. She could not unlearn all 
 she had been taught ; she would not if she 
 could. 
 
 Lady Fermor did not believe in supernatural 
 aid, but she found in her grand -daughter a
 
 BEAUTY. yy 
 
 quiet power of endurance and passive resis- 
 tance which ended by baffling her. For she 
 was a shrewd old woman. Her wickedness 
 had destroyed many a faculty of mind and 
 quality of taste, but it had not interfered much 
 with her native shrewdness. She could 
 submit, after a struggle, to the inevitable. 
 She had no notion in those days of persecuting 
 the girl, or driving her to greater folly or 
 madness, or breaking her spirit. Xay, there 
 was a degree of respect, along with the eternal 
 grudge of evil against good, bred in the 
 veteran, by the staunchness of the recruit to 
 the marching orders which the miserable 
 marplot Burrage had given. If Iris's mother 
 could have had as clear an aim and been as 
 constant to it, she need not have come to such 
 irreparable grief. 
 
 Happily for all concerned, the sinner. Miss 
 Burrage, had implanted the principle in Iris 
 that goodness Avas not a charm confined to 
 any sacred place, or solemn routine of daily 
 enorao'ements. The first bindino^ debt the ofirl 
 must pay was that rudimentary obligation 
 which Lady Fermor had never dreamt of ac- 
 knowledging in her day or contemplated trans- 
 mitting to her successors, unless in the sense
 
 78 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 of a superior force or a convenient form. It 
 was that primitive call to reverence, obey, a.nd 
 be tender to every elder and ruler who is the 
 ordinance of God, unless when the homage 
 defies and outrages the unassailable majesty of 
 truth, purity, and that beauty of goodness 
 which can know no decay. 
 
 All these encounters were things of four or 
 five years back. Iris had not seen Miss 
 Burrage from the hour they were parted. The 
 pupil had heard of the governess's death. 
 Then Iris had shut her eyes and seen a lonely 
 ill-trained little girl and a good woman striv- 
 ing with kind patience to win the child to all 
 that was honest and lovely. ' And I have 
 done nothing for her in return,' cried Iris, with 
 the tears bursting forth \ but after a while she 
 admitted, with tender magnanimity, ^ She was 
 getting feeble before she left. I know she 
 dreaded to be dependent, and shrank a little 
 from a lonely old age. I wish, oh ! I wish I 
 could have cared for her; but since that was 
 not to be, shall I, of all people, grudge to her 
 the '^ Well done, good and faithful servant,'' 
 when we shall not miss each other at last?' 
 Lady Fermor had come to let Iris alone. The 
 old woman was not fond of her grand-daughter.
 
 BEAUTY. 79 
 
 What heart the elder retained was reduced 
 to a fraction, to which the younger's position 
 and qualities did not appeal. Occasionally 
 Lady Termor showed herself spiteful to Iris 
 with a spite which might increase on provoca- 
 tion to a formidable malice. But as a rule 
 the venerable matron — with so little to be 
 revered in her, alas ! — was reasonable, with a 
 sort of masculine bonhomie about her which 
 saved her from being guilty of petty tyranny, 
 and caused her to like that the members of her 
 family should be comfortable in their own 
 way — always provided that way did not in- 
 terfere with hers — contradiction roused the 
 demon in her. 
 
 Iris was now over twenty years of age, a 
 tall, slender girl, with a small, well- carried 
 head. She had auburn hair, which she had 
 worn since childhood, anticipating the fashion, 
 in little clustering waves and rings low on 
 her forehead. The mode had been her grand- 
 mother's decree when she discovered the chief 
 defect in the little face, which was the dis- 
 proportion of the broad, full forehead to what 
 lay beneath it. 
 
 ' Good gracious, child ! who ever saw such a 
 top to a Queen Anne's sixpence of a face?
 
 So BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 You only want spectacles to grow up like 
 Miss Cornelia — I forget her name — that 
 schoolmistress of Dickens'. Everv man will be 
 
 ft/ 
 
 frightened away by such a brow, unless he 
 imagines he can save himself trouble by using 
 it for a dictionary. Bid Woods take crisping- 
 tongs or a wet brush and cover over that 
 huge overlapping promontory as much as 
 
 possible.' 
 
 Thus the defect was veiled, and Iris hap- 
 pened to be one of the very few women im- 
 proved by borrowing a hint from her cousins 
 the monkeys. 
 
 In spite of the ominous indication, nature 
 had not destined Iris for a prodigy of brains, 
 and Miss Burrage had not completed her 
 pupil's demoralization in this respect. The 
 girl was quick and intelligent, and had received 
 a solid foundation to her education — that was 
 all. As she grew up she proved enthusiastic 
 in an age which has invented a new applica- 
 tion for the adjective ' gushing,' and sympa- 
 thetic in a dry and parched atmosphere which 
 would have withered all save keen sympathies. 
 She was fertile in resource. She had a 
 natural gift of working skilfully in womanly 
 fashion with her hands. The little face under
 
 BEAUTY. 8i 
 
 the softlv-masked brow remained small, and 
 when the hazel eves were clear, the mouth 
 rosy, while the cheeks too had their roses, the 
 head was a wonderful reproduction in form, 
 colouring, and expression of the cherub head 
 which Sir Joshua painted in so many different 
 poses, having found the original in the head 
 of the Honourable Isabella Gordon, the kins- 
 woman of a bouncing beauty of a duchess and 
 of a crazy fanatic who led a national riot. But 
 sometimes the cherub was under a cloud, with 
 drooping eyelids, drooping mouth, and a pale, 
 wistful little face more suggestive of piteous- 
 ness than beauty. 
 
 The last was not the normal aspect of the 
 girl. She had a healthy constitution, physi- 
 cally and spiritually touched with the highest, 
 finest influences. She had been accustomed 
 to an isolated life in that most depressing 
 atmosphere of age without the attributes 
 which render a hoary head a crown of glory. 
 But she was far from friendless either in her 
 own class or among servants, working people, 
 and poor people. In the neighbourhood of 
 Lambford there was a o^reat deal of feelinof for 
 Iris Compton, an orphan under bad guardian- 
 ship), though she never dreamt of herself as 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 an object of compassion. The Rector of the 
 parish and his wife, well-meaning if somewhat 
 self-conscious people, made a pet of her with- 
 out any interference from Lady Termor . 
 Their only son, Ludovic Acton, was like a 
 brother to Iris. That one of the Rector's 
 daughters, nearest to Iris in age, was Iris's 
 bosom friend, exalted by her lively imagina- 
 tion far beyond Lucy Acton's deserts, though 
 Lucy was a good girl. 
 
 Iris had a happy temper and a mind that 
 was neither suspicious, nor exacting, nor 
 foreboding. She was always busy when she 
 was by herself, as she was to a large extent 
 when she was at home, with her share of the 
 club books, her music, her art needlework, her 
 favourites among Lady Termor's poultry, her 
 rockery, and such assistance as she was some- 
 times allowed to give Lucy Acton in the 
 church choir and in parish work. Iris had a 
 reserve of courage in her character, which 
 lent an attribute of the heroic to the orirlish 
 womanhood. She had been thrown from her 
 horse when riding with her groom near the 
 town of Knotley, and had her collar-bone dis- 
 located. She had been carried into a house, 
 where she had given no trouble beyond the
 
 BEA UTY. 83 
 
 fact that slie had begged her hostess to allow 
 the doctor who attended Lord and Lady 
 Fermor to come and set the bone and take her 
 home in his brougham, in order to spare her 
 grandmother the shock of hearing of the acci- 
 dent before she knew it was nothing, and that 
 L'is was safe back in her room at Lambford. 
 
 A painful accident occurred in the butler's 
 pantry at Lambford ; an unlucky footman in 
 drawino' the cork of a soda-water bottle 
 wrenched off the neck and cut his hand 
 severely. Everybody called out a remedy, 
 but nobody from the butler to Lady Fermor 
 could bring himself or herself to look at the 
 wound or touch it. Then Iris ran in from the 
 garden, bound up the gash, kept the bandage 
 in its place, gave brandy to the man when he 
 grew faint, and stayed to help the doctor after 
 he arrived in time to take up the severed 
 artery, because no one else had sufficient nerve 
 to make him or her willing to become the 
 medical man's assistant. 
 
 Lady Fermor was very angry when she . 
 knew what had taken place, and said if she 
 had been aware of the disgraceful chicken- 
 heartedness of every soul about the place, she 
 would have ordered each and all, on pain of 
 
 6—2
 
 84 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 instant dismissal with a month's wages, to 
 stand beside the doctor and prevent Miss 
 Compton's being taken advantage of and put 
 to such uses. 
 
 In spite of her ladyship's indignation, from 
 that date, whenever a misadventure happened 
 in the household, the sufferer was sure to 
 make a secret humble application for help to 
 Iris, though the girl protested laughingly her 
 inexperience, and the absence on her part 
 even of any intention of being trained for a 
 nurse. 
 
 While things often went wrong at Lamb- 
 ford and in the world. Iris was as sure as she 
 was of her own existence, that there was a 
 Ruler over all Who ordered things aright, and 
 brought good out of evil, and light out of 
 darkness. She believed He had work for her 
 to do in His world, and would show her more 
 and more clearly what it was, if she waited for 
 Him and did the least thing her hand found 
 to do, with all her might, for the good of her- 
 self and her neighbours, to His praise. And 
 when this scene of blessing and tribulation 
 was ended, there remained the new heavens 
 and the new earth wherein dwelt righteous- 
 ness and the Lord of righteousness.
 
 BEAUTY. 85 
 
 Iris on the whole was a happy girl, as who 
 should be if she were not ? She was kept 
 ignorant, as those nearest the sinner often are, 
 of the worst of the iniquities of the past at 
 Lambford. Still she heard and saw much to 
 distress her, but while she shrank from further 
 enliofhtenment, the wroncr-doinsf fell awav 
 from her as somethino; entirely foreicm to her 
 nature and history. She was very sorry 
 sometimes. She could not fail to be grieved 
 and shocked, but it was not for her to judge 
 and condemn those who were far older than 
 herself, her natural superiors. She had an 
 inextinguishable spring of hope in these years. 
 She was always hoping the best. This was 
 especially true of the wound dealt to her 
 affections by the knowledge that neither her 
 poor old grandfather in his great infirmity, 
 nor her grandmother in the possession of all 
 her powers of mind, but bending under the 
 heavy burden of an aged body, cared much 
 for her. It was well for Iris that she did not 
 make much of herself ; that she could trust, 
 however vainly, that she might yet win 
 greater confidence and regard from those 
 before whom the treasures of a noble and 
 gentle nature were like pearls cast under the
 
 86 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 feet of swine, which only cause the brutes to 
 turn and rend the giver. 
 
 Iris walked in the light of her innocence 
 and rectitude in the love and fear of God, and 
 in the honour of all men, unhurt by her harm- 
 ful surroundings, one of the strange, sweet, 
 incontestable answers to the carping, doubt- 
 ing question, ' Can any good thing come out 
 of Nazareth T
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 BY LADY THWAITE's WORK-TABLE. 
 
 There are women one of the principal objects 
 of whose lives consists in providing them- 
 selves with fine feathers, and in pluming the 
 feathers after the wearers have got them. 
 There are other women among whose chief 
 aims is that of lining their nests luxuriously 
 and agreeably, and displaying to en^dous 
 neighbours those well-furnished nests. Xot 
 unfrequently these moods show themselves in 
 the same women, and rather mark different 
 stages of development than contrast of inclina- 
 tion in one person. 
 
 Lady Thwaite had married a man old 
 enough to be her grandfather, without enter- 
 taining for him any of the sentiments of 
 respect, gratitude, or pity, which could by 
 the wildest flio'ht of fancv have stood for 
 parallel sympathies and mutual inclinations.
 
 83 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 She was one of a family of many poor pretty 
 daughters, belonging to the slenderly-provided- 
 for widow of a hunting squire-parson, or 
 ' squarson ' as the type is sometimes entitled 
 in Eastham. She hankered after the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt, especially in the shape of fine 
 feathers, and she saw no other way of pro- 
 curing these than by the marriage which she 
 made. 
 
 To do Lady Thwaite justice she was just 
 the wife old Sir John wanted, with the signal 
 exception of giving him an heir to live and 
 flourish after him instead of handing over 
 Whitehills to degenerated Thwaites. She dis- 
 appointed him in nothing else, and she was 
 reasonably contented with the result she had 
 achieved. So having accomplished two things 
 which the world thoroughly approved, done 
 well for herself, and made the most of her 
 gains, disdaining either to proclaim to the 
 public or to whisper to her own heart the 
 weak points of the situation, she was popular ; 
 she was regarded as a fairly fortunate woman 
 and a highly available acquaintance. Unlike 
 old Lady Fermor in everything else. Lady 
 Thwaite was like her in this, that both of them 
 had always dis^Dcnsed with female friends, and
 
 BY LADY THWAITES WORK-TABLE. 89 
 
 been perfectly satisfied with acquaintances of 
 their own sex. Goins: back so far as her 
 girhsh days, Lady Thwaite's mother and 
 sisters had been no more to her than intimate 
 acquaintances. The point at which the re- 
 semblance broke down was that neither had 
 Lady Thwaite shown any need of male friends. 
 Beyond the wide, easy bond of acquaintance- 
 ship — and no woman cultivated more acquaint- 
 ances — she had been sufficient for herself. 
 
 Mr. Miles, before he left, was as good as 
 his word, in introducing Sir William to the 
 former mistress of AVhitehills. She struck an 
 unsophisticated stranger as a fair-haired woman 
 with a fio'ure inclined to stoutness, and a fine 
 presence which was ' stunning ' to him. Her 
 black silk and crape and white cap set off her 
 fairness, diminished her stoutness, and caused 
 her to look younger than she really was. She 
 received him with ease and fi'iendliness, which 
 might have been still more cordial if he had 
 been able to advance half-way to meet her. 
 There was nothing distressing in her allusions 
 to Sir John. She spoke of the loss she had 
 sustained with no more than the quiet gravity 
 and 2fentle sadness which the death of so old 
 a man was calculated to excite in his kindred
 
 90 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 of the second generation. She was his widow, 
 no doubt, as her dress indicated, but only a 
 widow who had been his contemporary could 
 have experienced sharp pain or keen desolation 
 at old Sir John's having passed away before 
 her, by ever so short a time. Very soon the 
 conversation took a more cheerful turn, and 
 Lady Thwaite's social gifts, as a lively woman 
 of the world, came out to anybody capable of 
 appreciating her. 
 
 The interview had not proved very formid- 
 able, and from the date of the introduction 
 the gentleman found himself, he could hardly 
 tell how, in frequent communication with the 
 lady. He did not like her particularly, though 
 she was good enough to lay herself out to 
 please him; but he had a sense that he ought 
 to feel obliged to her for bearing no grudge 
 against him after he had turned her out of his 
 house, and he had an honest wish to serve her. 
 
 Lady Thwaite approved of Sir William's 
 intention and recognised his capabilities of 
 usefulness. She speedily extracted from him 
 sundry china jars, a marquetry table, and a 
 pair of old Dutch leather screens which she 
 considered would be acquisitions in her 
 rooms.
 
 BY LADY THWAITES WORK-TABLE, 91 
 
 jNfetherton was already a wonderfully cosy, 
 pretty dowager-liouse. Lady Thwaite had 
 kept a careful, fostering eye on it, ever since 
 she married Sir John, and particularly after 
 the death of their son. She had moved in the 
 background, buc not the less successfully 
 on that account. She had seen that the 
 house was in perfect repair. She had bestowed 
 unremitting attention on the improvement of 
 the grounds. The place was not, and could 
 not be like AVhitehills. It was only a smallish, 
 nineteenty-century country house, built in the 
 earlier years of the century, when bow-windows 
 were synonymous with light, not shade. The 
 lawn was almost too like velvet in its pile, 
 to be spoilt as it often was, to the mortification 
 of the one adult gardener, by tennis. There 
 was a carriage- drive in the perfection of order, 
 and a belt of rarer though younger shrubs 
 and trees than any at Whitehills. Altogether 
 it was a very different establishment from the 
 ill-kept, run-out, over-crowded house from 
 which Lady Thwaite had been led by Sir 
 John. 
 
 The lady, like Mr. Miles, was gratified to 
 find the representative of the family, whom 
 she had elected to make her protege ^ hopefully
 
 92 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 docile and tolerably presentable. Yet she 
 felt a pang in connection with the thing which 
 had gone nearest her heart, in the whole 
 course of the deliberately planned, worldly 
 prosperity of her life. It was the failure 
 of the hopes with regard to her son. 
 
 ' To think such broad, manly shoulders and 
 such a resolute mouth should have been given 
 to a lout, a common soldier, while my boy, 
 the true heir of Whitehills, was like a thread - 
 paper and had no more firmness in his poor 
 loose lips than when he was a senseless baby/ 
 was her inaudible cry on the first peep she 
 got at the new-comer. 
 
 But she swallowed the bitterness and was 
 altogether bland and propitious, finding the 
 subjects for conversation as became a fair, fat, 
 well-bred woman, so good-natured and access- 
 ible in her circle that there sometimes crept 
 out just the faintest suspicion of ladylike 
 wheedling and cajoling in her attitude. 
 
 Lady Thwaite was amused, too, by Sir 
 William. She liked amusement as well as 
 profit, and to be amused no less than to confer 
 amusement. She sometimes split on this rock 
 in spite of her general judiciousness. Her 
 consistency was not perfect any more than
 
 BY LADY THWAITE'S WORK-TABLE, 
 
 93 
 
 the consistency of the rest of the T^'orld. She 
 
 ft/ 
 
 could not always steer skilfully between her 
 so-called Mend and her jest. She had been 
 known to sacrifice the former to the latter, 
 though it was an exceptional imprudence. 
 
 It was that fresh season of the year when 
 spring' is still glad, and not yet gTowing 
 languid as it passes into the heat of summer. 
 Chequers of sunshine and shade were woyen 
 on the floor of the pleasant room, where the 
 fire still gleaming on the tiles was tempered 
 by the open door into the little conseryatory, 
 bringing wafts of fragrance from yiolets, lilies - 
 of-the-yalley, and jonquils. A far-away 
 window open to the garden admitted the 
 full-throated singing of blackbirds and thrushes 
 in the early joy of mating. The silyery light 
 crossing the soft gloom, kindled up here and 
 there in chair-covers, portieres, and cushions, 
 admirably blended lines of cool blue and 
 wdiite creton, mellow oliye yelyet and dead- 
 gold plush. There was an efl^ect like the 
 wayering motion of leaves on the dull reds 
 and blues, and greens of the Turkey carpet 
 an ivory-tinted sofiiness and delicacy in the 
 revived satin-wood with its fine hand-paintino- 
 of flowers and fruit, contrasted with the rich
 
 94 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 black of ebony in the framework of the piano, 
 chairs, and settees. Of the pictures on the 
 sober grey walls, that of old Sir John, padded, 
 buttoned up, and looking as if he had just 
 come from successive visits to his barber and 
 his tailor, was in the merciful shadow ; while 
 Lady Thwaite's likeness, in the light, showed 
 her considerately crowned with a small cap, 
 and draped in a shawl so as not to look 
 younger than her husband's daughter. There 
 was also a careful representation of a baby 
 shrouded in a cloak, not to be superseded by 
 a bluff or prim little boy sitting on his pony 
 or standing by his dog, the ordinary style 
 for the heirs of the family as preserved at 
 Whitehills. 
 
 Though April days invite to dawdling idle- 
 ness out of doors, the April sun shone on 
 manifold signs of busy idleness within the 
 house. The temperate beams scattered themr 
 selves freely on newspapers and books, a 
 well-filled music-stand, the paraphernalia of 
 easel and colour-boxes, and a dainty work- 
 table containing half a dozen pieces of pretty 
 work — all of which were necessaries of life to 
 Lady Thwaite. 
 
 Sir William, late private in one of her
 
 BY LADY THWAITES WORK-TABLE, 95 
 
 Majesty's infantry regiments, remained an 
 incono^ruous fioaire, not at home in such an 
 entourage. It must be confessed that he Tvas 
 not in himself entertaining, so Lady Thwaite 
 had therefore ensconced him in one of those 
 torturina', retreatino^, subsidino^ seats of the 
 second-last fashion, in which no man who 
 was not to the manner born could have 
 settled himself otherwise than uncomfortably 
 and awkwardly. She was talking to him in 
 her smiling, fluent manner on subjects of 
 which he could know nothing. If he answered 
 at all, he must either express the most refresh- 
 ing ignorance, or perpetrate the most grotesque 
 mistakes. She asked him to help her with 
 the arrangement of some of her silks and 
 wools, and he did not see how he could refuse 
 to oblige her by declining to comply with her 
 demurely-put request. But his proceedings, 
 while she would take care that thev did 
 no harm to her property, must be more 
 ludicrous than those of Hercules with 
 Omphale's spinning-gear ; for Hercules had 
 the unfettered mien of a demi-god, while 
 Omphale's establishment was sure to have 
 been simplicity itself. Sir William's spasmodic 
 actions in the Xetherton drawing-room bore
 
 96 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 more resemblance to the uncouth demonstra- 
 tions of a bull in a china- shop. 
 
 ^ Ah ! there is somebody coming/ Lady 
 Thwaite cried, interrupting her little game, 
 as a shadow crossed the window. ' I believe 
 it is Iris Compton. Don't go. Sir William,' — 
 detaining him when he sought to accomplish a 
 shame-faced retreat. ' You may rise if you 
 will, that is if you can. Let me give you 
 my hand. Dear! dear! I must bid Charles 
 take away these low chairs with their sloping 
 backs. They are a snare to half the people 
 who sit down in them. Miss Compton ought 
 to be one of the belles of the neighbourhood, 
 though her fine figure is rather slight even 
 for a girl.' She favoured him with a prepara- 
 tory criticism, sitting serene in her own 
 becoming matronly bountifulness of outline. 
 \ There is certainly a suspicion of red in her 
 hair — ill-natured people call it red — and her 
 face is too small ; it is even inclined to be 
 chubby. But in spite of trifling defects she 
 would be one of the county beauties if she 
 were properly seen. She goes out very little, 
 however ; her relations are very old and don't 
 live in the world ; all the same you must 
 know her like everybody else some day, and I
 
 BY LADY THWAITES WORK-TABLE. 97 
 
 am charmed that the encounter should take 
 place here. I am fond of young people meet- 
 ing and making themselves at home at 
 Netherton. It is not so very long since 1 was 
 young myself, but my youth passed soon/ 
 remarked Ladv Thwaite with an echo of 
 pensiveness in the reflection, pausing as if she 
 expected to be contradicted, and then going 
 on with a furtive smile, faintly acidulated, at 
 the omission of any contradiction, ' Poor dear 
 Sir John liked the society of his contempo- 
 raries, naturally, and I was only too happy 
 to accommodate myself to his tastes. It was 
 no less my pleasure than my duty, and you 
 cannot think the comfort it is to me to 
 remember that now. Ah! here she comes.' 
 
 Sir William recollected perfectly what he 
 had heard of Miss Compton and her grand- 
 mother, Lady Fermor. He had struggled out 
 of the cramj^ing chair, and, as he stood stiffly, 
 feeling very much in the way, he glanced 
 up, expecting to see a woman like Lady 
 Thwaite, but younger. His eyes fell on the 
 tall, erect figure of a girl like a straight, slim 
 sapling. She wore a dark blue velveteen 
 gown and jacket, with a little cap of the same 
 colour. Beneath it was the loveliest silken 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 thatch of hair, not unlike his own in hue, but 
 how different in texture, as it strayed and 
 curled at its own sweet will! Beneath the 
 thatch was a line of white forehead and fine 
 brows, with the rest of a little face lit up by 
 hazel eyes, half eager, half wise. The round 
 cheeks were rosy ; still rosier was the delicate 
 mouth, which had no inherent weakness in 
 the curve that broke its straight line. She 
 was smiling upon him, and going through 
 her part of the introduction as if she liked it, 
 and wished him well. 
 
 He had not seen, he had not so much as 
 conceived of a beautiful, simply refined girl 
 like this, with so much of the child in her 
 that she gave him the sense of being open 
 and frank as the day. Yet there was some- 
 thing in her which daunted him, more than he 
 was impressed by anything in the mature 
 woman of the world beside him, though when 
 he was beside Lady Thwaite she had him in 
 her power, and caused him to do her 
 behests. 
 
 In the presence of a third person Lady 
 Thwaite was doubly bound to refrain from 
 the faintest approach to making game of her 
 kinsman and guest. But she imagined Sir
 
 BY LADY THWAITE'S WORK-TABLE. 
 
 99 
 
 William did not see what she was about. 
 Iris Compton was not much of a third person, 
 while her company enhanced the fun of 
 the thing to such an extent that Lady Thwaite 
 could not resist prolonging the joke, were it 
 only to watch its effect on Iris, and how far 
 her gravity would stand the strain to which it 
 was subjected. 
 
 Lady Thwaite sought to inveigle Sir 
 William back into the fellow of the detestable, 
 cavernous chair. She gravely asked his 
 opinion of the genuineness of her old Chelsea. 
 She said Miss Compton would excuse them if 
 they went on winding their silk, after a scene 
 in a great English classic which Sir William 
 must recall. 
 
 Iris's carnation cheeks flushed a rosier red. 
 She started up, as when she ran to the aid of 
 the unfortunate footman with the gash across 
 his palm. It was a mental wound which at 
 this moment called for her aid, and she could 
 no more withhold it from the second than 
 from the first sufferer. To be art and part in 
 hurting anybody's feelings Avilfully and wan- 
 tonly, was about as impossible to Iris Comp- 
 ton as to conspire in dealing a stab with a 
 knife, or to refrain from seeking to stem the 
 
 7—2
 
 loo BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 flow of the life-blood. N'ay, she went farther 
 in her sensitiveness — her own feelings were 
 hurt in the hurt feelings of her neighbours, 
 with a keenness which was positively painful. 
 In addition, she endured uncalled-for remorse 
 and affront as if she were accessory to the 
 off*ence. 
 
 Iris protested quickly, ^ No, no. Lady 
 Thwaite, I can help you far better — Sir 
 William will forgive me for saying so. 
 Besides, what has become of the ingenious 
 winding-machine you showed me the last 
 time I was here ? Ah ! I see it on the table 
 in the corner. If you have tired of using it 
 let me try it.' 
 
 She sat down, made the machine fast to the 
 table, and twirled it round with her light 
 fingers. She kept up the other ball of small- 
 talk with Lady Thwaite, making it turn upon 
 the weather, about which anybody surely 
 could venture an observation. Then she re- 
 ferred tentatively to the meteorological signals 
 from America transmitted across the ocean. 
 At last diverging adventurously to sea 
 voyages, she said pleasantly that she believed 
 Sir William Thwaite was the only person 
 present who had any experience in that
 
 BY LADY THWAITE'S WORK-TABLE, loi 
 
 respect. The manoeuvre was as prettily inge- 
 nious as the winding-machine, without con- 
 taining a grain of affability or patronage. 
 
 He could not help answering the bright 
 appeal. He said he had made two voyages, 
 the one in rough and the other in fine weather, 
 and he could not help thinking she — the 
 ladies before him — would have liked the sea 
 and the great steamer after they had grown 
 accustomed to the motion of the vessel. 
 
 Lady Thwaite, restored to her good be- 
 haviour, professed an ardent interest in por- 
 poises, albatrosses, and flying-fish, as if each 
 belonged by right to the other, jumbling the 
 whole toofether in a somewhat astoundino; 
 fashion for so clever and fully-equipped a 
 woman. 
 
 Then more visitors came in whom Lady 
 Thwaite went to entertain, while Miss 
 Compton stayed for a few minutes talking to 
 Sir William. She set him at his ease in the 
 simplest, kindest manner. She made him feel 
 that he was the convever to her of some unso- 
 phistically, graphically given descriptions of 
 wonderful places where she had never been 
 and was never likely to be. He was able to 
 tell her particulars worth hearing of the
 
 102 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 HoogUy and the Sunderbunds, the Ganges 
 and the Ghauts, Delhi and Benares, and far- 
 away Afghanistan. 
 
 Suddenly he broke off and startled her with 
 the mute eloquence of those dark -blue eyes of 
 his, before he began to speak on a totally 
 different theme. He was so stirred and roused 
 by her sweetness and fellow-feeling that he 
 was moved to confide in her. 
 
 * I have not read much,' he said modestly, 
 ^mostly travels and histories of campaigns 
 such as they provide for fellows in barracks; 
 but I have been turning over some of the 
 Whitehills books since I came here — stories 
 and that kind of stuff. I think I know the 
 book and picture Lady Thwaite referred to. 
 But if I am like that nabob fellow — though I 
 have not brought home shawls and muslins 
 and fine stones — how can she compare herself 
 to the woman who tried to take him in ?' 
 
 ' Oh, she did not mean to carry out the 
 comparison; she was not in earnest,' said Iris, 
 colouring, very much in earnest herself, to re- 
 assure him and to withdraw if possible the 
 sting fi'om the absurd simile. ' Thackeray is 
 so popular that a trifle recalls his famous 
 scenes, don't you see ?'
 
 BY LADY THWAITE's WORK-TABLE, 103 
 
 He did see that she was good to him. Was 
 she one of those fine young ladies — as good 
 as she was fine — of whom Jen had spoken ? 
 But if so, she was only the farther removed 
 fi:om him. Whatever her grandmother might 
 be, these lips of hers looked as if they had 
 never spoken an unbecoming word, while his 
 bad been soiled by the coarse language of the 
 barrack-yard and the ale-house. He was sur- 
 prised that he could have taken it upon him 
 to speak to her ; yet here again she was in 
 her innocent ignorance asking him more 
 questions about punkahs and howdahs, 
 elephants and tigers, and pretending interest 
 in his answers, so that he could not reply 
 shortly and evasively. 
 
 Lady Thwaite cast a doubtful, inquiring 
 look at the couple. 
 
 ' Can that girl be making a dead set at my 
 Sir William? Did I ruffle that gentleman .^^ 
 Has he got on so fast that his pride has to be 
 studied ? My humblest apologies to him ; my 
 bear is learning to dance. It is the first time 
 she has seen him. If it were anyone else I 
 should know what to think ; but Iris Compton 
 is half a goose, half a saint, and she may just 
 as well leave her settlement in life to that for-
 
 I04 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 midable grandmotlier of hers, who will never 
 suffer another finger — not that of the person 
 principally concerned — in the pie.' 
 
 He rode home wondering if he should ever 
 see Iris Compton again, and assuring himself 
 that it did not signify in the very least 
 whether he did or not. She was a creature 
 made of another clay. He was a fallen spirit 
 beside her. In her beauty, which he com- 
 pared to that of an angel, and her tenderness 
 of heart she could feel compassion for his 
 degradation and for his miserably false 
 position ; but as to drawing nearer to her, the 
 step was impossible, and he would die sooner 
 than take advantage of her. Yet apart from 
 so gross an abuse of her charity, he had a 
 notion that he could have gone on speaking to 
 her, enticed by her gentle encouragement — 
 even telling her of Jen and Lawrie and be- 
 seeching her forgiveness as if he had sinned 
 against her in his sins against them, and in 
 his rough falls — begging for counsel and 
 guidance in the troubled life which lay before 
 him. 
 
 Iris Compton drove back to Lambford and 
 went to her grandmother with the scrap of 
 news she would care to hear.
 
 BY LADY THWAITES WORK-TABLE. 105 
 
 ' I liave met Sir William Thwaite, grand- 
 mamma. He was with Lady Thwaite at 
 Netherton when I called,' she addressed a 
 wizened mummy in an envelope of sealskin 
 drawn over a quilted woollen dressing-gown, 
 hugging her dressing-room fire, but turning 
 on the speaker a pair of the keenest, most 
 undimmed, cat-like eyes that were ever sunk 
 in the puckered, fallen -in face of a human 
 being who had seen more than eighty summers 
 and winters. 
 
 * You were in luck, child,' said the old lady, 
 propitiated by the offering. ' What was the 
 ogre like ?' 
 
 ' He was not verv bio:,' answered Iris with 
 momentarily stupid literalness, puzzled at the 
 same time to give a description that would 
 satisfy her grandmother. ' He seemed a good 
 sort of young man. He was homespun cer- 
 tainly, but he did not assume anything. I 
 rather liked him.' Then she went on with a 
 great deal more animation. ' I don't think 
 Lady Thwaite was behaving well to him. 
 She was amusing herself at his expense when 
 I went in, and she wished me to join in the 
 amusement. From what he said afterwards, 
 I think he saw what she was about. I hope
 
 io6 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 it was not officious in me to try and stop it, 
 but I could not stay and look on and laugh 
 in my sleeve, as she meant me to do.' 
 
 Lady Fermor did not care either for what 
 her grand -daughter had thought or done, 
 though these were exactly the points which 
 would have bulked largely in the minds of 
 most mothers and grandmothers. She was 
 only interested in Lady Thwaite and Sir 
 William. 
 
 ' Just like Ada Thwaite,' she began, with 
 an impatient snort ; ' always taking her own 
 in the way of diversion when she cannot take 
 it in more solid coin, picking the parvenvJs 
 pockets, no doubt, and in the act showing 
 him up to the polite world.' 
 
 ' But she is very good-natured,' remon- 
 strated Iris, beginning to repent of her own 
 censure ; ' she put herself about to chaperon 
 me to the hunt-ball before Sir John's death, 
 and she drove all round by Cavesham the 
 other day, to ask at the station for your 
 parcel, which was supposed to have been left 
 there.' 
 
 ' She is as fond of company as the youngest 
 chit she professes to take care of ; and she 
 wanted an excuse to call and hear what I
 
 BV LADY JHIVAITE'S WORK-TABLE. 107 
 
 had to say about the bumpkin Baronet. She 
 thouo^hl I mio'ht remember somethino^ of Trild 
 Dicky Thwaite ; but though I have met one of 
 his nephews, he had done for himself and left 
 this part of the countr}" long before I came to 
 it. I suppose she will imagine I saw Noah 
 go into the ark next. You have never told 
 me what the man is like.' 
 
 ' He seemed a good sort of young man,' 
 repeated Iris not very clearly. 
 
 Lady Fermor gave another snort. 
 
 ' That is nothing to the purpose, unless 
 you thought of engaging him for a footman,' 
 she said ironically. ' I conclude you know a 
 man when you see him. Is he a fine-looking 
 fellow imder his rough rearing ? or is he a 
 cut below being polished ? I have known 
 the day when I should not have had to take 
 at second-hand the report of any young spark 
 in my neighbourhood.' 
 
 *• I think he is rather nice-lookinsr — I should 
 say so — yes, I am sure ; he has good eyes,' 
 hesitated Iris, growing confused under the 
 cross-examination and the certainty of giving 
 fresh offence. Conscious, too, alas ! that, 
 though she had shared in the lively curiosity 
 of the neighbourhood, still, after the first
 
 io8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 glance, she had not bestowed the most careful 
 inspection on Sir William's outer man. 
 
 ' You will tell me next that he has a nose 
 and mouth like other people,' cried Lady 
 Termor scornfully, ' and that he speaks when 
 he is spoken to. But I will judge of Sir 
 William Thwaite for myself. I shall drive 
 over and leave Lord Fermor's card, and then 
 invite the man to a family dinner. He is our 
 nearest neighbour, and we have not too many 
 available neighbours ; only old fogies and 
 young scamps out-at-elbows, and long-faced 
 hypocrites. I don't know what has become 
 of all the honest, open-hearted, open-handed 
 fellows I knew when I was young.'
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 SIR William's first rA:^iiLY dinner. 
 
 Lady Termor was as good as her word. She 
 left Lord Ferraor's card, she invited Sir 
 William, and, although he had refused other 
 invitations, he accepted this, drawn by an at- 
 traction he fought against in vain. 
 
 * The old woman may not be too particular,' 
 Sir William brooded ; ' if all is true that is 
 said of her, she ought not to be. But Miss 
 Compton will not look twice at a clod-hopper 
 — at worse than a clod-hopper, a wild, sense- 
 less brute when I was drunk. By George, if 
 she heard of what happened at Xihlpoor — that 
 I rubbed shoulders with the lash, the next 
 thing to rubbing shoulders with the gallows! 
 How dare I go where she is ? What if I 
 were found out, and kicked out, as I deserve 
 to be ?'
 
 no BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 He went, however, committing the pre- 
 sumption, and braving the risk. 
 
 Lambford had been an old house not un- 
 like Whitehills, but, in an evil hour for archi- 
 tectural harmony, Lord Fermor had built an 
 addition to the house in the utmost discord- 
 ance with the original, and in the worst pos- 
 sible taste. He had tacked on a new wing 
 twice as high and half a dozen times as orna- 
 mental as the main body of the building. The 
 entrance, by a great flight of stairs, penetrated 
 this wing, and in this favourite quarter were 
 the public rooms, with their ceilings at such 
 an altitude that the size of the apartments did 
 not keep them from looking like telescopes. 
 As much light as the season permitted poured 
 between the curtains of rows of great windows 
 extending from the floor midway to the ceil- 
 ing. Huge heavy marble chimney-pieces sur- 
 mounted the great grates of polished steel. 
 When Lady Fermor came to Lambford she 
 had caused the principal rooms to be re- 
 furnished according to her theory. This was, 
 if a man wanted a handsome dining-room and 
 drawing-room — and if they were not hand- 
 some, what were they ? — bid him go in for 
 good bright colours, massiveness of form, and
 
 sij^ William's first family dinner, m 
 
 plenty of carving. Above all, don't let him 
 grudge plate-glass and gilding. She hated 
 the dim, dirty tints that people pretended to 
 admire nowadays. And as for lattice panes 
 of green glass, worm-eaten chests and cup- 
 boards, rickety rush-bottom chairs, and blink- 
 ing wax candles instead of paraffine lamps, she 
 would not harbour such trash in her garrets. 
 Lambford had been a place to strike the eye 
 when she ordered its upholstery. It had been 
 as magnificent as some of the saloons she had 
 seen in Paris. She admitted the gilding had 
 become tarnished, and the gorgeous colours in 
 the big patterns had parted with much of their 
 splendour ; but the solid mahogany, walnut, 
 and rosewood, and the colossal mirrors had 
 worn well, and would last her time. For true 
 superbness of style recommend her to the era 
 which reflected the influence of the first gentle- 
 man in Europe, George Prince Eegent. 
 
 Sir William Thwaite was certainly im- 
 pressed when he was shown into the loud, 
 loaded, once -costly drawing-rooms, where 
 there was not a particle of evidence of culture 
 beyond an appetite for barbaric weight and 
 glitter, and where the worn, smirched traces 
 of age brought no kindly air of family use
 
 112 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 and wont — no sense of domestic charities. 
 Lady Fermor had presided with spirit all her 
 own over a great house, but she had never 
 made it a home. Lord Fermor, who had been 
 born and spent his youth there, had no home- 
 like feeling attached to the place, except what 
 belonged to a shut-up portion of the older half 
 of the house, to his private sitting-room and 
 the billiard-room, and to the stables and the 
 kennels, when he was still able to frequent 
 them. Iris was the single member of the 
 household, out of the servants' hall, w^ho had 
 found a home at Lambford ; but her home 
 was centred in the old schoolroom, which she 
 was allowed to keep for her morning and 
 working-room, and her white, dimity -hung 
 bedroom. 
 
 To Sir William's uninitiated eyes Lambford 
 looked as grand as a palace — not so far re- 
 moved in its atmosphere, barren of unsensual, 
 unselfish aims, and pure disinterested affec- 
 tions, from some of the marvellous Indian 
 palaces which he had visited, while it was not 
 in a palace like this that he would have ex- 
 pected to meet a princess like Iris Compton. 
 On the whole, mock | palace as it was till Iris 
 came in, he knew himself less out of his old
 
 SIR William's first family dinner. 113 
 
 element than he had been conscious of feeling 
 in Lady Thwaite's drawing-room. Lady 
 Termor, with her strong passions unbridled 
 in the violence of their prime, her long ex- 
 patriation from any save the fastest and 
 shadiest society, had forfeited in a large 
 measure any claims she had ever possessed to 
 gentle bearing. She was not very different, 
 except in accent and phrase, from the coarse, 
 untrammelled queens of some of the baggage- 
 waofofons. 
 
 But to do Lady Fermor justice, there were 
 other reasons why Sir AYilliam should feel at 
 ease with her. All that was most honest and 
 least vindictive in her nature, came out when 
 she encountered simple youthful manhood, as 
 the best in many bad women is shown where 
 little children are in question. Men had 
 always exercised far more influence over Lady 
 Fermor than women ; and it is just possible 
 that if she had come in contact with better 
 men when she began her career, if she had even 
 borne a son in her younger days, she might 
 have been a very imperfect but a far less 
 guilty woman than she had lived to prove 
 herself. 
 
 She had Sir William brought up to her sofa, 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 where she sat by the side of a blazing fire with 
 her Indian shawl wrapped round the bent, 
 shrunk figure which had once been that of a 
 tall woman, while the yellow old lace of her 
 ruffles and head-dress flapped about her 
 shrivelled hands and creased and crumpled 
 face. She looked him through as he came up 
 to her, and then she rose with the slow stiff- 
 ness of her years ; but there was no stifiiiess 
 in the cordial tones of the cracked but still 
 resounding voice with which she greeted him, 
 as her young neighbour and friend. 
 
 She bid him sit down beside her, and began 
 to talk of horses and dogs, of which in truth 
 he did not know much. But as most young 
 men have at their command some sort of 
 vocabulary where these interesting lower 
 animals are concerned, and as she led the 
 conversation, the circumscribed character of 
 his information did not become conspicuously 
 apparent. She went on to farming, of which 
 Mr. Miles had been talking to the Squire of 
 Whitehills, and on which his mind had been 
 naturally dwelling a good deal, since he came 
 to the place. Lady Fermor in ruling for her 
 lord had done a considerable amount of high- 
 handed farming for him. She was quite com-
 
 SIR WILLIAM S FIRST FAMIL V DINNER. 1 1 5 
 
 pet en t to speak on the rotation of crops, on 
 shorthorns, South Downs, and Berkshire pigs. 
 And her listener would have followed her 
 vigorous if one-sided details with comprehen- 
 sion and tolerable interest, if his attention had 
 not been distracted by the obligation of listen- 
 ing for a coming footstep, varied by an aroused, 
 disturbed apprehension — since he was not 
 acquainted with the habits of the dwellers in 
 these regions — that Miss Compton might not 
 appear or dine with him and her grandmother, 
 as he had counted upon her doing. 
 
 At last Iris came in, advanced straight to 
 him, and with an outstretched hand and her 
 eyes raised to his face said, without the slightest 
 semblance of insincerity, that she was very 
 glad to see him. At that moment he felt as if 
 it would have been a relief if she had stayed 
 away, he was so dazzled by the vision before 
 him, and mingled with the dazzling there was 
 so little self-assurance and so much trepida- 
 tion — approaching to discomfiture. He had 
 seen ladies in full dress as he had seen feasts 
 before, but both had . been at a distance, and 
 with not the most remote idea of holding com- 
 panionship with the ladies any more than of 
 partaking of aught save the broken meat of 
 
 8—2
 
 ii6 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 the feast. Besides, he had never seen any lady 
 like Iris Compton. 
 
 Lady Fermor did not approve of the change 
 in the style of dress for girls, which has marked 
 the close of the century, any more than of the 
 odd transformations in furniture. In the 
 former case the impetus is in the opposite 
 direction. There is no childish, mawkish affec- 
 tation, or crazy, hare-brained rusticity there. 
 But to waste silks and satins, ay and velvets, 
 for every night in the year, on chits who had 
 not attained the promotion of a wealthy mar- 
 riage or even of a promising engagement, 
 appeared to the old lady the height of extrava- 
 gant folly. Youth did not need much decking 
 out, and w^hat became of one of the principal 
 factors in a girl's making a sensible marriage 
 if she had not line clothes to look forward to ? 
 She might well relax in her good behaviour. 
 Better give her a house and servants and 
 carriages at her command at once, than leave 
 her to refuse the rich manw^ho did her the favour 
 to make her an offer, and accept the beggar who 
 took her silly fancy. It made no difference to 
 Lady Fermor that Iris was not particularly 
 fond of fine clothes. The matron acted on 
 the broad ground of the principle involved.
 
 5/y? William's first family dinner. 117 
 
 Iris wore an Indian muslin with a little 
 bunch of blue field hyacinths at her throat, 
 agreeing with the turquoise brooch that fas- 
 tened them, the turquoise earrings and bracelets, 
 and the turquoises set in the handle of her 
 Ivory fan. But Sir William's breath was 
 taken away by the look of the slender slip of 
 a girl in the soft white zephyr-like dress, 
 which seemed to suit her entirely, with the 
 touches of blue, like scattered flowers of the 
 forget-me-not, setting off her white skin, the 
 vermilion in her lips and complexion, and the 
 auburn of her hair — above all, the innocent 
 youthfalness of her face. 
 
 Sir William felt abashed by the fair sight. 
 He shrank secretly from the notion that he 
 might be ' paired ' with her, which seemed to 
 him not unlikely from their similarity in age, 
 and because there were no other young people 
 present. He was not aware that his rank and 
 importance as a stranger awarded Lady Fermor 
 to him, and that Iris was destined, as a matter 
 of course, to the only other guest present, a 
 middle-aged Major Pollock from Knotley. 
 
 Lord Fermor, though in fact younger in 
 years than his wife, was too feeble to take his 
 place at table. The company formed a partie
 
 ii8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 carree^ somebody said, which was a statement 
 as mysterious as any sentence in a Chaldean 
 manuscript to Sir William ; but He swallowed 
 it with courageous stolidity, as he did many 
 more things. He sat at the right hand of 
 Lady Fermor, and continued to hear her 
 opinions on farm stock and the grain markets. 
 He was not asked to carve. Her ladyship had 
 accepted a fashion which chimed in with the 
 disqualifications that had long been invading 
 the powers of the host and hostess of Lamb- 
 ford. Everything was carved at the sideboard. 
 There was actually nothing to disturb the 
 guest, whom her ladyship delighted to honour, 
 in his proper business of dining and listening 
 to his companion, unless he let his eyes and 
 thoughts stray to the couple opposite. He 
 had conceived an instant aversion to Major 
 Pollock, which subsequent inquiries justified. 
 He was a gentleman of decidedly objectionable 
 antecedents, whose only merit, if it could be 
 called a merit, was that, when a young man, 
 he had stood by Lady Termor in the miserable 
 crisis of her history. She boasted that she 
 never forgot an old friend, therefore Pollock 
 continued an hahitue of the house, though, in 
 this instance, the wicked had not flourished
 
 SIR WILLIAM S FIRST FAMILY DINNER. 119 
 
 like a green bay-tree. The Major had played 
 what might have been a pleasant, but what 
 had also been an unmistakably losing game 
 throughout the greater part of his life. His 
 uno;ilded sins were not of such a remote date 
 as to have sunk into partial oblivion like Lady 
 Termor's ; one especially — an affair at a Lon- 
 don club, which his fellow -men had elected to 
 be of an as^ofravated character, and had insisted 
 on reo^ardinof with rio:hteous indio'nation — had 
 very nearly done for the gentleman. This 
 was true even in the wilds of Eastham, to 
 which he had returned with his fallen fortunes, 
 setting up a bachelor's household — fastidious 
 only on the grand questions of meat and drink 
 — in a house which belonged to his family, in 
 the market town of Knotley. 
 
 All these parings of biography Sir William 
 picked up and fitted together later. His dis- 
 like to his vis-a-vis^ with his burly person, 
 exceedingly black hair, twirled moustache, 
 and crows' toes, was purely instinctive. Sir 
 William had not even the excuse of finding 
 Major Pollock on a detestably friendly footing 
 with Miss Compton, such as the gentleman's 
 fi:*eedom of the house and the unceremonious 
 terms he was on with Lady Fermor might
 
 I20 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 have warranted. It was clear that even Miss 
 Compton's unsophisticatedness and good- 
 nature rebelled against the mingled leer and 
 sneer which constituted Major Pollock's odious 
 expression where women were concerned. She 
 looked as if she had an uneasy sense — similar 
 to the old pricking of the thumbs — of some- 
 thing evil, beyond her power to cope with and 
 remedy, in her vicinity. Even a neophyte 
 could not mistake the constrained civility of 
 her bearing to her partner at table. He sub- 
 mitted to take his cue from her, probably with 
 the sullen, cowed notion that Lady Fermor, 
 who kept all that remained of her graceless 
 satellites well in hand, approved of her grand- 
 daughter's conduct in this particular, and did 
 not choose that a notorious black sheep should 
 approach too closely to the girl, with the 
 danger of sullying her white unimpeachable- 
 ness. 
 
 The contretem,ps of the evening occurred 
 when Sir William drew back his glass, a third 
 time, as it was about to be filled. 
 
 ' What is it. Sir William ?' cried the old 
 woman of the world, puzzled, through all her 
 accumulated knowledge, at this marked in- 
 stance of abstinence. ' If you will not have
 
 SIR William's first family dinner. 121 
 
 Chateau Margeaux, try Lafitte or Madeira ; or 
 do you prefer dry Champagne ? We must 
 have some brand that will suit you. Let me 
 help you myself.' 
 
 ' Thank you, my lady/ said the incorrigible 
 Sir William, not troubled by the form of 
 address, but shoTS'ing symptoms of agitation at 
 the hospitable contention which he foresaw 
 awaited him, and which was inexpressibly 
 painful to him, ' I don't drink any thing except 
 water ; I never do.' 
 
 ' Xot drink anything except water I' ex- 
 claimed Lady Fermor, in so high a key as to 
 have attracted the attention of the whole party 
 if it had been otherwise eno;ao;ed, and not 
 lying in wait for any general discussion. ' I 
 have heard that the old, under-bred temperance 
 movement is spreading in odd quarters, and 
 making the noise in the world which empty 
 tomfoolery always makes. Acton,' naming 
 her rector, ' has taken it up — Bands of Hope, 
 coffee-houses and all, " for the good of his 
 working-men," he says, as if his working- 
 women never entered an ale -house, or as if his 
 claret has anything to do with their beer. 
 But you are not a parson ; there is no earthly 
 call for you to serve as an example.'
 
 122 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 ^Itis not that; it is my own look-out/ he 
 stammered bluntly, fidgeting and crimsoning, 
 thinking that he was badgered, and conscious 
 that his temper was rising, but striving to 
 bridle it in such a presence; ' a friend made 
 me promise ' 
 
 ^ Oh, bother such promises V interrupted 
 Lady Fermor, with impatient scorn; ' I 
 wonder you pay heed to such stuff. Some 
 officious idiot has taken advantage of you.' 
 
 While he listened — amidst what seemed to 
 him the splendour of the Lambford dining- 
 table, with its blaze of lights, its glittering 
 silver and crystal, its sweet flowers and dainty 
 cheer — there rose up before him the interior 
 of a soldier's hut, and the spectacle of Jen, 
 worn out by her efforts to save him, pleading 
 with her last gasp that he might redeem him- 
 self from destruction. 
 
 His manners had not that repose which 
 stamps the caste of Yere de Yere. He lost 
 command over himself. His blue eyes 
 sparkled like steel. ' I will do as I choose in 
 what is nobody's business save my own,' he 
 shouted, looking round him fiercely ; ' and 
 whatever you or other gentlefolks may think 
 of promises, by God, I will keep mine !'
 
 sii^ William's first famil y dinner. 123 
 
 He brouofht down his clenched hand with 
 violence on the table. 
 
 The effect of a sudden thunderclap so loud 
 as to warrant the suspicion that the house 
 had been struck, might have borne some re- 
 semblance to the shock Sir William produced. 
 Lady Fermor, possibly for the first time in 
 her long life, sat open-mouthed, with her shak- 
 , ing hand arrested on its road to a bottle, which 
 a servant was presenting to her, l3^g ortho- 
 doxly on its side. 
 
 Major Pollock swore a private oath, which 
 had to do with a ' canting brute,' champed 
 his moustache to prevent an audible ' Haw ! 
 haw!' or a snarling reminder of his warning 
 of what might come of ladies having anything 
 to do with the scum of a barrack-yard such as 
 he had known, even though this man had been 
 discovered to represent a baronet and squire. 
 
 Iris looked half fi^io'htened, but her eves 
 shone. 
 
 The servants, not unaccustomed to extra- 
 ordinary demonstrations at Lambford, pre- 
 served their composure, though they were 
 posed by a novelty. 
 
 Sir William, who had become as pale as he 
 had been red, rose to his feet. ' I have to beg
 
 124 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 everyone's pardon if I have given offence and 
 been insufferably rude,' be said, with proud 
 humility, inadvertently glancing across at 
 Iris. * Everybody knows what I am come 
 from, that I have grown up a rough chap, 
 unfit for such company.' 
 
 Lady Fermor interrupted him. She had 
 been looking him through again, and now 
 she put her weak hand, with an imperative 
 gesture, on his arm, as a signal to him to sit 
 down again. ' My dear boy — you will suffer 
 the w^ord from an old woman,' she said, a little 
 hoarsely — ' let the matter rest. You shall 
 never be interfered with again, though you 
 should take it into your head to eat pulse as 
 well as to drink water. I could have wished, 
 for your own sake, you had not adopted this 
 freak, for it will be against your making your 
 way in the county, You see I speak plainly 
 in defence of my opinions, though plenty of 
 people will tell you they are not \Yorth defend- 
 ing. But the affair is your own, as you say. 
 If anybody is called on to apologize for getting 
 up a row, I think I ought to figure as the 
 guilty person. But I have lived more than 
 eighty years a sinner instead of a saint, so 
 what would you have?'
 
 SIR V/ILLIAM S FIRST FAMILY DINNER. 125 
 
 * Xothing, nothing,' he protested inco- 
 herently; ' you can't suppose that I want you 
 to excuse yourself, that I did not guess you 
 meant kindly by me, or that I sought to 
 dictate — save the mark ! — to anybody.' 
 
 ' Well, then, we'll let the argument drop 
 and the dinner go on in peace,' said Lady 
 Fermor, with the quickly restored philosophy 
 of a once practised judge of appeal in dinner 
 and card-table squabbles.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CAED-TABLES. 
 
 Lady Feemok showed no diminution of 
 favour to Sir William because of the sharp 
 skirmish that had followed his introduction to 
 her house. She would never have forgiven a 
 woman for persistent opposition to her will, 
 and the consequent outrage on conventional 
 good manners. Lady Termor had never 
 either forgiven or forgotten the manner in 
 which Iris had learnt Miss Burrage's creed 
 and stood by it, though the grandmother had 
 seen fit to ignore and shelve the useless 
 struggle. She would have treated any 
 woman's scruples with withering contempt, 
 even though she had been forced to give way 
 to them. But her estimate of men had always 
 been as far apart as the poles from her judg- 
 ment of women. She liked men to have wills 
 of their own; those were rather feathers in
 
 THE CARD-TABLES, 127 
 
 their caps than otherwise in her eyes. She 
 had always granted men license. She would 
 even permit them to be virtuous and Metho- 
 distical — was it possible for forbearance in 
 such a woman to go farther, without detesting 
 and despising them. And she still craved 
 their regard for herself. 
 
 When she rose from the table she took Sir 
 William's arm, availing herself of his support 
 instead of her old ally's aid, or her grand- 
 daughter's shoulder, or her own stick, to help 
 her to reach the drawing-room, where she still 
 kept her new friend by her side. She im- 
 proved on her lectures on agriculture by pre- 
 senting him with sketches — pungent, though 
 kept mthin bounds — drawn from her circle of 
 neighbours. 
 
 Once Major Pollock tried to strike in with 
 a malicious inquiry whether Sir William still 
 interested himself in military matters. The 
 public found men in every branch of the ser- 
 vice favouring it with their experience nowa- 
 days. It might be worth while to get Sir 
 William's opinion on recruits, or rations, or 
 the like. Major Pollock felt sure it would 
 carry weight, and would receive all the atten- 
 tion it deserved.
 
 128 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Sir William had from the first looked 
 askance at the half-pay officer, who, by the 
 way, had never seen more distant regimental 
 quarters than were to be found in Ireland. 
 The man appealed to knit his brows in per- 
 plexity and annoyance. But Lady Fermor 
 promptly interposed, and put a stop to the 
 cross-examination. She was more than a 
 match for a creature like Pollock, and she 
 would show him, w^hat he should have for his 
 impertinence in daring to plague any person 
 she protected. 
 
 ' We will have no shop talked here, Pollock,' 
 she said with grim decision. ' Indeed, your 
 theories must be so antiquated, and, if I am 
 not mistaken, some of your recollections of 
 your old regiment so disagreeable, that I re- 
 commend you not to attempt to compare notes 
 with Sir William here or anywhere ;' a signi- 
 ficant reminder which caused the gentleman to 
 retreat with a scowl. 
 
 Tea and cofi'ee were brought in. Major 
 Pollock read the newspapers sulkily. Iris 
 flitted like a white butterfly through the great 
 gorgeous room. 
 
 ' Play or sing something, child,' cried her 
 grandmother; and then from the grand piano,
 
 THE CARD-TABLES. 129 
 
 massive like the rest of tlie furniture, though 
 the march of time had reached the instrument 
 in its corner, there issued for the intruder not 
 the bravura strains which the once strong 
 fingers of Lady Fermor had forced from the 
 cracking strings, but the music of the spheres 
 wistfully rising and softly falling and dying 
 away; songs with words and without words, 
 by Schubert and Mendelssohn, Chopin's pas- 
 sionate, pathetic Polish mazurkas, quaint 
 tender ballads by unknown singers in the 
 far-ofi", misty past. He on whose ear every 
 note thrilled, would sooner have faced the 
 cannon's mouth hot with the death warrants 
 of battle, than approached uninvited the 
 girlish figure behind the heavy barricade, 
 even though he had been freed fi-om Lady 
 Fermor's detention. 
 
 Thouo;h Lord Fermor could no lono^er take 
 the foot of his table at dinner, he tottered into 
 the drawing-room on the arm of his valet. 
 The peer was a bent wreck of a man. with 
 lack-lustre eyes, and a tongue which still 
 wagged at intervals, no doubt, but had ceased 
 to be under the sure control of the brain. He 
 looked so pitiable an object, that Sir William 
 sprang up, as if he, a young man in his 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 strength, were fain to salute age in its last 
 mournful decay. 
 
 ' Come along, Fermor,' cried Lady Termor 
 in what had been her view-halloo voice, ' you 
 are as fresh as a daisy to-night. Well have 
 you following the hounds again, one of these 
 fine days.^ 
 
 ^ If you say so, my lady,' piped Lord 
 Fermor in his thin treble, showing his tooth- 
 less gums, with the ghost of a smile for the 
 woman who had been his ruin, and was his 
 last stay, ' then it must be all right. But 
 where are the card-tables ?' 
 
 Cards were the sole means of excitement 
 remaining to the couple, who had drunk other 
 sources to their polluted dregs in their day. 
 To do the two justice, it was more for a neces- 
 sary stimulant, than from an unholy greed of 
 gain, that Lambford had acquired its last bad 
 name for play. Lord Termor's encumbered 
 rent-roll was still more than enough for their 
 fast diminishing expenses, and would last 
 their time, while Iris was the only descendant 
 of the two to profit by their acquisitions. 
 There was an heir to the barony and entailed 
 estate who was a nephew of the present Lord 
 Fermor, his first wife having died childless.
 
 THE CARD-TABLES, 131 
 
 But though the reigning peer and his second 
 wife consented to accept Mr. Mildmay's tardy 
 overtures, the master and mistress of Lambford 
 cared nothing for their successor, naturally. 
 They regarded him as looking out for their 
 deaths, and taking stock of what was to come 
 to him, every time be showed his face at his 
 future place. 
 
 Major Pollock had thrown down his paper 
 to be ready for action, though he received no 
 further encourao^ement from his host than a 
 peevish, scantily civil — 
 
 ' Dear me. Pollock, have you ventured out 
 in this east wind ? I rather wonder at you, 
 but since you are here, you'll help us with 
 some game or other.' 
 
 ' All of us have not your privileges. Lord 
 Termor,' said Major Pollock dryly, ' but it is 
 always something to be of use.' 
 
 'I am afraid to ask if you play cards. Sir 
 William,' said Lady Fermor, with the drollest 
 suspicion of timidity, which was yet perfectly 
 sincere, in her voice and manner, as she spoke 
 to her next neighbour in a tone half- doubtful, 
 half-insinuatinsr. 
 
 ' I have played,' he admitted, ' but I may 
 not know any of your games.' 
 
 9—2
 
 132 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 ' N'importe^ man cliei\ I will teach you/ she 
 said gayly. 
 
 ' No, Pollock, you are to have nothing to 
 do with the lesson,' she interposed peremp- 
 torily, to prevent a quick movement of the 
 Major in their direction ; ' Sir William is to 
 be my pupil and my opponent when he has 
 learnt his lesson, do you hear? I don't want 
 any interference with the course of instruction 
 which I propose to give him.' 
 
 ' Very well. Lady Fermor, you shall make 
 your little game,' said Major Pollock, retreating 
 with a shrug and the beginning of a snarl 
 worked off by the relief of delivering an 
 unpleasant double entendre^ ' I may as well 
 take myself off, and face the east wind which 
 has incurred Termor's displeasure, since I 
 cannot even have the comfort of finding myself 
 usefuL' 
 
 ' Bosh, Pollock,' exclaimed the old lady, 
 who belonged to the generation of women that 
 had taken delight in addressing men freely by 
 their surnames. In fact she was even now 
 dropping the formal ' Sir William,' and, some- 
 what to his surprise, calling her newest fancy, 
 ^ Thwaite,' as his old comrades' wives had 
 done. She was not out of humour. She had
 
 THE CARD-TABLES. 133 
 
 just been propitiated by Sir William's conces- 
 sion to card-jDlajing. She desii^ed to make 
 amends to her old ally. ' You are not going 
 to set up being thin-skinned at this time of 
 the day,' she rallied him; 'you know I don't 
 like my lord to play without me at his elbow, 
 since he is not equal to too much excitement, 
 and wants me to keep him in order, don't 
 you, Fermor ? But there, you may tackle 
 him to-night, and Iris will help him with his 
 cards.' 
 
 ' Thanks,' said Major Pollock. ' It will be 
 an inequal match ; I shall have to put forth 
 all my skill against the combined forces of 
 Lord Fermor and Miss Compton. Besides, 
 don't you think ' — he passed behind her chair 
 and dropped the words into her ear — * it is late 
 in the day for me to begin to play the parts of 
 dry nurse and keeper?' 
 
 She frowned with rising wrath, but she 
 shook her fan at him the next moment, ' You 
 are a queer creature. You have gone on 
 findino; fault with the side on which vour 
 bread was buttered, ever since I have known 
 you, and as that is neither to-day nor yester- 
 day, I fancy I must put up with you to the 
 end.'
 
 134 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Sir William ran the most imminent risk of 
 convincing Lady Termor, against her will, 
 that he was a blockhead of the first water, for 
 the same couple that had threatened to play 
 ducks and drakes with his powers of attention 
 and response during dinner, formed part of a 
 trio, with only two little tables between him 
 and them. Major Pollock, whose sight was 
 failing, sat turned to one side in order to catch 
 the full light from the lamp on its stand just 
 behind him. He did not serve as a screen to 
 shut out the view of Miss Compton and her 
 grandfather from the furtive gazer. Dewy 
 youth and decrepit age sat side by side, as Iris 
 marshalled her grandfather's cards, put them 
 into his fumbling hands to play out in their 
 order, and marked his numbers for him. She 
 devoted all her care to Lord Fermor, as if 
 she would look as little as possible at their 
 antagonist. 
 
 Major Pollock did not play with the scornful, 
 reckless indifference that he might not have 
 taken the trouble to conceal, had there not 
 been golden stakes on which his eyes gloated ; 
 for he was a broken-down gentleman, up to 
 the neck in difficulties as everj^body knew. 
 But Iris did not wish him to have her grand-
 
 THE CARD-TABLES, 135 
 
 father's money. Major Pollock made her very 
 angry by the want of feeling and reverence 
 with which he took off, every now and then, 
 the scarcely conscious old man's pitiable weak- 
 nesses, turning them almost openly into mer- 
 ciless ridicule. She believed he dared not 
 have done it, if Lady Fermor had been dis- 
 enofao^ed enouo^h to see what he was about, but 
 he dared to do it before her — Iris, in mean 
 revenge for bemg set down to play this poor 
 little game of bezique instead of being allowed 
 to play a higher game. 
 
 As a rule, Iris was not called on to assist at 
 any of the Lambford card-tables unless when 
 her grandfather and grandmother were alone, 
 when they strictly limited their necessarily 
 tame diversion to taking from Peter to give to 
 Paul. It was the first battle she had fought 
 on her own — that is on her grandfather's ac- 
 count — against an unscrupulous adversary. 
 She regarded the field as unworthy, but she 
 stood by her guns and showed no want of 
 courage and determination. Young as she 
 was, the protective instinct was already strong 
 in her. All that Sir William understood of 
 the pantomime, was that Iris's little face was 
 flushed, and her lovely bow of a mouth
 
 136 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 straightened and compressed. If he could 
 only have seen beneath the soft, fine rings 
 curlinor like a child's hair on her forehead, he 
 would have discovered that the big brow 
 which ought to have been smooth as ivory, 
 was ruffled and rumpled with intentness and 
 vexation. 
 
 The young man could not imagine that the 
 girl cared any more than he did for the little 
 heap of sovereigns with which, at Lady Fer- 
 mor's suggestion, he and she had also adorned 
 their table. Any former experience he had 
 enjoyed in this line, had been in trials of 
 chance of a nature little better than pitch-and- 
 toss, and in betting on such races as some of 
 his officers had managed to get up even in 
 India. His losses had never been so deadly 
 as to imbue either him or Jen with a horror 
 of the propensity. But he could see that Miss 
 Compton had enough to try her, for not merely 
 was her grandfather inclined to be aimlessly 
 restive and to remonstrate without any dis- 
 tinct notion of what he objected to, with regard 
 to every card she sought out, and number she 
 marked between the deals, Lord Fermor's 
 clouded memory invariably reverted to an 
 awkward subject of inquiry. ' Who is the
 
 THE CARD-TABLES. 137 
 
 youngster playing with your grandmother, 
 girl ?' he demanded irritably, over and over 
 again. He spoke as if the knowledge had 
 been wilfully and iniuriouslv withheld from 
 him, and Iris had to hasten to reply in a suc- 
 cession of explanations delivered, with regard 
 to Lord Termor's deafness, in full ear -shot of 
 the object of his curiosity. She bit her lips, 
 and looked in an opposite direction, as she 
 kept saying every time, ' It is Sir William 
 Thwaite, grandpapa.' 
 
 *And who the mischief is Sir AVilliam 
 Thwaite ? never heard of him in all my days,' 
 grumbled the insatiable questioner. 
 
 ' Oh, Sir William who has succeeded old 
 Sir John, and has lately come to Whitehills.' 
 
 ' What ! Is Sir John dead ? Why have I 
 never heard of it? Who the dickens will ^o 
 next, I wonder?' 
 
 She would not laugh, because Major Pollock 
 was grinning maliciously without scruple or 
 disguise. And if that grin were observed, 
 either by Lord Fermor or Sir William, it might 
 be enough to exasperate the innocent oiFender 
 into a frenzy, or to cover the still more inno- 
 cent victim with confusion of face, without her 
 conspiring to increase the misfortune. She
 
 138 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 bore the assaults on her patience and temper 
 wonderfully, but at last her girlish gravity 
 gave way; yet even in yielding to the irresist- 
 ible provocation, she did not join in Major 
 Pollock's lauo^h. She looked across with half- 
 shy frankness and laughed a deprecating appeal 
 to Sir William, who coloured to the roots of 
 his hair as he smiled slowly back to her. She 
 was like an angel, Sir William vowed, with a 
 swelling heart, and he was inspired and em- 
 boldened to take a step on which he would 
 not have ventured earlier. When the game 
 was finished and everybody rose, he happened 
 to be standing near Iris for a moment. In 
 that moment he had ' the impudence,' as he 
 called it afterwards, to speak to her for a 
 second time aside, to beg her pardon specially. 
 
 ' I am sorry for what took place during 
 dinner,' he muttered. ' Lady Fermor has been 
 good enough to look over it, but I behaved 
 like a sulky brute.' 
 
 She glanced up at him with a light kindling 
 in her hazel eyes, her face grew grave, but it 
 was very gentle and sweet in its womanly 
 gravity. She spoke with generous impulsive- 
 ness, ' Don t apologise, I am sure you did 
 quite right.'
 
 THE CARD-TABLES, 139 
 
 The Greek Iris was said to cut tlie last strand 
 of human destiny, to refresh the parched earth 
 by pouring down rivers of waters fr^om the 
 lowering clouds, and then to glorify them 
 with all the colours of the rainbow. But this 
 English Iris unwittingly knotted instead of 
 cutting a terrible tangle in a poor mortal's 
 career, poured out the beginning of a flood 
 of trouble and sorrow on his devoted head, 
 and then shone above him in incomparable 
 radiance, as if that could have brought any 
 balm to his woes.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LADY FERMOR's NEIGHBOURLY WAYS. 
 
 The squires of Eastham did their part by Sir 
 William Thwaite. They all paid their respects 
 to him and held out the right hand of fellow- 
 ship to him, declaring that he was not nearly 
 so bad as they had expected, and that now he 
 was ' Sir William and all that,' the past had 
 better be forgotten and he should be treated 
 as if he had been born, cradled, and schooled 
 in the purple. It would be hard to say 
 exactly what the squires had expected, or 
 what they thought of themselves. Some of 
 them were clownish enough to this day, and 
 not without wild ways of their own in their 
 out-of-the-Avay retreats, though they had worn 
 pink coats, sworn over grouse, handled old 
 plate, swaggered in dining-rooms and dozed 
 in drawing-rooms, ever since the middle-aged 
 men were boys.
 
 LAD V FERMOR'S NEIGHBOURL V WA YS, 141 
 
 But of Sir William's fellow- squires and 
 nearest neio^hbours, every one was too old to 
 be a natural companion for him. The way 
 of the modem world and the poverty of East- 
 ham rendered it impossible that the county 
 should support a population of young men of 
 the higher rank. These lads, including the 
 heirs of estates, were all drafted off betimes 
 into regiments or ships, to eat their dinners 
 in the Temple, to wear white surplices and be 
 petted or pitied as curates, even to figure in 
 the upper walks of trade in the larger mer- 
 cantile towns, or to make shift in the colonies. 
 The absentees who could turn up at set 
 seasons only fluttered home like the birds the 
 young men came to shoot in September, or, 
 like the children and schoolboys at Christmas, 
 or on any private emergency, or demonstration 
 in the visitors' respective families. What 
 remained permanently was a small residue of 
 half-pacers, pretenders to a better position 
 than they were entitled to, scampish yoimo- 
 fellows of whom nothing could be made, who 
 took their cue from Major Pollock when they 
 were within hail of Knotley. Some of these 
 promising young people were supposed to be 
 trying better class farming or brewing, since
 
 142 • BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 there was a great brewery in Knotley, while 
 they plagued the hearts out of their unfortu- 
 nate parents or all who were responsible for 
 the delinquents. 
 
 With both the old and the young sets 
 representing the squirearchy, Sir William 
 Thwaite's total abstinence, in drinking only 
 water or tea, was, as Lady Fermor had easily 
 prognosticated, a great stumbling-block to 
 familiar intercourse and social intimacy. A 
 rumour spread abroad that Sir William had 
 made a vulgar clamour in refusing to drink 
 wine at Lady Fermor' s table, where the 
 choicest vintages had been wont to flow in 
 bucketfuls. Lady Fermor had condoned the 
 offence for her own ends, but her neighbours, 
 who might not have the same inducement, 
 did not feel inclined to excuse the outrage. 
 The most sober of the elder men did not 
 scruple to declare that total abstinence was 
 suspicious and ominous, not to say bad form. 
 The fellow must have suffered from D.T. 
 Depend upon it there would be reaction and 
 an outbreak sooner or later. There was 
 nothing like moderation in all things. The 
 young men in great disgust voted Sir William 
 at once a low prig, a dissenting minister in
 
 LADY FERMOR'S NEIGHBOURL V WAYS. 143 
 
 disguise, a wet blanket, a beastly interloper. 
 The favour of the last-mentioned critics would 
 not have been particularly desirable for the 
 man whom they sent to Coventry. Poor 
 Jen's prevision was j^i'ophetic where they were 
 concerned. 
 
 But Sir William was lonely in his new 
 estate, and he would have been still lonelier 
 had not Lady Fermor proved faithful to her 
 fancy and approached him as she knew how, 
 in a variety of neighbourly ways. He had 
 touched some softer chord in the hard, cjTiical 
 old heart. Whether he recalled an honest 
 young brother who had believed in her when 
 she was still deserving of belief, with whom 
 she had been hand and glove in her early girl- 
 hood, or a lover for whom she had felt the 
 dawning of fervent respect and regard, though 
 she had tortured and tried him, till for his 
 honour and happiness he had parted from her 
 for ever, or the boy she might have borne 
 instead of weak and whimpering girls, who 
 could perhaps have saved her fi'om the dejDths 
 which had left her what she was ; there was no 
 question of the kindly feeling for Sir William 
 which underlay the mocking defiance of the 
 neighbourhood, her determination to ap-
 
 144 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 propriate the new-comer, and the rapid for- 
 mation in her mind of certain worldly schemes 
 where he was concerned. 
 
 Lady Fermor kept up briskly the acquain- 
 tance which had been begun. She invited 
 Sir William constantly over to Lambford and 
 she returned his visits by unceremonious calls, 
 to ask what he was doing, what he thought of 
 the weather for the turnips, whether his lambs 
 were in good condition. She would disturb 
 the absolute silence of the long low-roofed 
 drawing-room, out of which Lady Thwaite 
 had been wont to allow complacently so much 
 could be made in this age of revivals. It was 
 such a delicious place for window-seats, screens, 
 fans and pot-pourri. As it was now stripped 
 of Ladv Thwaite' s reversion of the screens, 
 fans and pot-pourri, and under the superinten- 
 dence of an unexceptionable housekeeper like 
 Mrs. Cray, who hated what she termed litter, 
 the room was quickly assuming a stiff, stony 
 and disused aspect. But it did not chill or 
 daunt Lady Fermor, who claimed her after- 
 noon tea there and looked round her on the 
 family portraits which were heir-looms, the 
 couple of Sir Joshuas, the fine fragments of old 
 tapestry, with a freedom which even she
 
 LADY FERMOR S NEIGHBOURL V IVA VS. 145 
 
 had not attempted when the room owned a 
 mistress. 
 
 Lady Fermor declared without a falter, 
 rather with sly satisfaction, that she was a 
 great deal too old for people to speak about 
 her any longer, or to mind what she did, so 
 that she could drop in on a young friend to 
 see what he was about without making a 
 rumpus. She never took her grand-daughter 
 with her, on her ' larking expeditions,' but 
 Sir William was in Iris Compton's company 
 every time he went over to Lambford. He 
 accepted the invitations. Mr. Miles' s early 
 warning proved of no avail. Will Thwaite 
 had not been so nice in the company he had 
 kept that he should consider himself too good 
 for these people, one of whom was the sweetest 
 and truest of God's creatures. So Ions;- as he 
 did not fail in his promise to Jen, he did not 
 see what harm could come of his ofoin^^ where 
 he was made heartily welcome. He thought 
 more of that after the first visit than of the 
 rank of Lord and Lady Fermor or the grandeur 
 of Lambford. • 
 
 Sir William did not mind losing a little 
 money ; he supposed it was the way of such 
 houses, and he could afford it. For that 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 matter, Lady Fermor had interposed her 
 shield, from the first evening on which Sir 
 William had gone to Lambford, between him 
 and wholesale plunder, as represented by 
 Major Pollock and birds of his feather. She 
 kept her young neighbour very much to her- 
 self, either as her antagonist or her partner at 
 the card-table. She would consent to amuse 
 herself by winning more or less of his guineas ; 
 but so long as she could help it there should 
 be no turning inside-out of his pockets, no 
 inoculating him with the incurable disease of 
 play, no instilling into him the arts of a 
 blackleg in self-defence. One lad who had 
 trusted her should not have to curse the day 
 he had ever seen her face. He should come 
 and go at Lambford without his being the 
 worse for it, even if his being the worse were 
 not likely to interfere with a half-formed 
 plan of hers. 
 
 Yet Sir William did not respond to Lady 
 Termor's friendship without some instinctive 
 reluctance. Whatever his youthful errors had 
 been, his better nature was repelled by her, as 
 by an old woman who was very far from what 
 she should be. In spite of her gradual social 
 whitewashing, she occasionally made revela-
 
 LADY FERMOR S NEIGHBOURLY WA YS. 147 
 
 tions of herself which revolted him. He re- 
 sented her lack of affection for her grand- 
 daughter, which he had been quick to notice, 
 and felt aggrieved by it, though it was no 
 business of his, and so far as he could judge, 
 the indifference remained unmixed with any 
 form of ill-usage. But it also belonged to his 
 nature, both in its strength and its weakness, 
 that he should be touched by any kindness 
 shown to himself. Lady Fermor, be she what 
 she might, was awfully good to him, and one 
 day finding her alone among the tulip beds on 
 the terrace at Lambford, tottering along by 
 the help of her parasol, he was moved to an 
 impulsive offer of his strong young arm, the 
 first he had made to a lady in his life. 
 
 ' Won't you lean on my arm, my lady ?' he 
 said, awkwardly enough, ' if it ain't too great 
 a freedom in me to propose it.' 
 
 She took his arm instantly, and patted it 
 with her claw of a hand, as she chatted to 
 him. 
 
 Another day he was shown into the back 
 drawing-room by a bungle of the servant's ; 
 Sir William immediately concluded — when he 
 found Lady Fermor almost swallowed up in 
 wraps, in an easy-chair, with one foot swathed 
 
 10—2
 
 148 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 as in the cerements of a mummv on a stool 
 before her — in the clutches of gout. He stopped 
 on the threshold with a brief word of apology 
 and regret, and was about to beat a rapid 
 retreat when the sufferer hailed him. 
 
 ' Don't go away, Thwaite,' she forbade him. 
 ' Come forward, and let me see a hale and 
 hearty fellow w^ho has all his senses, and is 
 neither worn out, nor deaf, nor blind — even 
 Pollock has to use glasses in private, though 
 the fool goes blinking without them in public. 
 You have not had a twinge of my enemy. 
 Ah, your day will come. Well, perhaps not, 
 if you go on drinking ditch water ; but I dare 
 say worse will happen to you. Sit down and 
 tell me what news is going, or read the papers 
 to me for a bit. I am sick of that hole of a 
 dressing-room of mine, to which I have been 
 confined for three days. I dare say I shall 
 die some day without my friends having had 
 the grace to inquire for me. No ; I know you 
 had not heard, but whose fault was that ? 
 jSTow that you are here I am going to make 
 you useful. See, there is a draught blowing 
 from that window, draw the curtains more to 
 my side.' 
 
 He did as he was told, handily enough this
 
 LABV PERM or' S NEIGHBOURLY WAYS.' 149 
 
 time. He was one of those rough fellows who 
 are gentle in sick-rooms. Indeed, he had 
 a greater knack at nm'sing even than Iris 
 Compton possessed. This gift had become 
 known both in and out of hospital in the 
 course of his soldiering. He had been re- 
 peatedly told off as the orderly appointed to 
 wait on a sick comrade or officer. But he had 
 certainly never w^aited on an old lady under 
 an attack of gout before. ' Mais ce n'est que 
 le premier pas qui coute.' When he turned 
 and saw better the hollow eyes glittering with 
 fever and pain, the puckered, yellow face, the 
 constrained attitude, the helplessness, he was 
 full of pity, and of a erasing to be of service 
 to her. 
 
 ' It ain't a joke. Have you had your medi- 
 cine? Don't it ease you the least thing? No ; 
 I am main sorry. I think, if you would let 
 me, I could lift you right up and set you down 
 again more comfortable like.' 
 
 ' Ah ! thank you, my dear fellow, that is 
 ever so much better. I am in the very best 
 corner of purgatory now. How long would 
 it have been before any idiot of a servant or 
 a doctor could have managed it ? Of course 
 a well-meaning baby like Iris would only kill
 
 ISO BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 herself without being of an atom of use to me. 
 There, will you read to me ? for the truth is 
 I am not up to talking. You'll find some of 
 the morning papers on that table.' 
 
 He fell into the trap, if trap it was, instantly. 
 He brought the paper, and read fluently in a 
 stentorian but perfectly distinct voice, which 
 had lost its self-consciousness for the moment. 
 He picked out carefully the paragraphs re- 
 lating to races far and near, and the last 
 report of the Mark Lane Express. Then he 
 courageously attacked the columns that set 
 forth a trial for murder. He was satisfied that 
 these were the portions of the paper in which 
 she would take most interest. 
 
 Sir William read till Lady Fermor, grow- 
 ing drowsy, dismissed him with thanks and 
 praise. 
 
 ' I don't know what I owe to you, since 
 you are sending me off to sleep, which is the 
 very best thing you could have done for me — 
 what Sawbones has tried in vain to bring about 
 with his abominable opiates. You have read 
 what any rational, unaffected person would 
 like to listen to, and I have heard every word 
 you said, for you don't cheep like a girl or 
 mouth like a play-actor.'
 
 LADY termor's NEIGHBOURLY WAYS, 151 
 
 The last hit was dh'ected against Mr. Acton, 
 the rector, who, in seeking zealously to be eves 
 to his discreditable old parishioner, had neither 
 succeeded in affording pleasure nor conveying 
 profit. 
 
 But to-day Lady Fermor's heavy eyes were 
 moist as they glanced after her nurse and 
 reader. She was a good deal of a Stoic, and 
 wished to feel sufficient for herself, but it was 
 so long, so very long, since she had been served 
 with any ser^dce she cared to accept out of 
 pure, disinterested goodwill, with some kindly 
 care for her at the bottom of the act.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 KIVAL CLAIMS. 
 
 Lady Thwaite soon became aware of the 
 degree to which Lady Fermor had diverted 
 Sir William from what, after Lady Thwaite' s 
 advances, ought to have been his grateful, 
 trustful reliance on the only person near, who 
 had the most distant pretension to being con- 
 nected with him by a family tie. The absence 
 of any natural Netherton influence over hiili, 
 and the fact that he could not find anything 
 in common with the late Sir John's widow, 
 were disappointing traits in Sir William. The 
 conclusion might have been held a compliment 
 to her ladyship, still it was a piece of great 
 stupidity in the young man, since Lady 
 Thwaite was so popular in the neighbourhood. 
 She was not bluer or more aesthetical than 
 the custom of the day required. She was 
 not stuck up or puritanical. She was a woman
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 153 
 
 of society, a charming woman in most people's 
 estimation, the secret of whose charm was that 
 she could suit herself admirably to any com- 
 monplace, tolerable company, in her own class 
 of course. 
 
 The cool appropriation of Sir AVilliam by 
 Lady Fermor was a lawless interference with 
 the rights of another, and an arrogant trampling 
 upon them which savoured of the woman's old 
 machinations. But Lady Thwaite, though she 
 had all her life shown that she could look out 
 for herself, was no match for her neighbour, 
 and knew it, which was a considerable proof 
 of Lady Thwaite's cleverness. She felt pro- 
 voked and aggrieved, but she did not dream 
 of entering the lists against the successful 
 competitor. If Sir AVilliam Thwaite had the 
 bad taste and the bad moral perception — and 
 after all, what could be expected ft'om him? — 
 to accept Lady Termor for his sponsor, and to 
 turn to Lambford for countenance and guid- 
 ance, unquestionably he was at liberty to do 
 so. The loss of frequent personal visits from 
 him would simply be a relief from maintaining 
 fellowship with a boor and a bore, from the 
 responsibility of inflicting him on her friends, 
 and from being, in a sense, security for his
 
 154 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 good behaviour. Thanks to her mother's 
 lawyer and the late Sir John, his widow was 
 not by any means dependent on the favour of 
 his successor, though she would have liked to 
 have done her duty by him and by the fine 
 old place over which she had presided, which 
 she had once hoped would have descended to 
 her son. But if Sir William showed himself 
 incapable of appreciating her motives and was 
 infatuated, there remained nothing more to be 
 said. 
 
 Lady Thwaite in her calmness and reason- 
 ableness was, as Mr. Miles had vouched for, 
 not at all difficult to get on with, up to a 
 certain point, and if you expected nothing 
 farther, you would not be disappointed. She 
 had at once suspected Lady Fermor of ulterior 
 designs. ' Trust the naughty old woman not 
 to do anything without having a sufficiently 
 selfish end to serve,' said Lady Thwaite to 
 herself. The preponderance of a certain 
 quantity of brain over heart in her, prevented 
 her from so much as conceiving the lingering 
 womanly regard with which Sir William had 
 inspired his undesirable monitor. ' What is 
 it ?' pondered Lady Thwaite. ' Does she 
 want a fit victim for the intermittent gambling
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 155 
 
 that still goes on fitfully at Lambford ? I 
 know I — who make a rule of never staking 
 anything save gloves — was forced into losing 
 three guineas the last time I dined there. I 
 did wish I had paid heed to poor Sir John, 
 and kept clear even of ci-devant black sheep, 
 or that I could have pled, like demure Mrs. 
 Acton, that the Rector would not permit me 
 to play for money. Is Lady Fermor bent on 
 making a match between Sir William and Iris 
 Compton? I did think, when they met here, 
 that if it had been anybody else I should 
 have said she seized the first opportunity of 
 taking his homely measure and laying herself 
 out for him. He is a good-looking fellow 
 enough, and might pass for horsey and 
 nothinof worse, thouo^h I believe he enlisted in 
 an infantry regiment. He knows how to 
 hold his tongue in the meantime, and when 
 he reaches the stage of speaking, very likely 
 he will do it decently. Whitehills is not to 
 be despised, even with a Sir Will attached to 
 it, as a necessary though not very available 
 appendage. But Iris is not a girl of that 
 sort, not that there would be any harm in her 
 seeking to push her fortune, if there were any 
 call for it, or if her destiny were in her own
 
 156 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 keeping. Women of the upper classes have 
 no other resource, unless they take to mount- 
 ing platforms. But Iris Compton has birth, 
 beauty, and if her grandfather and grand- 
 mother live to nearly a hundred, as mauvais 
 sujets usually do, I dare say she will have 
 something like a fortune. But there are the 
 ugl}^ antecedents, with what may be the taint 
 in the blood. No ; many a man would not 
 choose her for his wife, poor girl ! so that my 
 dearly beloved and right worshipful cousin, 
 Sir William, might have a chance. He had 
 the taste to make sheep's eyes at her, as at a 
 divinity, the other day. I wonder how it 
 would do ! Iris would be a great improve- 
 ment for a cousin, and she would not rule 
 with a high hand. She is the style of grand 
 simpleton who would never forget old favours 
 and former conditions — for instance, that I 
 had been kind to her, and had been mistress 
 of Whitehills in my day. How does it feel 
 to be Queen Dowager or ex-Lady Mayoress, 
 I should like to know ? That has not come 
 quite within my experience yet, since my dear 
 old drawing-room is given over to Mrs. Cray, 
 and no other Lady Thwaite reigns at White- 
 hills. I should say it depended to some
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS, 157 
 
 extent for its being made tolerably endurable, 
 on the temper of the reigning Queen- Consort 
 or Lady Mayoress. Ah ! but nice as she is, 
 there is tliat in the blood, while the association 
 might prove a fearful risk in its utter un- 
 suitability. Beauty and the Beast, the 
 Princess and — not the knightly Page — the 
 ploughman Squire.' 
 
 After further thinking over the subject, 
 Lady Thwaite saw herself called upon to 
 attempt a talk with Sir William. She would 
 drop a gentle hint — double-barrelled — against 
 the danger of houses — of which Lambford 
 was not the only one in Eastham — in which 
 play was as an essential element, and against 
 the rashness of marriages which involved bad 
 connections. 
 
 Lady Thwaite sent Sir William one of her 
 little notes, summoning him — with the most 
 disarming, compelling confidence in his obey- 
 inof the summons — to come over to Xetherton 
 either for luncheon, afternoon-tea, or dinner, 
 as he felt inclined, to discuss a tenant difficultv 
 w^ith regard to one of the farms set apart for 
 her jointure, about which, by the way, she 
 was a hundred times better informed than he 
 could be. * Men like to be consulted whether
 
 158 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 they know or not,' she reasoned. ' Poor Sir 
 John always did. It used to put him into a 
 good humour, and the less he knew, the 
 better he was pleased. I am right to begin 
 by asking Sir William's opinion, and young 
 Sam Withers' s views about a new lease will 
 do as well as any other subject.' 
 
 Out of three evils Sir William chose the 
 least, the slight refection which ladies affect 
 as afternoon-tea. Though he never drank tea 
 then, for his own part, it was not such a 
 novelty to him, as many another thing. His 
 sister Jen, the washerwoman, and her cronies, 
 had taken tea at all hours ! Here was the 
 touch of nature which seemed to make the 
 whole of women kin. Besides, he had been 
 fortunate before on such an occasion. Who 
 knew what graceful figure might not pass the 
 windows, what flower-face blossom before his 
 ravished eyes, what eager, gentle interposition 
 save him from a horrible strait ? He had not 
 forgotten the burden which included agonies 
 of mauvaise lionte, the mingled stupefaction 
 and smart of a consciousness of unbounded 
 ignorance, the dread of looking like a cad, 
 with the angry suspicion, bordering on con- 
 viction, that the late Sir John's widow did
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS, 159 
 
 not find her own house an insuperable 
 barrier against making game of her husband's 
 heir ? 
 
 But unless for the pleasure of being helped 
 by Iris, Sir William was becoming more in- 
 dependent of extraneous aid in his new 
 sphere. 
 
 It is a curious study both for philosophy 
 and satire, to recognise how soon a man of 
 ordinary aptitude and fair opportunities ac- 
 commodates himself outwardly to a change 
 of circumstances. There may be a thousand 
 things, petits soins of etiquette, tricks, turns 
 and shades of behaviour which take years, 
 nay generations to acquire, which, when all 
 is said, women learn sooner and better than 
 men. But it would have been either en- 
 couraging or mortifying, according to the 
 creed or temper of the individual, for an on- 
 looker to have satisfied himself of the degree 
 to which Sir William had accustomed him- 
 self, on the surface at least, within three or 
 four months, to a new style of living. He 
 now sat, or leant back, very much at his ease 
 apparently, in one of Lady Thwaite's fauteuils, 
 and looked round with calmly observant — she 
 could almost have said critical eyes, on her
 
 i6o BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 treasures, the orchids from his own green- 
 houses, the Banksia rose-tree covering the 
 door of the conservatory with its myriads of 
 minute flowers. But she did not have him 
 there that she might privately remark on the 
 improvement in his manner and hearing, 
 which, save for his soldierly carriage, owed 
 little or nothing to his training. The only 
 sign she gave of noticing his progress, w^as 
 that the faultlessly well-bred widow, in her 
 faultless weeds, did not again break down by 
 committing the solecism of converting her 
 STuest and kinsman into a butt. 
 
 Lady Thwaite discussed fluently the griev- 
 ance of young Sam Withers's wishing a new 
 lease to his farm already, and settled the 
 question without much help from Sir William, 
 whose one idea, as yet, in such difficulties was 
 Mr. Miles. Then she glided on to general 
 topics, chatting easily and brightly. There 
 was not much going on in the neighbourhood 
 just then — there was not much at any time. 
 Eastham was a little slow, even those who 
 loved it best — and she hoped Sir William 
 would grow fond of his county — must own 
 that. But it would have been a blessing if 
 the quality of slowness had been the only old
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS, i6i 
 
 fashion to be deprecated which still held its 
 own in Eastham. Was Sir AVilliam aware 
 that a considerable — she might say a lament- 
 able — amount of high play survived in every 
 class, with the most distressing results in 
 some cases ? The Kector could tell him tales 
 of its demoralisinof effect on manv of the 
 farmers. She trusted Sir William as a new- 
 comer would set his face against the practice, 
 when he met it in their circle. 
 
 Sir William in his gravity was not without 
 a sense of humour, and now that he was 
 beginning to get over the shocks he had 
 sustained, the humour had room to play at 
 times. ^ 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, Lady Thwaite, I think 
 it is just because I am a new-comer that it is 
 not for me to interfere ; now, you are an old 
 hand ' 
 
 * An old hand I' she swallowed the brutal 
 plain speaking. ' I would gladly try the little 
 I can, but except abroad a woman has nothing 
 to do with play.' 
 
 Poor Lady Thwaite ! she was an innocent 
 woman dwelling among green fields after all. 
 She had little suspicion of the re-appearance 
 of the mortal malady among the grand dames 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 i62 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 of the generation. Such a relapse consum- 
 mates the ruin of old historical families, 
 brings to the hammer broad acres, and 
 scatters art collections which have taken 
 centuries to acquire, and have been kept 
 together through changes of dynasties and 
 national up-heavals, to be gambled away by 
 the turning up of a knave or the loss of an 
 ace. 
 
 ' It is a vice,' continued Lady Thwaite in 
 her simplicity, ' which you men keep very 
 much to yourselves in England. But Lady 
 Termor is an exception. Is it not a melan- 
 choly spectacle to see a poor old creature like 
 Lord Fermor, and a battered, bedizened old 
 woman like Lady Fermor — they say she 
 came out at Almack's — cling to cards as 
 their chief good, when one would think the 
 couple might be turning their attention to 
 other things ?' 
 
 * To their graves or their winding sheets, I 
 suppose?' Sir William rose to irony. 'I 
 thought the Fermors were your friends,' he 
 said, repeating the objection he had made to 
 Mr. Miles 's opinion, as if the higher Sir Wil- 
 liam rose in the world the more social hypo- 
 crisy he encountered. ' They can take their
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS, 163 
 
 choice, I fancy. If they are too stiff to walk 
 or ride, and can't see to read, and are not 
 able to entertain their friends in any other 
 way, ain't cards made for them, and the like 
 of them, to pass some of their slow creeping 
 time ?' 
 
 She hastened to explain herself. ' I quite 
 agree with you that cards, or backgammon, or 
 chess, in moderation, are excellent resources 
 for old people, especially if they are deaf 
 Don't imagine for a moment that I am so 
 narrow or silly as to object to cards in them- 
 selves. Why, I used to play draughts with 
 Sir John as regularly as the evenings came 
 round. It is perfectly depressing to come 
 across the board now. But it was play for 
 high stakes according to people's means, that 
 I was deploring. If that has ceased at Lamb- 
 ford it can only be lately. Oh ! Lady Fermor. 
 has been a dreadful woman,' exclaimed Ladv 
 Thwaite, as if on the impulse of the moment, 
 shading her face with a fan which lay at hand. 
 ' One cannot speak of such things, unless when 
 an old married woman, as you rightly regard 
 me, opens her mouth to put a stranger and 
 kinsman on his guard. There is no end of 
 skeletons in that house — very grisly skeletons. 
 
 11—2
 
 1 64 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 The first Lady Fermor died mad. A visitor 
 staying in the house locked his room door and 
 shot himself, after quitting the card-table. He 
 was a young man engaged to be married ; the 
 only son of a widow, and he was a clergyman 
 — I am sorry to say, when he yielded to the 
 madness and could not face the disgrace and 
 destruction in store for him. Poor Iris Comp- 
 ton ! it is very sad for her, but although she 
 is a charming girl, as good as gold, and all 
 the horrors happened before she was born, 
 still the reproach attaches in some measure to 
 her — a portion of the shadow falls on her. It 
 is grievous, but it cannot be helped.' 
 
 It was a rainy afternoon in May, and he had 
 been sitting with his long legs and his boots — 
 not free from mud — stretched out before him, 
 while he glanced out of the window nearest to 
 him with a mind half- wandering from the con- 
 versation, because of her he mio^ht see amono- 
 the laurels, in spite of the rain which had only 
 begun to fall. He drew himself up with a 
 suddenness that made Lady Thwaite start, and 
 turned upon her a lowering brow and a hot 
 cheek. He was unused to any diplomacy in 
 conversation ; he only knew that he hated to 
 have his friends called bad names — all the
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 165 
 
 more, perhaps, if they deserved them. But it 
 made him furious to listen to the most distant 
 insinuation of a stain on the spotless plumage 
 of a white dove like Miss Compton. 
 
 ' I have found Lambford a jolly house,' he 
 declared defiantly. ' Old Lady Fermor behaves 
 like a mother to me. Why do you smile and 
 shake your head? I am sure she is old enough 
 to be my grandmother.' At that word, which 
 slipped out inadvertently, he coloured more 
 violently than before, and began to flounder 
 in his speech. ' You don't mean me to rake 
 up old scandals, and to distrust everybody 
 who speaks me fair and makes me welcome, 
 because they have not always been on the 
 square. I am not their judge; I have sins 
 enough of my own to answer for — if you only 
 knew. As for Miss Compton, I will not speak 
 of her ; she is not to be brought into such talk, 
 only she is as much beyond reproach as the 
 stars in the sky. Good-bye, Lady Thwaite. 
 Oh ! dash it now, I am not displeased. What 
 right has a fellow like me to be displeased or 
 to object to any word which a woman — a lady 
 — likes to say of her friends in her own draw- 
 ing-room?' and out he marched. 
 
 She rose, went to a window, and stood look-
 
 i66 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 ing after him as he walked fast across the 
 sweep and down the little avenne. She 
 laughed a little at her own dismissal. ' Yes, 
 he has dismissed me ; I have not sent him 
 away. He might have taken an umbrella ; 
 but I suppose he has stood sentinel in the wet 
 like the man in Tennyson's verses. It is a 
 plain-spoken Sir Will ; yet I am not sure that 
 he saw my drift. It is evident he is hit by 
 Iris Compton. He has not the self-control or 
 delicacy to maintain a becoming reserve, not 
 to say to throw dust into people's eyes. If 
 the old witch at Lambford does incline in that 
 direction, I dare say the match is made. Poor 
 Iris ! she will have many a yawn and many a 
 blush — though she has been accustomed to a 
 dead-alive household — to submit, and to look 
 aside when she cannot look straight before her. 
 She will not have everything her own way — 
 when all is done, in spite of his present blus- 
 tering worship. I could imagine that a hero 
 from the ranks would have a primitively pas- 
 sionate courtship while it lasted — to be followed 
 by a reaction of coolness, neglect, and rude- 
 ness, even when he did not beat his wife like a 
 coal-heaver. Now Sir John was calm and 
 deliberate in his well-bred wariness ; one
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 167 
 
 always knew what to do with him. He did 
 not chancre much, thouo-h he could be can- 
 tankerous at times, poor old soul ! I don't 
 know — she may be good enough to stand it 
 all, and bear with him while she is making as 
 much of a gentleman as can be made of him. 
 
 • If he is to marry somebody soon,' Lady 
 Thwaite cogitated further, ' I would rather a 
 great deal have Iris than an}^ of the Acton 
 girls — only Lucy is old enough, the others are 
 too young, and Lucy has not a soul above 
 choir practising, Sunday-school teaching, and 
 poor people's clubs — an excellent eldest 
 daughter or wife for a clergyman, but not a 
 wife for a squire. She would have neither 
 time nor tact for taking the lead in county 
 society, and she might drive the Squire to 
 become dissenter or the worst of landlords, 
 out of j)ure contradiction. Such things are 
 heard of nowadays, noblemen holding forth at 
 conventicles, and squires declining to interfere 
 between farmers and labourers, and refusing 
 to put another foot in the village, where 
 their wives are for ever pottering and making 
 paupers. 
 
 ' ^laudie and Nanny Hollis might have the 
 monster for a trick on their brothers, or a
 
 i68 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 wager; but that would not do at any price/ 
 Lady Thwaite pursued her musings. * If an 
 alliance be unmistakably impending, I shall 
 throw my weight, such as it is, into Iris 
 Compton's scale. I suppose she would go up 
 to town for her trousseau. I might chaperon 
 her faute de mieua:, if Lady Fermor did not 
 choose to accompany her grand-daughter. The 
 old lady will not give in ; but she cannot 
 attempt many more journeys. I should not 
 dislike it. Iris would have to make Sir Wil- 
 liam do a good deal of re-furnishing, and I 
 should be the best qualified person to advise 
 the couple. 
 
 ' There ! I believe Lady Fermor has in- 
 fected me or suborned me,' the schemer ended. 
 ' I could not have believed that I should be so 
 easily reconciled — not to say that I should 
 take kindly to Sir William's marriage — to 
 another Lady Thwaite at Whitehills. Heigho ! 
 But it is natural that I should continue to 
 take an interest in my old belongings ; at the 
 same time he and she ought to be much obliged 
 to me, as I don't doubt they will be. If my 
 poor boy had lived, the place would never have 
 gone entirely away from me; I should have 
 been living over there still, till he was of age,
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS, 169 
 
 and it was his marriage which had to be 
 planned. Oh, my little baby !' cried the 
 woman, with a momentary softening, ' I 
 thought for a brief, blessed time that you 
 would grow up like other babies — that we 
 should make a man of you. But it was not to 
 be, and there is an end of it. Where is the 
 use of idle lamentation ? The Rector would 
 say it is as unchristian as it is unwise.' 
 
 Lady Fermor had often astonished — nay, 
 astounded — the world, and she was to astonish 
 it again, by boldly proclaiming that she was 
 to return to it for one night. She would not 
 put herself about to go up to town during 
 the season, while she must have Iris presented 
 next year ; but she would have gay doings 
 once more at Lambford — unexceptionably gay 
 doings this time, though she did not sup- 
 ply the qualification. Her grand- daughter 
 would be twenty-one in June, and Lady Fer- 
 mor would have a ball in honour of Iris's 
 birthday. There would not be a multitude — • 
 nothing^ like the festivities when she and Lord 
 Fermor kept open house for a week at a time 
 in a close run at an election, or when the 
 hounds hunted five times in succession at the 
 different fox -covers wdthin twenty miles round
 
 I70 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 to oblige the Duke, who was staying at Wool- 
 aston Lodge. Tom Mildmay, Lord Fermor's 
 nephew, would be down about that date to 
 look around him, curry favour with the 
 steward, lounge through the offices, and take 
 solitary rides over the property, pricking his 
 long ears all the time. They would see 
 whether his wife could find an excuse for not 
 accompanying him on this occasion. Lucy 
 Acton would be at Iris's beck, as was her 
 duty, and the younger girls could come, if 
 they were required. She might count on the 
 Hollis girls, who were never behind when any 
 diversion, within the scope of girls, was in the 
 wind. That meant also their father and 
 mother. Were not those she had mentioned 
 women enough? Yery well. Lady Thwaite 
 was to have her house full in June, and she 
 would bring further contributions, if more 
 partners were wanted. Leave the men to 
 Lady Fermor ; she could undertake for them, 
 since Fermor was hors de combat. There 
 would be Thwaite first — the ball was as much 
 to introduce him as Iris — Lady Fermor said, 
 with full comprehension of the sense in which 
 the words might be taken, looking her hearers 
 full in the face while she spoke. Any men
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 171 
 
 Tom Mildmay might like to bring down — 
 they would not be much worth, still they 
 would be men — old Hollis and the train of 
 fellows his girls kept at their heels, the officers 
 from Birkett — they were a new set, but every 
 man would jump at his card. Ludovic Acton 
 need hardly be counted ; but since he had 
 been blown up by torpedoes he might come, 
 and old Pollock must not be left out. 
 
 ^NTobody was more taken by surprise at the 
 compliment paid to her than Iris. It was an 
 acceptable compliment to a healthy -minded 
 young girl, leading a singularly retired Hfe; 
 but any exultation she was tempted to feel 
 became a good deal subdued after a comment 
 of her grandmother's. It followed on Iris's 
 expression of grateful thanks, and concern 
 lest her grandfather and grandmother should 
 suffer from the disturbance of their usual 
 habits, ' Though you and I don't pull in the 
 same boat, Iris,' said the old lady with her 
 hardest look and tone, ' you have not given 
 me any particular reason hitherto to think you 
 a liar. But don't make pretences that I 
 cannot take in. No girl that ever was bom 
 would heed the comfort of Xoah and his wife 
 when her first ball at home was mooted.
 
 172 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Make the most of your youth and what good 
 looks have fallen to your share, and any other 
 good thing that comes in your way, while 
 they last. Be sure they will not last long, 
 and that you will have a price to pay for them. 
 But leave me to take care of myself and my 
 lord. I am still lit for that and more. Pray 
 don't waste your compassion upon us. I for 
 one should hate it, and I think 1 can answer 
 for Termor.' 
 
 Did the reader ever receive a welcome gift 
 and a slap in the face — figuratively — from the 
 giver at one and the same time? The process 
 is not pleasant, especially to a sensitive, 
 affectionate nature, and goes a long w^ay to 
 spoiling the gift, only, happily, custom blunts 
 pain, and youth is elastic. 
 
 Lady Fermor chose that she should be the 
 person to apprise Sir William of her project, 
 making him one of her first confidants. When 
 he received it doubtfully, rather hanging back 
 from the promised boon than jumping at it, as 
 she had described the action of the jubilant 
 officers over at Birkett, she took him in hand, 
 and pursued him wdth her design on his 
 company. She had a number of tete-a-tetes 
 with him on his resolution to oblige or dis-
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 173 
 
 oblige her. These tete-a-tetes waxed posi- 
 tively mysterious to the on-lookers — of whom 
 Major Pollock sneered the ugliest sneers, and 
 Iris smiled without a grain of anxiety because 
 of her grandmother's great fancy for poor, rude, 
 sober, agitated Sir William. 
 
 Sir William's agitation increased under the 
 pressure put upon him, and the notions de- 
 liberately and persistently introduced into a 
 mind which, though very far from weak, was 
 at its best single rather than subtle, and was 
 narrowed by defects of education and absence 
 of experience. His assailant, on the contrary, 
 was as rich in the experience that served her 
 purpose as she was destitute of misgivings and 
 scruples. 
 
 Sir William, still drinking water, grew 
 practically an intoxicated man, dazed, to begin 
 with, in his intoxication, but at every moment 
 liable to a'violent outbreak of his disordered 
 faculties. It was at this point that he started 
 for London with the acknowledged intention 
 of spending three or four weeks there; but he 
 was pledged to return to Whitehills at the end 
 of June, in time for Lady Termor's ball. 
 
 Any one interested , in the manoeuvre could 
 detect that Sir William went with Lady
 
 174 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Fermor s permission, if not at her instigation. 
 The last conclusion was the more likely, since 
 she had been heard to dwell with some testi- 
 ness on the stupidity of lawyers, even those 
 in greatest repute, and their common failure 
 in securing for clients the very advantages of 
 which they stood most in need, which would 
 be really available to them. 
 
 But what did Lady Fermor send Sir 
 William to London for? Did she wish her 
 protege to revisit some of her old haunts, and 
 bring her back the last news ? Did she fancy 
 that knowledge of life and the world, the 
 seamy side of life and the world of evil, so 
 often taken to represent true life and the true 
 world, especially where men are concerned, 
 was imperatively called for to finish Sir 
 William Thwaite's halting education? Green- 
 horns of young squires were wont to be sent 
 up from the country to have their eyes opened, 
 and learn how few people they could trust, 
 and what a ' precious difficult ' task it was to 
 take care of themselves. It was a base kind of 
 euphrasy which was squeezed on their eye-lids. 
 When the young squires returned to their native 
 fields, over head and ears in debt, wasted with 
 riotous living, it was often doubtful — however
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 175 
 
 knowing the men showed themselves in the 
 future — whether the game were worth the 
 candle. AVere such places of resort as Lady 
 Fermor was likely to recommend, with the 
 questionable introductions which she could 
 procure, together with rides in the park, and 
 visits to Lord's, and runninof the risk of beina' 
 black-balled by a West-end club, judged the 
 proper materials for lending a speedy polish 
 to Sir AVilliam's original style? Did Lady 
 Termor's intention of bestowing her grand- 
 daughter on the gentleman induce her to 
 intrust him, of all people, with the delicate 
 responsibility of buying a bh'thday cacleau for 
 the heroine of the ball? Left to such taste and 
 judgment what might it not be? A hideously 
 set necklace, fit for a South Sea Islander; a 
 brooch and ear-rings as big as a plate and a 
 pair of cups and saucers; a new watch, which 
 could be worn by an alderman?
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A HAND IN NEED. 
 
 The simple truth was that Lady Fermor had 
 counselled Sir William to run up in a hurry 
 to London, and, though it was the season, to 
 live as quietly as he could manage it, not even 
 calling at Messrs. Miles and Dickinson's office, 
 unless he felt bound to do so, for he would 
 have little enough time for the business he 
 had in hand, which was to take private lessons 
 from a dancing master. Lady Fermor would 
 furnish him, by the aid of a friend, with the 
 address of the best man for his purpose. 
 While he was about it, he might as well go 
 to a riding master and get a little training 
 from him also. With regard to the last obli- 
 gation, Sir William had the liking for a horse 
 which reigns in the bosom of ninety-nine out 
 of a hundred young men. Sir John, as a 
 matter of course, had kept up a good stud at
 
 A HAND IN NEED. 177 
 
 T\"hiteliills long after he was incapable of 
 taking exercise on his cob, or having anything 
 farther to do with horses than being di'iven out 
 for a carriao^e airino\ It had been one of the 
 first of his possessions of which Sir William 
 availed himself, and to the credit of his courage 
 and natuaal instincts, he had neither come to 
 serious gi'ief nor made a notorious spectacle of 
 himself His seat and hand might not be all 
 that could be desired; there might be traces of 
 swallowing a ramrod in the saddle as else- 
 where; still Sir AVilliam did not look amiss on 
 horseback, while his attainments in this respect 
 were deserving of cultivation. 
 
 There is no one to tell what heart Sir 
 William carried to his studies in the freshness 
 of early summer in London. Whether he did 
 not attack the first, mostly with spasms of 
 shamefacedness and self- ridicule ? Whether 
 he were not often tempted to abandon it, and 
 find manlier and nobler teaching in that great, 
 wonderful world of stone and lime, which he 
 had not kno^vn hitherto, except in the most 
 cursory, one-sided fashion? 
 
 Only this is certam, that a strong, sweet 
 inducement was beckoning him on to submit 
 to what was like the binding and teasing of 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Samson by Delilah, after she had subdued the 
 giant with the spell which he himself had put 
 into her hands. 
 
 At the same time absence and leisure for re- 
 flection, since he was not capering in one 
 fashion or another all day, and all night to 
 boot, did something to dispel the fumes of the 
 intoxication, under the influence of which Sir 
 William had rushed ofl" to town. He was 
 further smitten by the thought of ' swells ' to 
 the manner born, who did not need this, to 
 him, humiliating preparation for entering 
 into the gay society in which Iris Compton 
 took her place as a matter of course, and was 
 fitted to shine above all other stars in the 
 galaxy. 
 
 He strolled many a night with his hands in 
 his pockets and a pipe instead of a cigar 
 between his teeth, where not a mortal knew 
 him, past houses in Piccadilly and Park Lane, 
 lit up that gentlefolks might hold their revels. 
 He pushed his way through the crowds 
 collected to stare at the carriages, as they 
 rolled up to the covered entrances and put 
 down the occupants — of whose fine feathers 
 and sparkling stones the mob had a glimpse 
 while the guests passed into the flower-lined
 
 A HAND IN NEED, 179 
 
 halls and went up tlie embowered stairs to the 
 ball-rooms, from which the music of brass 
 bands kept sounding. The fellows, who 
 seemed still more the masters of the situation 
 than the footmen, as they rid themselves of 
 their crush hats and other encumbrance, and 
 proceeded to join their partners, were perfectly 
 at ease, and had not been condemned to undergo 
 an absurd ordeal for a full-grown man, or to 
 feel hot and cold in such scenes, as he would 
 feel, even after he had taken lessons in danc- 
 ing. He hoped desperately Lady Termor 
 would not turn round and ' peach,' and Miss 
 Compton find him out. His heart swelled 
 with angry despair of ever feeling on a level 
 with born and bred jackanapes. It seemed 
 to him that he was going on the course and 
 entering the lists for the sweepstakes with 
 such a mere shread of a chance that his failure 
 would be accompanied with the roars of 
 ridicule and shouts of derision which he 
 had often helped to raise on other com-ses. 
 Yet there were drops of blood in his veins 
 which gave him some title — as the squires of 
 Eastham had Ions: ao'o admitted — to enter such 
 houses, where his acres and title put him, so 
 far as they were concerned, on an equality 
 
 12—2
 
 i8o BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 with all, save those of the highest rank, in 
 these assemblies. In the process of becoming 
 a finished gentleman, Sir William was, to a 
 certain extent, disillusioned and rubbed the 
 wrong way; so that when he returned to 
 Whitehills in good time, and found as the 
 lirst thing that awaited him, a note in a shaky 
 old hand from Lady Fermor, to tell him that 
 Lord Fermor had been seized with one of his 
 attacks, and been so ill, that though he was 
 now better, the ball was unavoidably post- 
 poned for a month, he said to himself he had 
 known all along this was how it would end. 
 
 It was in vain that he had sought by 
 despicable efforts to cut the figure of a 
 monkey obeying the directions of an organ- 
 grinder, who did not even play his own 
 organ, and put his scholar through his paces 
 as if he had never been drilled, as if he had 
 not been a drill sergeant in his own person, 
 and ended by finding fault with his step and 
 his carriage ! He was rightly served for his 
 folly. What a grin it would call forth if it 
 were ever known to his old comrades of the 
 barrack-yard ! for whom, though they were 
 rough chaps enough, he was free to own he 
 sometimes secretly sighed. He missed his
 
 A HAND IN NEED. i8i 
 
 mates, among whom he had crowed, instead 
 of hanging his head and singing dumb. Where 
 was the good of a title and an estate if they 
 only made a man feel small among other 
 baronets and squires who had worn their 
 honours all their lives, to whom their grandeur 
 came naturally, who knew what to say and 
 do on every possible emergency ? Yet with 
 one notable exception. Sir William did not 
 see that the circle, the members of which 
 ought to be his associates, were so very much 
 better than their fellow- creatures after all. 
 
 Sir "William put no faith in Lady Termor's 
 assurance that the ball was only postponed 
 for a short time, since she would have Lord 
 Fermor as well as when the affair was pro- 
 posed, before many weeks were over. She 
 could not make him live or die. thouo^h she 
 had driven rough- shod over many a barrier, 
 and stuck at little in her time. It sounded 
 heartless and profane in the old woman, who 
 had wound him round her finger, to pretend 
 to such power. 
 
 The young man was suffering from one of 
 the fits of reaction which beset many people 
 who have far less reason for them than he 
 had. His loneliness, which had haunted him
 
 i82 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 in town, struck even more coldly to his heart 
 when he returned to Whitehills. He was not 
 without invitations to his neighbours' houses. 
 Lady Thw^aite and Lady Termor were not the 
 only women in that part of the country who 
 decreed that Whitehills, even with Sir William 
 into the bargain, was not to be despised. 
 Every woman with marriageable daughters, 
 from office-bearing, harassed Mrs. Acton, who 
 was as poor as a many-childed church-mouse, 
 to Mrs. Hollis, of Thornbrake, who was rich 
 in her own right, and rich in her husband's, 
 felt bound to cultivate the new-comer for the 
 good of womankind, so far as to see what 
 could be made of him. But Sir William, 
 though he might kick against his subjection 
 at intervals, remained loyal to his chief 
 patroness. In the present state of matters 
 at Lambford he would not go into company. 
 His unvarnished refusals, together with the 
 extent to which he had previously availed 
 himself of the Lambford hospitalities, tended 
 to confirm the rumour which was already 
 afloat that, in newspaper language, there was 
 a marriage on the tapis between Sir William 
 Thwaite and Miss Compton. 
 
 This gossip impaired one source of attrac-
 
 A HAND IN NEED, 183 
 
 tion — that of a diseno'ao'ed elio;ible youno: 
 man — but filled its place with another. It 
 would be interesting to see Sir William 
 Thwaite and Iris Compton together, and 
 judge if there were any truth in the story, 
 anything serious between the couple. To 
 think that a woman over eighty should step 
 in adroitly, while younger people held back, 
 in order to subject the prize to inspection, and 
 win it before their eyes ! Here was food for 
 excitement in a dull country neighbourhood, 
 while the question in suspense promised to 
 prove an important agent in filling the Lamb- 
 ford ball-room. Instead of a sprinkling of 
 reluctant guests, Lady Fermor, chuckling in 
 her sleeve, was in danger of being publicly 
 and privately assailed for invitations. 
 
 In the meantime, one of the two centres of 
 interest was utterly unconscious of the potent 
 charm with which she had been invested. 
 Her great fi^iend, Lucy Acton, might have 
 given Iris some inkling of the truth, but un- 
 fortunately Lucy had been working day and 
 nio'ht to enable the female teacher in the 
 Kector's school to bring up her pupils to the 
 standard of attainment which should secure a 
 Government grant, and Iris was occupied at
 
 i84 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 home and less at the Rectory than usual at 
 this date. 
 
 The miUtary discipline which Sir William 
 had known, helped his sense of propriety in 
 holding himself aloof from his servants. The 
 one to whom he drew nearest was the young 
 groom who accompanied his master in his 
 rides. This was an honest, sensible lad, a 
 countryman, born and bred at Whitehills. 
 Sir William and Bill Rogers were about the 
 same age, while Bill was au fait to all the 
 rural knowledge, with which Sir William, 
 brought up in a town, proved scantily ac- 
 quainted. And a lad like Bill had at his 
 finger-ends the local annals of which his 
 master was profoundly ignorant. From a 
 casual observation now and then, the two took 
 to chatting a little together — quite respectfully 
 on Bill's part, about the crops and the crows, 
 the colts and the rabbits. Bill would venture 
 to call Sir William's attention to this farm, 
 and tell him there had been Wilkinses in it, 
 folk said, as long as there had been Thwaites 
 in Whitehills. He would point to that mill, 
 the lease of which belonged to Sir William 
 also. It seemed but right the Squire should 
 know what trouble there had been in the
 
 A HAND IX NEED. 185 
 
 miller's family, for the last two seasons, since 
 the miller met with the bad accident, when his 
 arm was caught in the machinery, and his wife 
 was of no use because of ' a waste,' while their 
 eldest son had taken to drink. 
 
 Mr. Miles had striven in vain — as it seemed 
 to him — to awaken in Sir AVilliam sufficient 
 curiosity about his tenants, with whose in- 
 terests his own must be inexti'icably bound 
 up. He was new and strange to the place 
 and life, and he was still stas^o^ered and shaken 
 by the events and revolutions of the last few 
 months. It was different now, or Bill com- 
 municated the information in a simpler, 
 more telling manner. Sir William listened, 
 asked questions, even went so far as to 
 certify some of Bill's narratives and make a 
 movement in connection with them. And 
 it must be said of Bill that he did not abuse 
 the influence of which he was not altogether 
 unconscious. 
 
 In other departments, even of his own 
 house, the Squire of Whitehills continued 
 terribly unsocial. He gave deep offence to 
 Mr. Cumberbatch, the butler, by ordering his 
 — the Squire's — meals to be brought into the 
 library, and by keeping a book lying beside
 
 i86 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 liis plate. Sir William might think of his 
 butler's feelings, if he had none of his own. 
 It was too absurd for a fellow who had pipe- 
 clayed his belts and cleaned his boots to make 
 a pretence of being ' that scholarly.' Why, 
 the Dean had never looked at a book for full 
 half an hour before luncheon, saying the 
 mere sight of print, hard on a meal, spoilt 
 digestion. As for reading during dinner, of 
 course he knew better ; he was a gentleman. 
 Even when his ladies were from home he was 
 sensible what was due to the table and the 
 wines — not to say to the cook and the butler. 
 But w^hat could be expected of a squire who 
 drank water like a temperance lecturer ? The 
 Dean was an affable gentleman in proper 
 quarters ; but Sir William had not half a 
 dozen words to say — except, as Mr. Cumber- 
 batch had heard, to that lump of a lad, Bill 
 Rogers. Mr. Cumberbatch had no fault to 
 find with Bill ; but what could lie tell a 
 gentleman that would be of use to him ? 
 
 Mr. Cumberbatch was not a bad fellow 
 himself in the main. He could be just, he 
 could even be magnanimous. But he was full 
 of class prejudices, and he had not the breadth 
 of mind to comprehend that while he himself
 
 A HAND IN NEED, 187 
 
 might repel, even alarm, Sir AVilliam as an 
 old prig and humbug of a butler, Bill was Sir 
 A\^illiam's contemporary, ' a nice chap ' who 
 would not have been more than ' a cut above 
 Will Thwaite ' in the old days. 
 
 The long summer evenings tempted Sir 
 William to saunter, generally aimlessly 
 enough, beyond the park, along the country 
 roads. AYhen he passed the way- side inns of 
 Eastham, the sound of skittles and jovial 
 voices, rich in the inflections and idioms of 
 the native dialect, filled the air. But the 
 only effect of the lively turmoil was to hasten 
 the wayfarer's steps, and cause him to turn 
 into more secluded by-paths. There was one 
 which led by a high matted- together hawthorn 
 hedge, one tangle of traveller's joy and black 
 and green bryony. Beyond lay a long strip 
 of underwood, prized as an excellent covert 
 for game. Sir AVilliam knew that to his cost. 
 He had happened to take a terrier, which had 
 attached itself to him, along the field path. 
 The seductions of scent had proved too strong 
 for the small animal. She had forsaken her 
 late love, and plunged into the underwood, 
 over a sluggish ditch and through a hole 
 which was by no means large enough to admit
 
 i8S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 jaer companion. Sir William had hesitated to 
 tear his way through, and face, perhaps, one 
 of his own indignant keepers. He had fought 
 shy of them, as he had fought shy of his 
 retainers generally. And the keepers, especially, 
 were down in the mouth with regard to a 
 master who, so far as they could discover, had 
 not asked a single question about the state of 
 the birds and whether poachers were hard to 
 grapple with on the Whitehills ground. The 
 keepers' importance was as seriously threatened 
 as that of the butler. They were only dimly 
 aware that Sir William had in his day fired at 
 game rather bigger and less safe than partridges 
 and hares. Nor did they suspect that he had 
 been testing the truth of his aim at a target, 
 and had inspected all Sir John's guns with 
 some interest and a clear idea of trying his 
 luck on the first of September, or whatever 
 day was the law of the land and the gentry. 
 
 In the meantime Sir William had stood 
 still and listened to a great hurry-skurry 
 behind the hedge, and such sharp yelps of 
 frantic eagerness and delight from Vixen, that 
 he was sensible all his whistling and shouting 
 would not bring her back. He feared that 
 dog- slaughter would take place before he
 
 A HAND IN NEED. 189 
 
 could prevent it, and before the perpetrator 
 of the act was cool enough to recognise the 
 intruder, and to realise that the owner of both 
 dog and game stood on the other side of the 
 hedge. However, there are consciences in 
 dogs, and Yixen awakened in time to a sense 
 of the folly and impropriety of her conduct. 
 She sneaked back with her eyes scratched and 
 watering, her nostrils full of sand, and her 
 coat stuck all over with dead leaves, broken 
 twigs, and seeded heads of grass, presenting 
 the usual disreputable look of a poacher 
 caught red-handed. Sir AVilliam took care 
 not to include Vixen in his further rambles in 
 the direction of Hawley Scrub. 
 
 He was alone as he strolled one memorable 
 evening across the meadow-land by the Scrub. 
 It was the loveliest hour of the twenty-four, at 
 the height of the young summer. The sun 
 had set, but the light was still clear, not only 
 in the west, where rose and purple had given 
 place to a pale amber, but in the rest of the 
 blue sky, bluer than at any other time, as the 
 corn in the ear and the leaves on the trees 
 were greener. 
 
 The trumpets of the greater bindweed and 
 the round faces of the moon daisies, already
 
 I90 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 wet with dew, still stood out prominently 
 among their surroundings, but they were 
 rapidly assuming a character totally diiferent 
 from that they had borne at noon. They were 
 becoming ghostly as by moonlight, and striking 
 even an unimaginative person with a vague 
 impression of something wistful, solemn, mys- 
 terious in their ordinarily frank, familiar, 
 cheerful beauty ; just as the commonest, home- 
 liest pieces of furniture acquire an altered 
 aspect when seen by the strange light and 
 shadows of a solitary candle in the hush of 
 midnight or in the half-obscurity of the grey 
 dawn. As for the closed poppies, like big 
 blood drops, and the blue corn-flowers, like 
 clippings of the sky, they were growing dim 
 and indistinct in their deepening, darkening 
 colour. 
 
 Sir William had a love of nature, though he 
 could not have expressed his feelings on the 
 subject very intelligibly. He liked the look 
 of the place at this season. He liked the occa- 
 sional rustle and chirp of birds gone to roost, 
 and the fitful, drowsy notes of the final even- 
 song of the thrush, before the bird gave way 
 to its rivalj the nightingale, which were the 
 only^sounds that broke the silence.
 
 A HAND IN NEED. 191 
 
 Presently lie came in sight of the waters of 
 a pond — looking steely blue as a stage to its 
 leaden greyness, when the night had fairly 
 fallen. Eastham was so great in ponds and 
 ditches, that it would have looked as if one of 
 its most distinguishing attributes were wanting 
 if standing water, in some form, had been long 
 absent from the landscape. In June, flower- 
 ing rushes and flags formed a suitable fringe 
 to these ponds and ditches, while the former 
 were sometimes thickly set with the great 
 white cups of the water-lily, and the smaller 
 stars of the water ranunculus. 
 
 But it was neither water-lily nor ranunculus 
 that Sir AVilliam was staring at, when he 
 drew nearer the pond, and stepping through 
 the sedges, regardless of the slushy footing, 
 gained the brink of deep water. He had his 
 eye on a tuft of coarse grass, among which he 
 believed he discovered the tail of a water-rat — 
 yes, it was a water-rat, and if Yixen had been 
 with him, there might have been some sj^lash- 
 ing and rare sport, for water-rats had not been 
 much more in Will Thwaite's way than hares 
 and pheasants. Presently there was a splash- 
 ing, whatever might be said of the sport, 
 without the aid of Vixen. Sir AYilliam's foot-
 
 192 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 ing gave way, and he fell into the water. It 
 was deeper than he had imagined, with an 
 oozy bottom which yielded to his weight. In 
 a moment the muddy water was far above his 
 knees, rising breast high. He was a fair 
 swimmer, and would have been safe in an 
 open sea, in moderately calm weather, for an 
 hour or more ; but this small pond, when he 
 tried to strike out, was like a miniature sub- 
 merged forest, with roots of trees and bushes, 
 and a dense growth of water-plants. He could 
 not free himself sufficiently to swim. He was 
 sinking deeper every instant. He could still 
 keep himself afloat, principally by resting his 
 chin on a convenient but slender willow bough 
 which reached his length, and by clutching 
 with both hands thrust into a thicket of osiers 
 invading the water. But he could not pull 
 himself up, from the nature of the ground and 
 the inefficiency of his support. He had cause 
 to envy his decoy-duck, the water-rat, and to 
 suspect he might perish with as little grace as 
 he and Yixen w^ould have granted to the 
 denizen of the pond. 
 
 Sir William, though he had grown laconic, 
 was not slow to proclaim his case. ' Holloa ! 
 as sure as fate I'll be drownded,' it is to be
 
 A HAND IN NEED, 193 
 
 feared he said, returning to his vernacular in 
 the exigency of the moment, and with all the 
 volubility which the occasion required he 
 shouted for help. 
 
 To his relief somebody answered him almost 
 immediately from no great distance. 
 
 ' What's ado ? Don't let go. There's no 
 danger.' 
 
 The last statement sounded weakly, flatter- 
 ingly, though it was uttered in a loud rather 
 deep voice, which might have proceeded from 
 a man's chest. But on Sir Wilham's shifting 
 his chin by half an inch, he saw it was a 
 woman who Avas hastening towards him, and 
 did not feel surprised, in spite of his worship 
 of Iris Compton, that she should talk nonsense 
 in such a contingency. 
 
 * It's much you know of it,' he protested in- 
 dignantly. 'Run and fetch any man you can 
 find; look sharp, if you want to save me.' 
 
 * That would be an uncommon clever way 
 of saving you,' she retorted, still advancing 
 quickly towards him, ' when father ain't at 
 home, and I don't know of any other man 
 within half a mile. Just do as I bid you. 
 Hold on like grim death, and I'll help you 
 out before you can say " Jack Robinson." 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 What business had you down dabbling among 
 them water -docks ? There ain't no wild- 
 ducks' nests here, if that was what you were 
 after.' 
 
 He might have answered her that he had 
 the right possessed by the monarch of all he 
 surveyed, but he contented himself with in- 
 dignantly forbidding her to come a step nearer 
 to him, as soon as he saw what she was going 
 to try. She had slid half-way through the 
 fringe of rushes, and was proceeding to pre- 
 cipitate herself still farther, hanging forward 
 with one arm extended to meet his clasp, and 
 the other thrown round a sapling willow 
 which looked perilously slim as a support for 
 Iboth. 
 
 ' I'll pull you down,' he remonstrated. ' Do 
 you want me to drown you, too ? Do what I 
 told you.' 
 
 ' And do what I tell you, you great donkey !' 
 she insisted unceremoniously. ' Do you mean 
 to keep me hanging here all night ? I'll go 
 bail I've as strong an arm as you any day, 
 unless you're as big as Dan'l Bates. There, 
 hold on to the bushes with one hand, and 
 give me the other. Try to get your foot upon 
 that patch of dock ; the ground shelves there
 
 A HAND IN NEED. 195 
 
 — I know every inch of it — then spring! 
 Didn't I tell you I'd fish you out ? Don't 
 go to come over me with your man's strength 
 
 again. 
 
 Sir WilHam found himself standing dripping 
 like a water-god, if water -gods are ever slimy 
 and green with duck-weed, confronting a 
 strong woman of his own age, and nearly his 
 own height, wearing a black woollen gown 
 and a red handkerchief knotted at her throat. 
 Her head was bare, and her ruffled, dark hair 
 was more conspicuous for its luxuriance than 
 for neatness of arrangement. She turned 
 upon him a brown face buxom even in the 
 weatherbeaten texture and tint of the skin. 
 The full red lips parted and showing the 
 white, glittering teeth, and the well- opened, 
 grey eyes looking across at him with a bold, 
 blithe challenge, formed the most conspicuous 
 features. 
 
 His inspection and the thanks he was be- 
 ginning to utter were brought to a summary 
 conclusion. ' You'll have to come straight to 
 our house — it ain't a hundred yards off — and 
 strip, and put on some of father's clothes, 
 while I'll throw, yours into a bucket. I'll 
 rake together the fire, and you'll swallow a 
 
 13—2
 
 196 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 nip of summat hot, or we'll have you took 
 with aguer before we're done with you. Have 
 you heard tell there's aguer in them parts, 
 yet?' 
 
 He followed her without resistance into the 
 Scrub, which might have been an enchanted 
 forest for him, though he was a clownish 
 squire, and his guide the most primitive and 
 plain-spoken of princesses. 
 
 She stopped abruptly and faced round on 
 him. She had been glancing repeatedly at 
 him, and she found herself on the eve of a dis- 
 covery which arrested her. * Ben't you the 
 new Squire, Sir William, hisself ?' she sud- 
 denly charged him, with a mixture of dismay, 
 defiance, and lurking amusement. ' I've been 
 out of the way, at the death of old auntie at 
 the Quarries, for the better part of the spring 
 and summer. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
 John, I have got into a scrape, and no mis- 
 take !' She hid her crimsoned face for a second 
 in rustic affront and alarm, as a child might 
 have done, then looked sharply up and around 
 her, as if she were preparing to bolt from the 
 consequences of her lack of ceremony in saving 
 the Squire. Altogether her behaviour showed 
 a jumble of genuine unreasoning mortification
 
 A HAND IN NEED, 197 
 
 and alarm, with a tremulous dash of diversion 
 at the absurdity of the situation. 
 
 He put it before her in a more satisfactory 
 light. ' I was such an ass as to tumble into 
 that beastly hole; and I believe that at this 
 moment I should have been lying at the foot 
 with my teeth clenched on a mouthful of mud, 
 if it had not been for your sense and pluck. 
 I'm no end obliged to you — that's about it, 
 thoug^h when I come to think of it, I don't 
 know that there is another human being to 
 say as much to you on my account. But 
 you'll take me to your place and do what you 
 can for me — won't you ? — like a kind soul ; 
 for, to tell the truth, I don't like to show 
 before my fine servants in this guise.' His 
 heart was warm with gratitude to his rescuer. 
 He had found free speech wherewith to address 
 the country girl, and under the influence of 
 his fi:*eedom, she gradually grew glib as she 
 was wont to be, with only a relapse now and 
 again into consternation — brightened by a sus- 
 picion of a frolic, every time they became 
 silent. ' What's your name, if I may make 
 so bold?' he asked, as if she were the lady and 
 he the servant. All the time, he was expand- 
 ing into communicativeness, under the welcome
 
 198 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 consciousness of no longer feeling daunted 
 and depressed, forced to pick and choose his 
 words as he had been for the last six months. 
 ' What may your father do when he is at 
 home T 
 
 ' Oh, I'm called Honor — Honor Smith ; and 
 father is old Abe Smith ; Abe short for Abel. 
 He has been one of the under-keepers for a lot 
 of years, so that I were born and brought up 
 at our cottage in Hawley Scrub here. But 
 father do be getting old and losing favour 
 with Waterpark, the head-keeper, and my 
 brothers did no good, but gave trouble, and 
 father — ^he were blamed for it. Ted, he 'listed ; 
 and young Abe, he went off to America. Now, 
 father and me — mother's dead before I can 
 remember — we're thinking of going out, in 
 one of them emigrant ships, to join young 
 Abe in the Back Woods. That name sounds 
 pleasant, don't it?'
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 
 
 Abe Smith's cottage was a tumble- clown, 
 picturesque, self-coloured lodge in the wilder- 
 ness. The interior failed to do credit to 
 Honor's housekeeping. Disorder reigned over 
 the articles, few as they were, in the family 
 room. The furniture was summed up in an 
 old oak-table, which Lady Thwaite might 
 have coveted, though it was battered and 
 standing insecurely on three legs ; a con- 
 venient deal chest, into which everything 
 might be stuflPed ; a chair or two — that for 
 Abe an old armchair as black as the table ; a 
 cupboard with the door half off its hinges, 
 exposing the scanty supply of common coarse 
 crockery. 
 
 But the visitor had hardly time to look 
 around on inanimate objects, for, contrary to 
 expectation, the owner of the cottage was at
 
 200 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 home. He knew Sir William by sight, though 
 Sir William could not profess to return the 
 compliment. Old Abe testified to his know- 
 ledge by the formality with which he stood up, 
 as fast as his stiffening joints would allow, 
 and removed his cap ; at the same time he 
 glanced with a flurried look at his daughter 
 for an explanation, which she did not delay. 
 
 Then Sir William received a considerable 
 shock as he listened to an entirely new version 
 of the accident. 
 
 ' I was a-walking round the pond with an 
 eye for them plaguy ducks that wander all the 
 way over from Mistley Down, father, when what 
 should 1 see but the young Squire wallowing 
 in the mire and water at the very worst place, 
 where Adams met his death. Didn't I just 
 run and cry, ''Your honour, mind what you're 
 about ; don't flounder an inch farther, as you 
 value your life, and I'll do my best, which is 
 my bounden duty, to save you!" And, sure 
 enough, I crept through the osiers, and held 
 on by one hand till he gripped the other. You 
 know I'm strong, father, and Sir William's 
 active, so we struggled out of the water, and 
 here we are.' 
 
 Several times while she was speaking she
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 201 
 
 gave Sir William a half- cunning, half- comical 
 glance of warning and mutual intelligence, as 
 if she dared him to contradict her. Once, when 
 she passed close to him, behind her father, as 
 she was bustling about to make up the fire, 
 which was Ivino: white in ashes, she muttered 
 so that Sir "William only could hear, ' He'll like 
 that way of putting it best.' 
 
 But Sir William did not like it, and shifted 
 his wet feet uneasily. He was a truthful man 
 who had never ' crammed ' a comrade, unless 
 in the plainest chaffing. His sister Jen would 
 not have told a lie to save her life. Perhaps 
 it was a sign of their drops of gentle blood; 
 perhaps it belonged to a higher order of 
 gentility. 
 
 There seemed the less sense in Honor 
 Smith's easy fabrications, that her father 
 looked far more pacific than savage — not a 
 man to fly into a fury on a small provocation. 
 He was behaving to his guest so deferentially 
 that it was difficult to separate obsequiousness 
 fi:*om the deference. 
 
 Sir William amazed his host by absolutely 
 declining spirits of any description and defy- 
 ing the consequences; but he was anxious to 
 have his clothes dried for the reason he had
 
 202 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 given Honor. Here a difficulty presented 
 itself. It was not from her father that Honor 
 had inherited a splendid physique. He was a 
 little hairy man, who, in his faded moleskins, 
 more tattered than patched, and weather- 
 stained fringed gaiters, looked shaggy all over, 
 like a creature of the wilds and the waters, a 
 badger or an otter, rather than an able-bodied 
 man. It seemed as if Sir William could have 
 put him into one of his pockets. No garment 
 of Abe's would be of the slightest temporary 
 use to Abe's master. 
 
 ' Dear sakes ! what are we thinking of !' 
 cried Honor, in scorn of her own slowness and 
 forgetfulness. ' There's Uncle Sam's old 
 regimentals in the drawer of the chest. They're 
 the best we have to offer, sir; and Uncle 
 Sam was a big man, when he were alive, every 
 way.' 
 
 Sir William pricked his ears at the word 
 regimentals, and then looked put out. What 
 a fool he was to mind a dead man's clothes, 
 though they were regimentals ! Yery likely 
 they did not belong to any department of 
 the service he had known. What though he 
 had thought never to wear the Queen's livery 
 again ! It was a big lie that he had disgraced
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 203 
 
 it, beyond redemption, the last time he had 
 it on in the square at Xhilpoor, when he 
 wi'enched the stripes from his arm and flung 
 them in his colonel's face. He must put 
 on the red jacket once again, at a pinch, 
 unless he cared to be laid on his beam-ends 
 with aofue, or worse, since his teeth were 
 beginning to chatter in his head. 
 
 Honor mistook the Squire's hesitation. 
 
 ' Uncle Sam's clothes are as good as new,' 
 she said a little huffily, preparing to pull out 
 what had been put away with some care in 
 the drawer of the chest. ' He were a good 
 many pegs above us, so that his toggery is 
 a'most fit for a gentleman. I have often been 
 on father to sell it right away; but it do be a 
 kind of credit for us to have it, if it were only 
 to show that we hadn't all of us our backs 
 alius at the wall. And father there has a 
 notion that the things are lucky lying ready 
 for use, and that Ted may pick up and come 
 back some day as smart as them which 'listed 
 before him. That will happen when the 
 Queen axes us all to a snack, and a bed after it, 
 at one of the palaces. It will be as good as 
 airing them clothes, besides being a mighty 
 compliment, if you will take a turn in them.
 
 204 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Sir William, while I am cleaning your own 
 suit. Father and I will go out and leave 
 you to the fire and your own company, if 
 you'll please shift yourself before the floor is 
 in a swim.' 
 
 It was clear Uncle Sam had been the 
 great man of the family, and that it was 
 in seeking to pay proper honour to the Squire, 
 the uniform had been brought out for his 
 benefit. 
 
 Sir William, when left to himself, looked 
 with some agitation at what would have 
 awakened no interest in another man in his 
 place, if it had not excited amusement or 
 annoyance. He lifted up the different por- 
 tions of the dress with a kind of trepidation, 
 yet with yearning. It was all complete, 
 though a little old-fashioned. By what ap- 
 peared a singular coincidence, the rank of 
 Sam Smith, which he had not forfeited, must 
 have been the same as that to which Will 
 Thwaite had risen. There were the identical 
 stripes of which he had made short work 
 in his fit of frenzy. He had a glimpse of 
 the old soldier's sword lying gleaming in 
 the half- shut drawer. Sir William dressed 
 himself punctiliously, finding the clothes not
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 205 
 
 far from his fit. Then he looked in the little 
 lookinof-D-lass which hunsf, for Honor Smith's 
 convenience, on the wall opposite the window 
 where a withered nosegay thrust into the neck 
 of a hottle stood on the sill. A thrill ran 
 throuo^h him as he reo:arded his imao^e in 
 the glass. He felt at home in the borrowed 
 clothes. He took out the sword and began 
 to make the accustomed passes with it. Ah ! 
 that was a deal better than jigging like an 
 idiot to the prancing of another idiot, Avho 
 could not even play his kit without the help 
 of another man. 
 
 Sir William was disturbed by Honor's 
 knock at the door. He must be quick about 
 changing his clothes, if she were to have 
 them cleaned and even partly dried before 
 midnight. 
 
 Was there a spell in these old regimentals 
 which became Sir William so well, that he 
 had not to wait for Abe's respectful compli- 
 ments, since he saw with orratified vanitv the 
 admiration which shone in Honor's great grey 
 eyes ? How long it was since his heart 
 had grown warm under the influence of a 
 woman's inadvertently betrayed admiration ! 
 He was not very vain, but he was sensitive
 
 2o6 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 to public opinion even on his looks. In his 
 old estate he had been a favourite, rather 
 a hero, with women ; and though he had 
 shown himself particular in his taste, so as 
 to have been something of a rover who had 
 found no humble heroine, he did not object to 
 the hero-worship. 
 
 Lately it had chilled him to meet none save 
 critical eyes. He did not believe Miss Comp- 
 ton had ever wasted a thought on his inches 
 or the colour of his hair — only old Lady 
 Fermor had ever made him feel that she found 
 him a well-knit, comely fellow. 
 
 He had not looked so gallant and gay, 
 or made himself so entirely at his ease, for 
 many a day. He sat at the fire and smoked 
 with old Abe, and heard dubious stories of 
 poaching scuffles, or told tales of a soldier's 
 life, in which Abe was interested for his son 
 Ted's sake, and because of gratifying memories 
 of the brother, who had been almost a 
 gentleman in the under- keeper's eyes, and 
 who seemed to sit there again before him. 
 
 Sir William shouted thanks and jests 
 through the half- open door into the back 
 kitchen, in which Honor was so obligingly 
 at work on his clothes. After her part
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 207 
 
 was done, there was still the diying of the 
 soused garments, and that necessitated the 
 guest's farther stay, and his taking a share in 
 the family supper which was pressed upon him 
 with the unstinted hospitality of the host's class. 
 The meal was composed of choicer fare 
 than might have been hojDed for from the 
 rest of the establishment. There were cold 
 roasted leveret, pigeon-pie, and poached eggs. 
 An explanation was offered of the nature of 
 the feast, with so little disagreement between 
 the speakers and so few break-downs, 
 that a more thoughtful man than Sir William 
 might have come to the conclusion the father 
 and daughter were accomplished experts in 
 such apologies. Abe had found a poacher's 
 snare with a leveret in it, and he had taken 
 care that the setter of the snare should not 
 profit by his success. The wild pigeons had 
 been brought down by Ikey Mushet's sling. 
 The boy meant no harm, but he must be 
 taught not to take such liberties in future, 
 as Sir William would be shooting both the 
 crows and the pigeons for his own and his 
 friends' diversion. The eggs were plovers' 
 eggs, which Honor had gathered as far off as 
 Mistley Downs.
 
 2o8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Sir William heard every word as if it were 
 gospel, and did not betray the faintest sus- 
 picion that he was eating savoury food of his 
 own providing — the game, pigeons, and par- 
 tridges' eggs which he paid a gang of men, 
 with Abe among them, for protecting from all 
 spoilers. 
 
 Sir William was good company on this 
 occasion. He was as much carried away by 
 reaction, old association, the spirit of defiance 
 which was apt to arise in the man, as if he had 
 swallowed bumpers of strong drink. He 
 joked and rattled off camp experiences. He 
 proved a capital listener to the annals of 
 the woods and fields. He was gay and hearty, 
 until he was nearly volunteering a song which 
 had been the usual accompaniment of former 
 merry-makings. It seemed as if his later 
 dreams and the very image of Iris Compton 
 were for the moment swept from his mind. 
 At last the play was played out, and Sir 
 William, re-habilitated in his half- dry clothes, 
 took a cordial leave of his entertainers. 
 
 The fraternization had been complete while 
 it lasted, and could not have astounded others 
 more than it did some of the participators 
 in it.
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 209 
 
 ' Did you ever, father !' protested Honor. 
 ' If the Squire ain't one of ourselves, I can't 
 tell who is. Why, he has been jack-fellow 
 alike and no make-believe with us, ever since 
 I brouofht him in like a drowned rat. He 
 is the right sort to fill old Sir John's shoes. 
 But won't he make the stuck-up ladies and 
 gentlemen stare ? Ain't I quick to have been 
 and nabbed him in this way? Now we may 
 laugh in Water park's face. If we only go 
 on as we have begun, it may be " change seats, 
 the King's come," with you and he, and we 
 stepping into his grand cottage, and no 
 'Merica for us after all, before the year is 
 out.' 
 
 ' And you may be Lady Thwaite of White- 
 hills — is that the next thing ?' inquired Abe, 
 with mild scepticism and sarcasm, for he 
 stood in some awe of his daughter. ' And 
 sure enough that will be when the Queen or 
 the Lord Mayor bids us to a feast, or when 
 the world comes to an end, as is much the 
 same thing. It's like it is turned upside 
 down already, when a chap like yon have got 
 the property. But don't you let your fancy 
 cut capers and get the better of you, so 
 as you'll sup disappointment for your pains, 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Hon. This here lad be come of the people, 
 and no mistake. He ain't the supercilly cut 
 of a gentleman, though the name be Thwaite 
 and he do belong to the tribe. But he ain't 
 quite one of us neither, not he, though he may 
 favour your Uncle Sam as were bound to rise 
 in the world. The Squire couldn't take no 
 drink like a man, and as far as I could see 
 he didn't tell no crackers, neither one way 
 nor t'other, bouncing or sly, which if ever 
 man had a grand chance to do he had. It 
 would be like playing with fire to have to do 
 with he. You could never tell when you 
 had him or when you wanted him. He 
 would be off like a shot when you least 
 expected it. I ain't so cock-sure that there 
 ben't the making of one sort of gentleman in 
 him, as gentlemen goes, the sort as is blunt — 
 maybe thin-skinned and peppery, but is 
 as nice about their word as if it was their 
 nails or their teeth. And when I come to 
 think of it, Sir William was as clean as a dook 
 all over, like your Uncle Sam, barring the 
 mud be brought up out of the pond. He 
 may let us stay over the autumn, till we take 
 ship to 'Merica. Waterpark can hardly have 
 the face to make a stand about trumpery hodds
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 211 
 
 and ends, and think for to turn us out at 
 the last, when he knows that you drew Sir 
 William by the 'airs of the 'ead, as I may 
 say, out of the pond ; but that's all the good 
 we're like to get of the adventm^e, if you'll 
 believe me for your own good, my girl, and I 
 am an old man. I should know summat by 
 this time of the day. 
 
 ' Like enough, father,' answered Honor in- 
 differently, as if she were getting weary of the 
 subject; 'but that's not to keep me from 
 putting in a claim to the Squire's acquaint- 
 ance, and getting a guinea or a five-pound 
 note when I've worked for it. Maybe I'll get 
 more, maybe no,' she added with a laugh. 
 ' Are you going the round of the walks to- 
 night, when Luke Evans is to be at the turn- 
 stile about two in the morning ? If you go, 
 I'm with you. I'm as fond of a rove when 
 timid folks is in their beds, as you can be, or 
 young Abe or Ted ever were.' 
 
 ' The more's the pity, lass,' said old Abe, in 
 a moralizinof vein, ' thouo;h it do come nat'ral 
 to some women as to most men. Your 
 mother now, she were reared in the Quarries, 
 yet she took as easy to the woods as a fish to 
 the water. More by token her brothers were 
 
 14—2
 
 312 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 the biggest poachers hereabout, and Moriy, 
 he were transported for life, for his share in 
 such a tussle as has not been heard of since 
 that day. Me and Waterpark were in it, and 
 I was in mortal terror I should have to fire at 
 Morry or bear the mark of his bludgeon. 
 There's no doubt company's cheery,' reflected 
 Abe, going off on a new track, which yet had 
 its link with the former line of conversation : 
 ^ wandering about in the dark gets a thought 
 creepy and sickifying as a man wears up in 
 years, and recalls old mates and old frays.' 
 
 Sir William, whose habits till now had been 
 as regular as those of any of ' the Methody 
 parsons ' to whom he was sometimes com- 
 pared, for the first time since his coming to 
 Whitehills, kept his servants up late without 
 previous warning. 
 
 Cumberbatch, who had constituted himself 
 his master's keeper, experienced real anxiety 
 on his account. When it was relieved by the 
 Squire's making his appearance, the sufferer 
 could scarcely go so far as to take the 
 offender to task ; but he looked Sir William 
 in the face with such solemn reproach, that 
 the delinquent was impelled to explain. ' I 
 stepped into a pond a good bit off, and ha.d
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM, 213 
 
 to wait in a house till mv clothes were dried. 
 No, I don't want any supper. No, I shouldn't 
 think of hot brandy -and- water. That will 
 do.' Sir William was himself again, cold and 
 reserved. Will Thwaite, open-hearted and 
 reckless, had been left at the cottage by 
 Hawley Scrub. But the Squire asked Bill 
 Eoo;ers, durino^ their next mornino;'s ride, 
 what he knew of an old under-keeper and his 
 dauo^hter livino; too'ether in the worst cottao^e 
 Sir William had seen on his lands. 
 
 * They're a bad lot. Sir William,' answered 
 Bill promptly ; ' leastways old Abe ain't what 
 he should be. Old folk will have it Abe's 
 come of a queer breed, being a far-off shoot 
 from them squatters as made free with East- 
 ham when great part of it — because of the 
 water lying easy everywhere — was no man's 
 land, given over to the fowls of the air and 
 the fish of the fresh- water seas, and to them 
 as liked to catch them. I don't want to tell 
 no tales, but Abe's failings are piper's news, 
 and there's a score of his neio'hbours as will 
 let you know if I don't, while the man is 
 going for sure across the seas in the autumn. 
 The wonder is that he has been kept so long ; 
 but old Sir John, he took it into his head
 
 214 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 after it were a bit muddled, that Waterpark, 
 the head-keeper, had a spite at Smith, and he 
 would permit no spites, would Sir John, save 
 his own, which were his right like, he being 
 squire and master.' 
 
 ' Is it certain Sir John was in the wrong T 
 inquired his successor, as if he too were jealous 
 ^f his likes and dislikes. 
 
 * Well, sir, I would not go for to contradict 
 you,' replied Bill, with sincere respect, ' but 
 Abe connected his self by marriage with 
 poachers notorious. That might have been 
 his misfortune more than his fault, but the 
 word went, even before Abe's sons were half 
 grown, that he were in league with the 
 poachers, and connived at their snares and 
 shots, instead of fighting them fair as the 
 other keepers fought them. There could be 
 no mistake about Ted and young Abe, they 
 soon made the country too hot to hold them. 
 I never heard of a Smith as was a credit to 
 the family save Sergeant Smith, a brother of 
 Abe's that enlisted when he was in his teens, 
 and did good in foreign parts, and only came 
 home to die, before he was corrupted by the 
 rest of the lot.' 
 
 ' And what about the daughter, Bill ?'
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 215 
 
 ' Why, if you will believe it, sir, Honor, the 
 girl — that is as big and strong as one of her 
 brothers, have took up the trade too, and is 
 as wild as need be. She had a bad upbring- 
 ing. Her mother, such as she was, died when 
 the lass was in her cradle ; but what finished 
 her off, years and years gone, was that a 
 young chap with whom she kep' company 
 had a hole drilled through his shoulder, one 
 September night, and were taken up and died 
 of the wound in Birkett gaol. She's the 
 strappingest lass going,' Bill said with some 
 lurking admiration, ' and I don't say she ain't 
 an honest woman. She's kep' men at the 
 staff's end — all but poor Hughie Guild — 
 and he would be a bold man who would look 
 soft on Honor Smith, or speak sweet to her 
 against her will. She's a regular randy, nigh 
 as bad as a gipsy. She's never in the house 
 save to cook her father's meals. She ain't up to 
 sweeping or charing, or even dressing herself 
 fine like other women, not since Hughie met 
 his end, and that is good six or seven years 
 gone, when she was a slip of a handsome girl ; 
 but the word goes she can tramp day or night, 
 and keep out of the way when she's wanted, and 
 set a snare, and bring down a bird, and dodge,
 
 2i6 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 and lie, and toss oif a glass neat — not that I 
 ever heard tell of her being seen in drink, like 
 old Abe's self. That's all I've got to say of 
 them Smiths, if you please, Sir William.' 
 
 The description did not please Sir William, 
 but he gave no sign. He vouchsafed an ex- 
 planation to Bill, as the master of the house 
 had offered an excuse to his butler, and he 
 drew an inference which he had already drawn 
 more than once before. 
 
 ' I was indebted to these people last night, 
 Bill. I fell like a big baby into the pond, 
 near their door, and the girl you speak of 
 gave me a leg-up — when it was touch and go 
 with me, for I had no room to swim — as if I 
 had been the girl and she the man. Of course 
 you did not know this when you spoke, and I 
 didn't ought to have asked you a question 
 without telling you first. But you under- 
 stand I don't care to hear the Smiths spoke 
 badly of, after this.' 
 
 ' No, sir. I beg your pardon, sir. I hope 
 you believe me, I wouldn't speak harm of no 
 friend of yours, not if I knowed it, for my 
 wages twice told,' cried Bill with genuine 
 regret, for he was quickly acquiring a warm 
 regard for his master.
 
 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM. 217 
 
 But the servant's private reflection was, 
 ' Lord, to think of his making friends with 
 them Smiths, as if he were the forlornest 
 wretch in the kino^dom ; and he Sir William, 
 and the Squire of AVhitehills, with half of the 
 gentlemen and ladies in the county ready to 
 strike their hands in his, I'll go bail, if he'll 
 onlv 2five them time ! Thev mav say what 
 they like of his smelling of the barrack-yard, 
 and not of the hofficers' quarters there ; either 
 he's too good for this world, or one sick of his 
 lone position.' 
 
 Afterwards the servants' hall at AVhitehills 
 learnt all the details of the accident, as the 
 world below stairs does not fail to ascertain, 
 in spite of the absence of direct information 
 from the fountain-head, what that other world 
 above stairs has been doing. These judges 
 picked up the additional information that Sir 
 William had been over to see the Smiths, 
 once or twice, during the next fortnight. Mr. 
 Cumberbatch merely turned up his nose in 
 silence, and thought it was what he might 
 have expected, from a baronet's unseemly pre- 
 ference for a young groom over a middle-aged 
 butler. Bill, too, was silent, but he groaned 
 within himself.
 
 2i8 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 ' He ain't fit to take care of hisself. Why 
 don't some of his own kind, the kind he's in 
 now, look after him ? There's the old lady 
 over at Lambford, what runs after him as if 
 she were a gal herself ; but they do say she's 
 a devil's himp, if ever there was one. Why 
 don't Sir John's widder stay here till he's 
 served with a wife, or take the Squire to bide 
 with her at Netherton ?' questioned poor Bill 
 unreasonably, and with a fine disregard of the 
 proprieties in the amendment he proposed to 
 institute. ' I'm blowed if I can tell for what 
 the like of she is charged on the estate, if it 
 ain't to do for the Squire when he wants her. 
 If I were my lady, I wouldn't take my wages 
 and give no work for them,' concluded Bill, 
 rubbing down the horse he was grooming with 
 virtuous vigour. 
 
 Possibly Lady Thwaite's notion of doing 
 for Sir William difi'ered slightly from Bill's, 
 but she was not without a conscience on that 
 point.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MISS compton's ball. 
 
 Lady Fermor was as good as her word. She 
 brought Lord Fermor up to that point of 
 recovery which made it permissible and not 
 outrageous that a ball should take place in his 
 house of Lambford, where he was draofonnor 
 out his weary days. 
 
 The ball had come to be called Miss Comp- 
 ton's ball, without any objection on the part 
 of Lady Fermor, although she suggested an 
 improvement. 
 
 ' It may also bear the name of my worthy 
 young neighbour, Sir William Thwaite,' said 
 the old lady demurely. ' It is his first ball in 
 Eastham, as it is my grand-daughter's first 
 ball at Lambford. Let it be Miss Com^^ton 
 and Sir William Thwaite' s ball, if you please. 
 Awkward to couple the two names together, 
 do you think ? Oh ! I don't mind it/ declared
 
 220 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Lady Fermor, with such an unblushmg amount 
 of candour that it sounded as if there were 
 something under it, something to excuse the 
 indiscretion. 
 
 But the persons appealed to judged that the 
 union of names was premature, to say the least. 
 Even supposing Miss Compton and Sir William 
 had got so far as a betrothal. England was 
 not Germany, where betrothals were announced 
 like marriages, and betrothed pairs appeared 
 in public together the same as husband and 
 wife. The proposal savoured of the indecorum 
 for which Lady Fermor at the best had been 
 distinguished, while only to call the ball Miss 
 Compton' s ball really relieved some excellent 
 people from rankling scruples. It was one 
 thing to hasten to stand by poor L^is Compton ^ 
 w^ho, while one of themselves, was guiltless of 
 the smallest oiFence against morals, and another 
 to flock to a ball of Lady Fermor' s, even 
 though a long lapse of years had softened the 
 turpitude of her misdeeds. As for Lady 
 Fermor, she did not care what the hypocrites 
 and fools called the ball if they came to it, and 
 it served her purpose. 
 
 Mr. Mildmay and his wife lent Lambford 
 their countenance for the event. He was
 
 MISS COMPTOJSfS BALL, 221 
 
 simply and strictly polite as usual. She looked 
 frightened to speak or move lest she should 
 compromise herself, while she stuck to her 
 husband like his shadow, as if she might re- 
 quire his protection at any moment. 
 
 * Does the o:ood woman think I shall take a 
 bite of her ?' protested Lady Fermor, in one of 
 her slight asides. But both Mrs. Mildmay 
 and Lady Fermor knew it was not being bitten 
 but being socially contaminated that the lady 
 dreaded. It was a little compensation to her 
 for beino' draiJfo^ed down to face this horrible 
 ordeal, to be able to take stock, covertly, of 
 the possessions among which she was to reign 
 as the future Lady Fermor. Mrs. Mildmay 
 did not count Iris one of these possessions, 
 and would almost as soon have proposed to be 
 on confidential terms with the wicked old 
 grandmother as with the innocent young 
 grand -daughter. In fact Mrs. Mildmay, 
 though she was not a colourless, cowardly, 
 self-engrossed woman when she happened to 
 be at large, had very little doubt that Miss 
 Compton's innocence was nothing better than 
 a callow stage of wickedness, and felt disposed 
 to regard it as more insidious, if less repulsive, 
 than the advanced stages.
 
 222 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 Iris was glad to turn from the chill and 
 mortification of Mrs. Mildmay's unthawed re- 
 serve, and her constant withdrawal to her 
 husband's side, to the friendly presence of 
 Lucy Acton, who had been allowed to spend 
 a few days at Lambford to support Iris on the 
 great occasion of her ball. It was something 
 like a preparation for home gaiety to have 
 Lucy on one of her rare visits, and to grow 
 enthusiastic in her company over the dresses, 
 the decorations, the dancing, the supper. Iris 
 would have taken delight in them all of her 
 own accord had she not been behind the scenes, 
 whereas Lucy was not only an outsider, she 
 happened to be a matter-of-fact girl, who took 
 things as she found them, and did not seek to 
 look below the surface. She was a good 
 daughter, and an assiduous helper of her 
 father and mother, both with the parish and 
 the younger children. She was a faithful 
 friend to Iris, and paid back with easy fond- 
 ness the girl's fervent affection. But Lucy 
 Acton was not gifted either with much sensi- 
 tiveness of feeling or discrimination of charac- 
 ter. She was inferior to Iris both in heart 
 and mind. Her personal appearance was of 
 less consequence; but in this case the body
 
 MISS CO MP TO N S BALL, 223 
 
 reflected the spirit. Lucy Acton was a well- 
 grown, rather comely, but perfectly common- 
 place-looking young gentlewoman, the colour 
 of whose hair and eyes, and the shape of whose 
 nose and mouth, though they were all quite 
 well defined, her acquaintances were constantly 
 in dano:er of for2:ettino:. A crown on her 
 head and a sceptre in her hand would not 
 have made her look otherwise than a con- 
 tented every-day individual. It was not 
 modest unconsciousness which was at the 
 bottom of her merits, it was rather an incapa- 
 city of apprehending anything better than her 
 own qualities. But Lucy was worth a great 
 deal to Iris, and the solitary girl warmed into 
 something of the pride and pleasure which the 
 ball at home called for. The two girls were 
 excitedly comparing notes on all the important 
 items that belons; to such an entertainment — 
 surreptitiously inspecting the ball-room and 
 supper -room — dwelling in delighted half-mys- 
 tification on what was to be the distinguishing 
 characteristic of the evening — fluttering from 
 Iris's room to Lucy's to gaze upon this dress or 
 that, and compare these flowers and those, and 
 study the programme till they had it by heart. 
 * It must be so nice for you to have a ball
 
 224 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 at Lambford, clear,' said Lucy in all sincerity. 
 ' You are the young lady of the house, and 
 therefore the queen of the ball. It is for you 
 to confer honour and bestow pleasure, though 
 you may kindly share your good things. 
 Won't you like it very much? I am so glad 
 Lady Fermor thought of it at last.' 
 
 ' Yes, it is kind of grandmamma,' said Iris, 
 hesitating a little, with a momentary cloud 
 coming over her small face. ' Of course I 
 like to have a ball of my own, and to invite 
 my friends. They are not very many — now 
 that is one drawback,' she remarked quickly. 
 * Other girls are happy in loads of home rela- 
 tions and family friends. Where there is an 
 affair of this kind, the house itself is over- 
 flowing with kindred near and remote. But 
 grandpapa and grandmamma are old, and have 
 outlived whole generations, and that makes a 
 difference,' she broke off with a sigh. 
 
 She had conjured up a vision such as she 
 had read of, rather than seen, of a girl with 
 loving sisters and brothers, with a mother of 
 whom she was proud, w^ho held her child dear, 
 and a father whom she could trust implicitly, 
 who guarded her as the apple of his eye — a 
 family who were among the salt of the earth,
 
 MISS COMPTON S BALL. 225 
 
 whose friendship was coveted and prized by 
 like-minded people, arriving in troops to take 
 part in their festival. 
 
 ' But in that case you would not be the one 
 queen, with an undisputed, undivided sove- 
 reignty. I know there are girls who hate the 
 idea of rivals, even in their own familv, and 
 are ready to be thankful that they have no 
 sisters to come in and claim any portion of the 
 attention that falls to their share. But there 
 is no use in speaking of them, for I know you 
 are not a bit like them. As for myself, I must 
 say I should not care to be without King Lud, 
 and Susan, and Georgie, and the rest — not to 
 say without the poor dear father and mother — 
 to be handed back to a former generation. I 
 have not more than one grandmother living, 
 the kindest granny in the world, at Birkett, 
 you know, Iris,' said the literal Lucy. ' But 
 it's the will of Providence, and we must all 
 submit to the will of Pro^^.dence,' she quoted 
 glibly from her stereotyped speeches by cottage 
 sick-beds and in the Sunday-school. ' We 
 ought to make the best of things, and to feel 
 contented and cheerful, as I know you do. 
 Iris. Only I don't know why you let your 
 deprivations — we all have our deprivations — 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 it would not be good for us if we had not — 
 crop up on the afternoon of your ball. You 
 are not badly off for a birthday treat this year, 
 and I do hope that Mr. and Mrs. Mildmay 
 behave well to you.' 
 
 Iris winced a little at this suggestion, even 
 from Lucy Acton. Neither of the girls knew 
 a great deal of the old, miserable embroilments 
 of the family, but they were acquainted with 
 the general outline — that Tom Mildmay was 
 the son of Lord Fermor's younger brother, 
 who had, further, married a sister of the first 
 Lady Fermor. It was understood that there 
 had been an entire breach between the two 
 branches of the family for many years, and 
 that though young Mildmay submitted to a 
 patched-up reconciliation for his own interest, 
 he looked with hostile eyes, under his cold 
 courtesy, on Lady Fermor and all her belong- 
 ings. Iris, though she was his cousin once 
 removed, was also Lady Fermor's grand- 
 daughter and heiress. In the last light she 
 was likely to contest with Mr. Mildmay such 
 money as the old Lord could ' will away,' 
 either with or from the entailed estate. When 
 it is further taken into consideration that Tom 
 Mildmay was a married man and the father of
 
 MISS COMP ton's ball. 227 
 
 a family, that he had only the modest income 
 of a moderately successful barrister, tacked on 
 to Lord Fermor's allowance to his heir-at-law, 
 wherewith to maintain his household, it may 
 be arofued that he would have been more than 
 human if he had been able to entertain a 
 strong regard for Iris. Perhaps it was to the 
 credit of both that, in their formal intercourse, 
 he could preserve towards her a species of 
 neutrality. 
 
 ' My dear Lucy, there is not a fault to be 
 found with the Mildmays' behaviour, unless, 
 indeed, they behave too well,' replied Iris 
 hastily. ^ They are never off their good be- 
 haviour, as people sometimes say of children, 
 with rather a stand-off result, to be sure.' 
 
 ' Then you ought to be satisfied,' Lucy 
 hastened to say, with a tone of sensible, 
 affectionate reproach. ' You should not spoil 
 your grand birthday ball with crying for the 
 moon, and raising up bugbears of trials and 
 troubles.' 
 
 ^ I don't mean to spoil anything,' insisted 
 Iris, still a little ruefully. 'But it is not my 
 birthday ball — that is another contradiction; 
 my birthday was on the 29th of June, as you 
 remembered, when you sent me that pretty, 
 
 15—2
 
 228 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 
 
 kind card. I spent it all alone without even 
 you to speak to ; grandpapa was lying at his 
 worst, grandmamma would not come down, 
 and she did not care for me to go up and help 
 her to nurse him. But I did try to submit 
 and make the best of things. It was a lovely 
 day, and I had a new book which I cared for, 
 and took with me into the woods. Fancy 
 how delightful they were while they were still 
 fresh and full of flowers, and all the birds were 
 singing ! Mrs. Pole had baked a cake for my 
 express benefit, and Susan and Georgie ran 
 over to inquire for grandpapa, in time for 
 afternoon tea, and helped me to eat it. Then 
 we heard poor grandpapa was better, and had 
 enjoyed some hours of refreshing sleep. I am 
 not sure whether a ball like this which we are 
 going to have, would have made me so very 
 much happier on my real birthday than I was 
 after all.' 
 
 ' That is going to the opposite extreme and 
 talking nonsense still,' said Lucy briskly. ' I 
 won't have you grow unsocial ; but it is more 
 likely you will have your little head turned 
 with the compliments and flattery and all 
 that sort of thing which you will be receiving 
 presently. My chief concern about the ball's
 
 MISS COMPTON S BALL. 229 
 
 not being on your birthday, is whetber it is 
 quite right to call it a birthday ball when it 
 isn't,' debated Lucy with her judicial, puri- 
 tanical air, which she had acquired betimes 
 from her early career as a clergywoman, while 
 it was at the same time perfectly honest, like 
 everything else about her. Then she solved 
 the difficulty like a loyal gentlewoman and 
 daughter of the Church of England, ' AVell, 
 the Queen very often keeps her birthday on 
 the wrong day.' She got rid of her doubt on 
 the instant, and turned to another considera- 
 tion. ' It is rather a pity that it is later in 
 the season than the 29th of June, for then it 
 was moderately cool, while the 30th of July 
 is really too hot for anything save a garden- 
 party. I wonder Lady Fermor did not change 
 the ball into a garden-party. Iris.' 
 
 ' She was set on the ball and had made her 
 arrangements ; besides, I fancy garden-parties 
 were not so common when she was young. 
 However, we are to have something of the 
 kind too, and you will be there, Lucy. Mind 
 you must not cheat us of our due, and escape 
 to a mothers' meeting, or a cottage-reading at 
 the other end of the parish. The Mildmays 
 have half consented to stay and go, and Lady
 
 230 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Thwaite is to preside, though it was grand- 
 mamma's idea, and I believe it was her in- 
 fluence which brought it about.' 
 
 ' I am not going to make any difficulty ; I 
 am not often in such request,' said Lucy 
 merrily. ' I enjoy a treat just as much as the 
 school-children do. But you have never told 
 me where this one is to be.' 
 
 ' At Whitehills, at Sir William Thwaite's,' 
 said Iris composedly. ^ He is to have the 
 second cutting of hay in the water meadows 
 just beyond the park, to-morrow. We are all 
 to go down after luncheon to look on at the 
 hay-making, and I suppose to help also, if we 
 have a weakness for playing at Daphnes and 
 Chloes. Lady Thwaite is to give us tea in 
 her old drawing-room. Poor soul ! I dare 
 say she will not like it, though she can laugh 
 and carry off her troubles as well as most 
 people. The Rector thinks she has behaved 
 beautifully to Sir William, though, as you 
 say, we all have our deprivations. Oh, Lucy !' 
 went on Iris, in the rambling manner of a 
 person who is saying everything that is 
 crowding into her head — without stopping to 
 classify the materials — on one of the rare 
 occasions when she had a friend's ears to pour
 
 MISS COMPTON S BALL. 231 
 
 it into. ' I should not be surprised if tlie 
 Hollises were there. Grandmamma will take 
 care that they have an invitation. I think the 
 hay-making will help us to subside gracefully 
 into our usual soberness. I have only been 
 at two or three balls before, and I confess I 
 felt headachy and dawdling and do nothings 
 for davs after the ball.' 
 
 Lucy had heard the name of the host, and 
 of his local habitation, with a modified ' Oh!' 
 
 She was too busy a girl to be quite familiar 
 with all the last confident gossip which served 
 to confirm idle guesses and audacious prog- 
 nostications. But she knew enough to have 
 put it, in so many words, to any other girl as 
 intimate with her as Iris Compton, whether 
 she were going to marry Sir William Thwaite, 
 taking it for granted that it was by Lady 
 Termor's desire and according to her arrange- 
 ment. But somehow Lucy could not ask 
 such a question of Lis Compton. Girls, 
 especially fairly educated, well-bred girls, may 
 be very good friends, without (if some men 
 will forgive the exception) exchanging love- 
 confidences. In this case there was none to 
 exchange. Iris had none; and if she had, the 
 greater depth and delicacy of her nature would
 
 232 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 have made her shy of confiding it, till the very 
 last moment, to her dearest friend. Lucy 
 went so far as to complain laughingly of pre- 
 suming curates, while she was still so popular 
 among them, and so helpful to them, that Iris 
 shook her head privately, and feared selfishly 
 that Lucy must fall a victim to one of her 
 court of clerical squires at last. But Lucy 
 was steady and conscientious, and till the 
 right man came, she was above either entering 
 on petty flirtations for their own sake, or with 
 the sillier intent of inflicting their rise and 
 progress, scrapes and catastrophes, on an un- 
 fortunate bosom-friend. 
 
 It seemed only the other day that Iris and 
 Lucy Acton had speculated, with the rest of 
 their world, on the anomaly of a clownish 
 squire at Whitehills, and asked each other if 
 he would be fit to enter a drawing-room, and 
 how they should shake hands with him when 
 he might swing their arms like the hands of 
 a pendulum or crush their rings into their 
 fingers. What should they find to say to him, 
 especially if they wished to propitiate him — 
 supposing Lucy sought a subscription for her 
 pet cottage hospital or any one of her missions, 
 and Iris was solicitous to abet her ?
 
 MISS COMPTON S BALL, 233 
 
 When brought to the test the difficulty had 
 not proved so insurmountable to a girl with 
 an exceptionally tender heart and single mind. 
 But Lucy had only an inkling of this, while it 
 struck her that Sir William's name was con- 
 stantly coming up in the conversation. 
 
 On Iris's tablets, which were not left clean 
 ivory, it was recorded that she was to have 
 Mr. Hollis for her first partner, while Mr. 
 Mildmav was to dance with Mrs. Hollis. 
 This was a piece of county etiquette. Iris, 
 ao:ain, was to w^altz the first waltz with Tom 
 Mildmay as a piece of family etiquette. 
 
 ' And I hope you will give the third dance 
 to King Lud,' suggested Lucy, using her 
 brother Ludovic's family nickname. 
 
 ' Xo, nothing quite so good,' answered Iris. 
 ' I am to have Sir William for my third part- 
 ner.' 
 
 ' But can he dance ? are you sure ?' urged 
 Lucy, in alarm for the consequences. ' Will 
 he not trample on your toes till they are like 
 a jelly, or tear your skirt to tatters ?' 
 
 ' Oh no !' answered Iris, laughing fearlessly. 
 ' At least grandmamma vouches for him, and 
 scouts at any doubt. It is only a quadrille, 
 so that I cannot come to great grief. But I
 
 234 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 don't think he would attempt what he knew 
 nothing about. He has sense and observation. 
 You must remember I have seen a good deal of 
 him since grandmamma has received him into 
 high favour. I have not seen her make so much 
 of anybody for a long time ; she keeps him 
 mostly to herself, but occasionally I have 
 to talk to him, or play to him, or take a turn 
 with him on the terrace. It is not nearly so 
 awkward and uncomfortable, or so much of a 
 drag as we feared. I believe he is rather a 
 nice fellow. Plain ? Oh ! without any pre- 
 tence, homely, and not particularly bright, 
 though it is hard to judge of a man brought 
 up quite differently from ourselves. He never 
 drinks anything save water, because he pro- 
 mised to a friend that he would not touch 
 strong drink. Then you know Jenny Rogers, 
 the little table-maid out of your class, whom 
 I like so much ? she tells me that she has a 
 brother a groom up at Whitehills ; since the 
 rain and heat he has been attacked with 
 rheumatic fever, and Dr. Snell is attending 
 him at the Whitehills offices. Sir "William 
 goes to see Bill Rogers every day, and lifts 
 him in his arms, as if he were the servant and 
 Bill the master. He offered to read to him to
 
 MISS COMPTON's ball. 235 
 
 ease the pain and help to pass the time, just as 
 he has read the newspapers to grandmamma 
 during a fit of her gout. The book was to be 
 what the lad liked, but he had no choice, so 
 that Sir AVilliam took over * Tom Brown's 
 School-days,* which I had told him to get, 
 when we happened one day to speak of boys' 
 sports. I am so proud of having mentioned 
 it, because he said it was first-rate. I declare,' 
 said Iris impulsively, with her sweet smile, ' I 
 am falHng quite in love with poor Sir William, 
 though he is a rough diamond. His eyes are 
 like a woman's, or like a dumb animal's when 
 it is trying to make itself understood.' 
 
 It was a frank announcement, which did 
 not sound promising, and Lucy did not mis- 
 take it for a moment. 
 
 Lady Termor had ordered a dress for her 
 grand-daughter from a court dressmaker, and 
 the old lady turned out certain jewels fi-om 
 her jewel-case for Iris to wear. Had the girl 
 known their history, the thought of it would 
 have burnt into her pure, just soul as if the 
 jewels were red-hot and scorching her tender 
 flesh ; but Iris did not know, and her ignorance 
 was more than bliss, it was unsullied righteous- 
 ness.
 
 236 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Lady Fermor had spared nothing for the 
 occasion. She had even condescended to con- 
 sult Lady Thwaite on what novel luxury, 
 elegance, or eccentricity would bestow eclat 
 on the ball. Formerly Lady Fermor's attempts 
 in this direction had tended to aristocratic, but 
 rather riotous orgies. She now sought to 
 establish a diiferent character for L^is's ball, 
 and so was willing to compete for another 
 more subdued and subtle distinction. She 
 was asking the suifrages of the neighbours, 
 and she made a concession to their prejudices 
 to the extent of letting it be known that Miss 
 Compton's ball was to be a ball pure and 
 simple. There was to be no cosy room with 
 green tables to attract stragglers from the 
 chalked floors. For once play was abjured 
 at Lambford. 
 
 Lady Thwaite had suggested a foreign 
 fashion of dancing the cotillon. It certainly 
 called for expensive accessories, but it might 
 be new in Eastham, though it had been ridden 
 to death half-a-dozen seasons ago in London, 
 and had fallen back in a great measure on its 
 native ground of French and Austrian ball- 
 rooms. But Lady Thwaite could think of 
 nothing better as a surprise to tickle and
 
 MISS COM P TON S BALL. 237 
 
 charm the natives, and Lady Fermor adopted 
 the device. 
 
 Iris and Lucy met to put the finishing- 
 touches to each other's toilets. Iris's costume 
 was made up of white silk, tulle, and lilies, 
 with long grassy leaves. It might have been 
 looked down upon as insipid, tame, and old- 
 fashioned by the man-milliner Worth and his 
 prostrate American and English worshippers, 
 but she had never worn anything so befitting 
 her youth and beauty. As she looked at her- 
 self in the long mirror, her face beamed with 
 girlish gladness at her own fair image. It 
 beamed still more brightly, though bashfully, 
 when Lucy cried out in honest exultation, 
 ' Iris, dear, you look — I won't say how you 
 look,' for she knew Iris, however pleased by 
 her friendly admiration, would still feel 
 afi'ronted if she were told to her face that she 
 was beautiful. ' Your dress is charming. 
 Madame deserves her reputation and her 
 prices,' with a little sigh, for poor Lucy — one 
 of the many children of a much -hampered 
 clergyman — had to be satisfied with an old 
 pink silk of her mother's which had seen 
 much service, but was still supposed to pass 
 muster when covered with fresh tarlatan.
 
 238 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 * I am SO happy you like everything about 
 me/ said Iris, with her soft blushes ; ' but if 
 love were not blind, you would see that all is 
 needed where there is a face like a Queen 
 Anne's sixpence, and a big bump to be con- 
 cealed by real thatch,' and she stirred with 
 her forefinger the silken tangle above the dis- 
 proportionate forehead. 
 
 The next moment Iris forgot herself in in- 
 venting improvements on Lucy's dress. She 
 would gladly have given her fi:-iend a new 
 gown for the occasion, while Lucy and her 
 mother would not have been too proud to 
 accept the gift. But Iris, though a prospec- 
 tive heiress, had little more pocket-money at 
 her disposal than Lucy possessed. Neither 
 was Iris at liberty to transfer for a night one 
 of the diamonds glittering at her throat and 
 waist, and on the band passed through her 
 hair. It was only her love, taste, and skill, 
 and a few perishing flowers, which Iris could 
 lavish on her friend. But Iris looped up here, 
 and gathered together there, and festooned 
 with ferns and Geant de hataille roses, till Lucy 
 protested with gratification she would not have 
 known her gown, and that Iris had far too 
 clever fingers for anybody save a dressmaker.
 
 MISS COMPTON's ball. iy) 
 
 ^ When all other trades fail, I shall try 
 dressmaking, Lucy,'' promised Iris. 
 
 ' Yes, but there must come a revolution 
 first,' objected conservative Lucy. 
 
 ' There is not much of you, but we have 
 made the most of it,' said Lady Fermor, when 
 Iris went to show herself. The mistress of 
 Lambford spoke fi^om the superbness of her 
 purple velvet and ermine, which only royalty, 
 condemned to wear robes of state, or eighty 
 years of age, with an icy finger on its veins, 
 could have borne on a July night after the 
 Goodwood races had sounded the retreat to 
 the rear-guard of fashion fi:om suffocating 
 London rooms. ' See that you do the best for 
 yourself, child,' said the ancient oracle, ' and 
 make your hay when the sun sliines. Don't 
 be such a fool as to think you are everybody's 
 bargain, and lose the only chance that may 
 fall to your lot.' 
 
 Iris was accustomed to her grandmother's 
 speeches. She had got into the habit of not 
 stopping to analyze them when they held any- 
 thing enigmatical. AVhere was the good of 
 pulling words to* pieces in order to find be- 
 neath them gall and wormwood, ashes, golden 
 powder from the great image of Mammon,
 
 240 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 stamped small and strewn on tlie water which 
 men and w^omen were to drink for their daily 
 refreshment ? 
 
 The little-used ball-room at Lambford was 
 one of the finest, least-spoilt rooms in the 
 house. Iris's taste and dexterous fingers had 
 been there too in the decorations. She had 
 laughed to herself as she indulged in her little 
 spurt, at the aesthetic mania with which she 
 was so familiar from her studies of Punch and 
 the other illustrated papers. She had intro- 
 duced the great tawny discs of sunflowers and 
 shields of peacocks' feathers among the drapery 
 of ivy, Virginian creeper, and clematis. ' Even 
 Punch, and Toby, and " the Colonel," of whom 
 one has read, would own the eff'ect was good if 
 they were here to-night.'
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 
 
 The guests, though there was a shade of shy- 
 ness and stiffness about them at first, because 
 they were conscious of replacing a different 
 company, did not disgrace the scene. True, 
 Mrs. Mildmav was more colourless than ever 
 in her pale grey satin. She would have liked, 
 if she had dared, to have her gown black, and 
 to wear no ornaments but her pearls, which 
 might have stood for congealed tears of 
 reluctance and consternation. She drew Mr. 
 Mildniay aside into the conservatory, and 
 begged him to tell her which were the least 
 objectionable people present. She got into a 
 sc ire, and pointed out the Hollis's party as 
 certainly disreputable. 
 
 ' My dear Amelia/ replied the harassed 
 g:nt^eman, ' it is quite right that you should 
 
 VOL. I. ] 6
 
 242 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 be particular about the company you keep, no 
 husband worthy of the name could blame his 
 wife for being careful on such an important 
 point. But for heaven's sake don't go into a 
 panic and do yourself and me irreparable 
 injury. Eem ember this is to be our future 
 home, and these are to be our neighbours. 
 There is nothing wrong with anybody here 
 to-night, unless it be that stout, bottle-nosed 
 man in the corner, whom there is not the 
 slightest occasion for you to notice. Lady 
 Fermor knows better than to have us down to 
 countenance her old associates ;' and the small, 
 pompous man, who was to be the future Lord 
 Termor, spread out his chest, and brushed up 
 his flaxen hair, which w^as in a higher top 
 than usual, and drew his fingers through the 
 ' Piccadilly weepers ' of his long moustache 
 and beard. ^ Besides, the old woman is not 
 such a fool as to compromise that girl and the 
 lout on whom she is to be bestowed. I wish 
 they would take themselves farther off than 
 Whitehills, certainly ; but the rank-and-file 
 Baronet may be more easily dealt with than a 
 finer gentleman. Now, just to show you how 
 much you may be mistaken, and how near 
 you may go to impairing our future comfort
 
 2RIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 243 
 
 here, the very people you have singled out as 
 objectionable are the most unexceptionable in 
 the whole room, so far as birth, fortune, anci 
 irreproachable antecedents go.' 
 
 ^ You don't say so, Thomas !' 
 
 * Fact, I assure you. Indeed, the family is 
 so irreproachable that the present people must 
 needs trade on their immunity from scandal, 
 and begin to play pranks. HoUis is of a very 
 old Eastham family, who have left their estates 
 unencumbered — not the usual practice Trith 
 the gentry here — neither will he impair them. 
 He is an excellent man and admirable magis- 
 trate, though not so much master in his own 
 house as he is on the bench. Mrs. Hollis had 
 a large fortune and is equally well descended 
 — she is nearly related to the Marquis of 
 Eastham's family — all of which is perhaps at 
 the bottom of the mischief. I mean these 
 people can do anything they like, and they, 
 especially the young people among them, have 
 chosen lately to revive many of the tricks and 
 tomfooleries of a former generation. I cannot 
 help thinking it is a pity, but there is no 
 serious harm in it, and it must be overlooked 
 in their case. You can see for yourself what 
 thorough aristocrats these two pretty girls are, 
 
 16—2
 
 244 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 though they have early shown themselves fond 
 of making people stare.' 
 
 Tom Mildmay's definition of the Hollises 
 was not a bad one. Either they and their 
 actions were a singular relic remaining of the 
 rudely healthy thoughtlessness, half-haughty 
 hoydenishness and half-refined, half-barbarous 
 horse-play of their predecessors, or else the 
 existence of these qualities was one sign 
 amono-st others that in the moral as in the 
 physical revolutions of the world, w^e are 
 constantly going back to a good deal that wt, 
 were fain to hope we had outlived. Thus the 
 puritanism of the Commonwealth was replaced 
 by the licence of Charles II. 's reign, and the 
 virtues of good King George III.'s court were 
 replaced by the vices of the Regency, and so 
 another honourable standard seems sinking 
 before fastness and rowdyism in quarters where 
 simple folk would least have expected to find 
 them — before mammon-worship, fraudulent 
 trading, vicious books, plays and music, and 
 the worst French fashions, with scepticism and 
 superstition walking hand in hand. At such 
 eras old quips and cranks and odd traditional 
 practices come to the front again. Such were 
 the unbridled giddy love of fun — not ending
 
 IJ^/S WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 245 
 
 with boyhood or girlhood — and the feather- 
 headed unscrupulous devotion to frolic for 
 which nobody was responsible, that had dis- 
 tinguished the Marquis of Eastham's race 
 when its members were contemporaries of the 
 wits and bullies of the earlier Georgian 
 chronicles. The same characteristics had re- 
 appeared strongly marked in the family lately. 
 It was a remarkable testimony to the influence 
 of blood and to the truism that there is 
 nothing new under the sun, so that biography 
 must repeat itself, to discover how decided the 
 attributes were in a branch from the main 
 line, consisting mostly of women, like the 
 Hollises. For the sons were rarely at home, 
 and Mr. Hollis, representing generally the sole 
 male element in the family, had no quicksilver 
 blood in his veins. In spite of his combined 
 gravity and benevolence, he proved totally 
 unable to cope with the hereditary tendency 
 in his dauo^hters. 
 
 Mrs. Hollis had laughed and grown fat, like 
 Lady Thwaite. She was in a measure liors 
 de combat where active sport was concerned. 
 But she would not stand in the way of non- 
 sense — which she enjoyed with the zest of the 
 youngest engaged in it, or hinder her girls in 
 their maddest escapades.
 
 240 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 It wos difficult to believe what these two 
 stately -looking nymphs, certainly with roguery 
 peeping out, now and again, from beneath the 
 stateliness, had dared to do and to leave un- 
 done. All Eastham would have been up in 
 arms against the culprits, if they had not been 
 the Hollises, who might do anj^thing. 
 
 Maudie and N'anny HoUis had dressed 
 themselves like farmers' daughters, and driven 
 ti market cart through Cavesham, stopping at 
 every door when required, measuring out and 
 selling peas and early potatoes, blackberries 
 and cherries, much as Sarah Jennings, the 
 future Duchess of Marlborough, dispensed 
 oranges, for a wager, in the streets of 
 London. 
 
 The Misses Hollis were never out of their 
 mail phaeton, during the summer, when they 
 had a brother at home. They coaxed him to 
 let one of the girls blow the horn, and the 
 troop had been known to draw up, and invite 
 each marvelling stray pedestrian they met to 
 avail himself of their cattle and trap. 
 
 Sometimes zeal for the improvement of the 
 human kind was engrafted on the family foible. 
 The young ladies would arm themselves with 
 a formidable array of brushes, brooms, and
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 247 
 
 pails, and force an entrance into a cottage 
 closed for the day. Dainty hands would 
 splash and sweep and souse with such good 
 will, that the cottagers, returning from toil- 
 some field-work, craving sluttish rest, would 
 stand transfixed before a dwellino^ reekins: and 
 running down with cleanliness, and half-dried 
 whitewash. Every chair and table had been 
 ousted to undergo soaping and scrubbing ; 
 every cherished old secret hole, full of rubbish, 
 stood gaping in emptiness, in the garish light 
 of day. It never appeared to occur to the 
 imperious, gleeful philanthropists what thefr 
 feelino^s mioiit have been if Thornbrake, with 
 all their pet retreats, had been so assaulted, 
 taken by storm, and well-nigh washed and 
 swept ofi* the face of the earth. 
 
 At another time it would be the children 
 the girls would rout out of their hiding-places 
 and hunt into the Hollises' school, which was 
 under no officious, troublesome Board. There 
 the young idea was taught to shoot in a wholly 
 fitful and grotesque manner. According to 
 the amateur schoolmistresses' moods they 
 would set their small scholars such astound- 
 ing lessons as no youthful brain could com- 
 pass, which drove the juvenile fry and their
 
 248 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 parents to the verge of despair. Or Nanny 
 Hollis would undertake to enact the entire 
 drama of ' Punch and Judv ' for the benefit 
 of the assembly. 
 
 Withal, the Hollises were kind-hearted in 
 their heedlessness. It was a rarer event than 
 thoughtful people might have feared, for the 
 girls to turn upon their victims and, after 
 teasing, tempting, and confounding them, 
 either toss them aside or trample them under 
 foot, in impatience with anyone's being so 
 silly as not to know his or her place, or in the 
 high-spirited experimenters' eagerness to find 
 some other jolly game. Whole and half- 
 sovereigns of the Hollises, which to be sure 
 they never missed, were continually finding a 
 way into Lucy Acton's or her father's purse, 
 so as to salve, in the people's day of distress, 
 what wounds had been dealt to the pride 
 which still survived in the stolid day- 
 labourers, and doltish, unskilled mechanics of 
 Eastham. 
 
 Nanny and Maudie Hollis were the most 
 simply dressed girls in the room, but for the 
 gleam of some of their mother's jewels, to 
 which Lady Fermor's ill-gotten gems had 
 been nothing. The sisters sat demurely by
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 249 
 
 Mrs. HoUis's side, and it was only those that 
 knew the madcaps best, who entertained an 
 unerring apprehension that the long, sleepy- 
 looking eyes — the true Easthara eyes, under 
 the well-pencilled brows, were glancing out 
 from beneath their lids in search of prey. 
 
 Lady Thwaite's weeds had passed grace- 
 fully into black satin and bugles, and a Queen 
 Mary cap. She had fulfilled what had been 
 expected of her. She had brought with her 
 a train of young nephews, and nieces, and 
 cousins, to whom any ball was welcome. 
 She was sincere in seeking that neither Miss 
 Compton's ball, nor the great couj) which 
 Lady Thwaite had herself inaugurated, should 
 prove a fiasco ; only if either did she was not 
 called upon to cry over it. She was easy in 
 her mind with respect to hedging, so far as 
 any woman could perform that prudent, manly 
 measure, where the ball and any results that 
 might follow the ball were in question. 
 
 The officers from Birkett had appeared to a 
 man, and Lady Thwaite was taking some of 
 those she knew into her confidence about her 
 special part of the programme. When the 
 best that could be brought forward was said 
 of Sir William, he was not the man who could
 
 250 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 be chosen with any prospect of a successful 
 issue — nay, with anything save trembling 
 apprehension — to figure as a master of the 
 ceremonies in a jeu-de-societe. There he 
 stood, half-hidden among a knot of men at 
 one of the doors, so that though many an eye 
 was turned upon him, and many a whisper 
 breathed his name, he did not suffer from an 
 overwhelming consciousness of observation. 
 He could pass muster, tugging at his gloves, 
 in his well-fitting dress- coat, with the camellia 
 which Lady Fermor had herself picked for 
 him, stuck in his button-hole. 
 
 Iris had danced with Mr. Mollis, and 
 received the kindest encouragement from 
 the white-bearded, indulgent, too indulgent 
 master of Thornbrake, whom his wife and 
 daughters set at nought, coaxed and laughed 
 at as ' poor old dad/ and ' Peter,' whereas he 
 was not a descendant of the old Hollises for 
 nothing, and his Christian name in reality was 
 ' Adrian.' 
 
 Iris had waltzed her punctilious waltz with 
 her cousin till, before the three rounds were 
 ended, she felt alarmingly infected by his 
 solemnity. She was glad to exchange her 
 partner for Sir William, who went through
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 251 
 
 the quadrille to the admiration of the sceptical 
 and the credit of his dancing-master, though 
 not without some loss of equanimity. 
 .. . ' Poor man,' Iris secretly compassionated 
 him, * how pale he has grown ! surely the 
 game is not worth the candle.' At the same 
 time she darted a triumphant challenge of the 
 eyes to Lucy. ' Shall I introduce them?' Iris 
 pondered. ' Of course the Rector has called, 
 and Sir William knows some of the family, 
 but I think this is the first time he has hap- 
 pened to meet Lucy, and she has been sitting 
 for the last dance. He would not be a bad 
 partner if he would appear to forget what he 
 is doing, and not leave his partner to find all 
 the small-talk. He looks as well as any man 
 present. I am not sure he does not look better. 
 His figure is not at all bad, if it were not so 
 bolt upright"; then he has got quite beautiful 
 eyes, and I like his chestnut hair. If Lucy 
 were very captivating she might pave the way 
 for a handsome subscription to her Cottage 
 Hospital. He could afford it, for grand- 
 mamma is always saying what a fine estate 
 Whitehills is.' 
 
 Iris's good intentions were nipped in the 
 bud by Lady Thwaite's claiming Sir William
 
 252 ■ BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 and carrying him off in mystified reluctance 
 to be presented to Maudie Hoi lis. This 
 movement was the consequence of a short 
 conversation which had passed between the 
 two ladies. 
 
 'Where is Orson, Lady Thwaite?' inquired 
 the younger. ' You don't tell me that he is 
 dancing with Iris Compton? What next ? 
 He will be found able to read and write, and 
 then he will be like everybody else ; he will 
 not be worth his salt.' 
 
 ' My dear child!' exclaimed Lady Thwaite. 
 She was a little nettled, for Sir William, 
 though she could laugh at him when it suited 
 her, was her late husband's heir and her 
 protege. Like many women, when she was 
 piqued she became specially affectionate with 
 a sort of bitter-sweet affectionateness. Besides, 
 she had known the Hollis girls all their lives, 
 and felt free to take them to task. ' I should 
 not wonder, Maudie, though he were better 
 read for a man than you are for a woman. 
 Every class can command wonderful ad- 
 vantages now. Sir William had a fair ele- 
 mentary education, and he is a reading man.' 
 
 ' He may easil}^ be better read than we are,' 
 said Maudie Hollis unblushingly, ' if he has
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 253 
 
 gone beyond a few novels, which make me 
 yawn all the time I am reading them, though 
 they are said to be naughty, and it was rather 
 good fun smuggling them into the house, 
 under papa's nose, in the guise of histories and 
 sermons. But Sir William Lumpkin is dis- 
 appointing,' went on Maudie with a pout. 
 * What is the use of the fine story of the man's 
 having been a private soldier, if he is to be 
 just like every other partner we meet ? But I 
 mean to give him another chance. Won't you 
 introduce him, Lady Thwaite?' 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 Lady Thwaite brought him over, and, to 
 her gratification, Sir William went through 
 the introduction with a coolness which would 
 have been miraculous had it not admitted of 
 an explanation. The well-filled room con- 
 tained only one woman for Sir William 
 Thwaite, and that woman was Iris Compton. 
 To dance with her was rapture and torment, 
 in which former scenes came flashing back to 
 taunt, cow, and sicken him. To every other 
 woman there he was profoundly indiff*erent, 
 and indifference in certain instances lends 
 ease, fi'eedom, even a species of distinction to 
 the manner. But Sir William did not imme-
 
 254 . BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 diately avail himself of the privilege of asking 
 Maudie Hollis to dance. He stood looking a 
 little as if he wondered what he had been 
 brought there to do, till she suggested that 
 she was dying to waltz to the particular air 
 which the orchestra was playing. 
 
 ^ Then hadn't we better try it ?' he said, and 
 whirled her round carefully and correctly. 
 
 ' Orson's a humbug/ she whispered to her 
 sister, when the couple stood still to rest, and 
 Nanny Hollis with her partner stopped beside 
 them. ' There is not a rise to be got out of 
 him. I think the Field-Marshal should make 
 an investigation what the men who take the 
 Queen's shilling are really drilled in — the 
 goose-step or waltzing. If he had been a 
 Scotchman, and we had stood up in a reel, I 
 could have understood it ; I believe Scotch 
 children are born dancing reels, and only need 
 the sound of the bagpipes to make them skip 
 and whoop like red Indians. But a waltz ! 
 Yet, I assure you, there is nothing at all odd 
 in his waltzing. Why, I thought we should 
 be the spectacle of the room, and I might be 
 reduced to spraining my ankle or fainting to 
 put an end to it, and he only touches me as if 
 I were glass, and lets me go when he has the
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 2 
 
 DD 
 
 opportunity. I wonder what Iris Compton 
 sees in him? But you can try him. if vou 
 like. I dare say Captain Ryder will not 
 object to change partners, and Orson may 
 think it is the rule in our set. Then Peter 
 will be pleased to see us both dance with Sir 
 AVilliam, though the worthy soul has no notion 
 of match-making.' 
 
 ' Of course not,' answered Xanny. ' Peter 
 only thinks we are good, polite children, to 
 dance with everybody who asks us, and not to 
 affront a stuck recruiting sergeant.' 
 
 In the meantime Iris had been allowed to 
 follow her inclination and waltz with her fast 
 friend, Ludo^T.c Acton, as they had waltzed 
 together hundreds of times before, since the 
 juvenile days when they disputed hotly about 
 their steps, and she asserted that he trod on 
 her toes, while he retorted that she had nearly 
 pulled his arms off. 
 
 Lieutenant Ludovic had developed into a 
 big and incomprehensible fellow, comely, like 
 his sister Lucy, but with more individuality 
 in the comeliness, which defied and conquered 
 a mass of material, for he was big, with sandy 
 hair and moustache, and an inclination to 
 chubbiness in his cheeks. At home he was
 
 256 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 the gentlest and most inoffensive of male 
 beinfifs, the most dutiful and affectionate of 
 sons and brothers, whose principal weakness 
 di splayed itself in a passion for musical instru- 
 ments of a languishing and die-away descrip- 
 tion. He never came home from foreign 
 service without bringing back a new flute or 
 mandolin. It would have been his joy to have 
 played accompaniments to his mother's and 
 sisters' performances on the old piano all day 
 lono*. It was his sorrow that with all the will 
 in the world to oblige the family's darling, 
 they had so little time to avail themselves of 
 his powers. Sometimes Iris Compton did 
 duty for the defaulters ; her grandmother 
 had, however, passed an interdict against 
 her making herself 'notorious' by frequent 
 strummings with that musical fool, the Rec- 
 tor's son. 
 
 But no sooner had Ludovic rejoined his 
 ship than the most extraordinary reports 
 reached the Rectory and his neighbours re- 
 garding him. The mild strumming fellow 
 was all but blown up by his forwardness in 
 torpedo practice. He had leapt overboard in 
 the happy hunting-ground of sharks, and 
 risked his valuable life twice over to save a
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 257 
 
 "NVTetched Malay woman. He had volunteered 
 to take the command of a boat on an explor- 
 ing expedition among the ice near the Xorth 
 Pole. And when the crew landed on a frost- 
 bound coast, and on false information took a 
 journey over the snow, which was likely to 
 be their last, he left the exhausted, despairing 
 men huddled together in their hut, and made 
 an awful journey back alone. He crossed the 
 wild white waste, with no companion save an 
 Esquimaux dog, and no sound to break the 
 stillness of death but the roar of a bear, the bay 
 of a wolf, or the scream of a bald-headed eagle. 
 
 These performances were certainly removed 
 by an immeasurable distance from any ex- 
 perience which his home and native place had 
 of King Lud ; and he was so hurt and in- 
 dignant if anybody ventured to approach the 
 subject that his familiars were driven to the 
 verge of doubting whether he could really be 
 the hero of the exploits Avhich were put in his 
 name. Had they not rather been performed 
 by some gallant young man who was un- 
 accountably defrauded of his due, while 
 Ludovic Acton, as his manner seemed to 
 imply, had, by an absurd mistake, been falsely 
 accredited with the glory? In spite of the 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 bewilderment which attended on the young 
 man^s honours, King Lud was justly the pride 
 of his father's and mother's hearts, and the 
 idol of his sisters. Iris Compton, too, was 
 proud and fond of him. She had only 
 escaped a deeper feeling because of the fami- 
 liarity which paralyzes the imagination, and 
 because one of the finest fellows in the world 
 did not happen to entertain any deeper feeling 
 for her. 
 
 All the difference which the advance from 
 boy and girlhood to young man and woman- 
 hood had made in the relations between 
 Ludovic Acton and Iris Compton was, that 
 after frequent separations and renewals of in- 
 tercourse, the couple had succeeded in accom- 
 plishing the effort, as a tribute to social forms, 
 to address each other in public as Mr. Acton 
 and Miss Compton, instead of King Lud and 
 Iris. 
 
 Therefore Sir William, with his unmasked 
 face, need not have looked every time he passed 
 the pair as if he would enjoy swearing ' like a 
 trooper,' according to Maudie HoUis's graphic 
 description. Even if he had heard their con- 
 versation, so primitive a fellow might have felt 
 elated rather than depressed by it.
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 259 
 
 * Don't you think Sir William Thwaite 
 waltzes very nicely?' said Iris, looking with 
 approving eyes on the waltzer. ' Oh I I hope 
 Lucy sees him.' 
 
 Ludovic had been interrupted in an enthu- 
 siastic account he was o:ivinor of a zither. He 
 did not dream of resenting his partner's lapse 
 of interest in his conversation ; but he looked 
 at her a little curiously in his quiet way. ' A 
 lady is the best judge of a fellow's waltzing,' 
 he said cautiously, pulling his fawn-coloured 
 moustache ; ' but if you ask me — I should not 
 have presumed to offer any criticism, mind, if 
 you had not put it to me — I should say the 
 gentleman is just a trifle laboured in his per- 
 formance, and occupied with it. No doubt art 
 will soon become second nature.' 
 
 'Now, Mr. Acton, that is very ill-natured 
 of you, particularly as we are speaking of 
 dancing, not of singing, or playing on the 
 banjo,' said Iris saucily; 'and I do not know 
 what you mean by professing not to presume 
 to give me an opinion till it is solicited.' 
 
 'Don't you?' responded King Lud du- 
 biously; ' but may I inquire what Lucy has 
 to do with it?' 
 
 ' Yes, Lucy was so conceited as to imagine 
 
 17—2
 
 26o BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 Sir William could not dance at all — Sir 
 William who is waltzing like — like Lord 
 Palmerston when grandmamma saw him at 
 Almack's.' 
 
 ' Hold on, Miss Compton; I don't object to 
 a spice of friendly exaggeration, and I don't 
 wish to find fault. What's in waltzing after 
 all ? The best of men may not figm^e as the 
 most graceful of waltzers. I am afraid I am a 
 little heavy myself.' 
 
 * I am afraid you are/ acknowledged Iris, 
 with all the candour of easy-going friendship. 
 
 ' Sir William waltzes more like his dancing- 
 master, whoever he may have been, and 
 whether or not he is still pointing the light 
 fantastic toe. The man is as solemn and 
 earnest over his task as if he were earning his 
 bread by it.' 
 
 ' I don't believe he ever had a dancing- 
 master,' said Iris in her ignorance, with a gay 
 laugh. ' I think he waltzes by nature — so 
 well that you are tempted to be jealous of him, 
 just as he is a gentleman by nature, to a greater 
 extent than many people suppose.' 
 
 It was just after this dance that Iris had her 
 eyes opened and the ball utterly spoilt for her. 
 The operation of having euphrasy squeezed on
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT, 261 
 
 the eye-lids may be always beneficial — as truth, 
 if we can bear it, is always the best — it by no 
 means follows that the act itself is not often 
 exquisitely painful ; indeed, the occasions 
 when it is supremely pleasant are the excep- 
 tions. Iris's enlightenment had no apparent 
 cunnection with an awkward and distressing 
 episode of the ball which had happened a little 
 beforehand. The girl was out of the room 
 when the unlucky blunder occurred, and she 
 only heard a mangled version of it sometime 
 afterwards. Nevertheless, the accident was 
 partly the cause of Iris's having her eyes 
 opened — in this as in many instances she suf- 
 fered for the sins of others. 
 
 Lord Termor had not walked since his last 
 attack of illness, but he liked to be wheeled 
 from room to room, to look at the company he 
 could no longer join, and mumble greetings to 
 any friend he recognised. Lady Fermor had 
 directed that he should be wheeled once round 
 the ball-room. The progress, though it dis- 
 concerted some of the guests, was made with 
 apparent satisfaction to the poor old man, who 
 glanced about with his lack-lustre eyes, and 
 * smiled a meaninofless smile, till he came close 
 to Lady Fermor where she sat at the top of
 
 262 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 the room. She was preparing to accost him 
 with one of her customary challenges, in 
 the overpoweringly hilarious tones which she 
 always adopted towards him. 
 
 ' How do you like it all. Fermor ? The do- 
 ings are a little slow, eh ? The young folks have 
 not the go they had when we were young.' 
 
 At that moment he anticipated her, a light 
 came into his faded eyes and a tinge of life- 
 blood into his clay-coloured cheeks. He suc- 
 ceeded in raising himself up, and stooped 
 forward with an attempt at a low bow, at the 
 same time fumbling to lay his yellow wax- 
 like hand on his heart. He spoke in a quaver- 
 ing but perfectly audible voice. ' Allow me to 
 pay you my very best respects — my ardent 
 homage. You must know it gives me the 
 greatest pleasure in life to attend your assem- 
 bly, Mrs. Bennet,' he said, using a name which 
 had not been mentioned in her hearing since 
 she had dragged the shameful thing she had 
 made it through the mire. 
 
 Even she grew ghastly at the unfamiliar 
 sound, and quailed for an instant, when her 
 sin found her out after half a century, by the 
 fatuous brain and babbling lips of the partner 
 who had continued devoted to her.
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 263 
 
 Everybody within hearing looked at each 
 other in dismay, and poor Mrs. Mildmay was 
 so appalled that her husband had to hurry 
 her away in search of instant restoratives, lest 
 she should groan aloud or faint on the spot. 
 
 The next moment Lady Fermor had signed 
 to the servant who was wheeling the chair to 
 move on, had pulled herself together, looked 
 round defiantly, and startled her next neigh- 
 bour by asking her how she liked the new 
 fashion of puffed sleeves, like pillows with 
 strino^s tied round them. 
 
 But there was a disturbing impression pro- 
 duced at the worst time, for there was a lull 
 in the dancinof, while the o'entlemen whom 
 Lady Thwaite, as mistress of the ceremonies 
 for Lady Fermor, had deputed to be aides-de- 
 camp were assuming their steward's bows and 
 ribands, and consultinof too-ether about the 
 bringing on the piece de resistance. 
 
 Lady Thwaite wished to get rid of the sense 
 of something wrong and to dissipate an uneasy 
 qualm of conscience on her own account. 
 Besides, she was a woman born to meddle, 
 incapable of letting well alone, unless in her 
 own private concerns, which she treated with 
 the greatest respect and discretion. She
 
 264 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 caught Iris as she was coming back into the 
 ball-room, withdrew her from her partner, and 
 took possession of her, to have a little con- 
 fidential chat in a cool corridor which was 
 then deserted. 
 
 ' What is it, Lady Thwaite?' inquired Iris 
 without a shade of apprehension, unless for 
 the small trouble indicated in her next words. 
 ' Oh ! I hope nothing is going to put a stop to 
 the cotillon. The bouquets and foolscaps have 
 not gone amissing ? Nobody is too bashful ? 
 Captain Hood has not begun to doubt his 
 power to act as fugleman?' 
 
 ' No, no; but I have hardly spoken to you 
 to-night, my dear Iris, not even to congratu- 
 late you, if I may venture ' 
 
 ^ On my ball?' Iris finished the sentence. 
 ' Well, I do think it is going off delightfully in 
 spite of the heat, and that everybody is happy. 
 I am beginning to be sorry it is half over; I 
 did not enjoy my other balls nearly so much, 
 though you were very kind/ ended Iris, with a 
 little sigh of content. 
 
 ' I am so glad you find this ball especially 
 charming ; I am not surprised. But you did 
 not quite take me up. It was not on the ball 
 I thought of wishing you joy — may I not do
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 265 
 
 it on something else ?' said Lady Thwaite 
 caressingly. 
 
 ' On what else should you wish me joy ?' 
 inquired Iris w^onderingly. ' I dare say it is 
 very stupid of me, but I do not in the least 
 know what you mean. I think I am stupid 
 to-niorht, for I have been two or three times 
 puzzled by things people have said, or rather 
 left half- said. Ludovic Acton, among the 
 rest, professed not to presume to give his 
 opinion on something we were talking about. 
 I must have grown, unknown to myself, a 
 grand, imposing person all at once.' 
 
 ' You are not stupid, and you have only 
 grown grander by anticipation — you are 
 merely modest, a rare quality, let me tell you, 
 nowadays, and perhaps a little shy. But I 
 must warn you, my love, shyness is not always 
 wise where serious interests — the happiness of 
 two people's lives — are at stake,' she added 
 with an air of matronly wisdom, and a tone of 
 friendly caution. ' Shvness mav be misunder- 
 stood in certain cases and cause irreparable 
 mischief.' 
 
 ' What can you mean, Lady Thwaite?' cried 
 L'is, provoked into standing still, with her 
 cheeks hot and scarlet, and a sparkle and ring
 
 266 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 of justifiable vexation in her eyes and voice. 
 ' You speak as if there were somebody when 
 there is nobody — nobody in the world, Not 
 a soul has a right to say so, or to talk to me 
 about it; though I hope I should have the 
 sense and good feeling to let any friend talk to 
 me for my good, if there were a shadow of 
 reason for it. Mr. Acton, if you mean him,* 
 continued Iris incoherently, ^ though I cannot 
 think why, unless because he is Lucy's brother, 
 and we have always been intimate friends — 
 they have all been kind to me since I was a 
 baby at the Rectory — but we shall never be 
 anything more than friends — we have never 
 
 either of us had the most distant idea of 
 
 I should be so sorry, and I am afraid grand- 
 mamma would be very angry, if anything 
 without the smallest foundation were said.' 
 
 ^ Don't trouble yourself — there is no fear of 
 it,' said Lady Thwaite, with the faintest sarcasm 
 in her tone, and continuing the unruffled smihng 
 serenity of her scrutiny ; * what is the proper 
 word for what old-fashioned people used to 
 call " close " ? Does your grandmother never 
 say, as characters in novels were wont to do, 
 " My dear girl, you are very close " ?' 
 
 Lady Thwaite could not in any sense be
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 267 
 
 termed a bad woman. She was not cruel or 
 treacherous or even tyrannical in her selfish- 
 ness, and she had a genuine liking for Iris 
 Compton ; but she no more understood her 
 than she could have understood the inhabitant 
 of another world. Iris thought that either 
 Lady Thwaite was taking leave of her senses, 
 or that she had gone out of the way to insult 
 her, which in itself would have been a witless 
 as well as an unprecedented piece of aggres- 
 sion. For Iris was not aware of having 
 offended her inquisitor, who had been formerly 
 her friendly patroness, while the girl had 
 never imagined herself insulted before. 
 
 ' I am almost a relation,' went on Lady 
 Thwaite, with her exasperatingiy cheerful re- 
 proachfulness, ' at least a most interested 
 family connection.' 
 
 Iris had been standing staring at the 
 speaker, now she started with a gasp. ' Lady 
 Thwaite, you cannot mean Sir William, to 
 whom grandmamma has been kind ; and I 
 have tried to be kind to him too, though of 
 course I have nothing in my power. ^Taat 
 do you take us for ? He would never make 
 such a dreadful mistake.' 
 
 * Iris,' said Lady Thwaite, thoroughly ex-
 
 268 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 cited, ' it is not other people who have been 
 making mistakes ; it is you who are — a perfect 
 simpleton I had almost said, forgive me for 
 such plain speaking — a greater child than I 
 could have conceived possible. All the people 
 here to-night are talking of your marriage 
 with Sir William Thwaite almost as an accom- 
 plished fact. What is more, Lady Fermor has 
 arranged the match. She has spoken of it to 
 me. Sir William himself is looking for the 
 fulfilment of the expectations which have been 
 held out to him. It is right that you should 
 know the truth, if you have never suspected it 
 before.' 
 
 ' And was I to have no voice in my own 
 marriao^e ? What is there about me, what 
 have I done, that people should see fitness in 
 such a marriage ? Would grandmamma give 
 me to one of the servants, to a rude, ignorant 
 working-man ?' 
 
 Lady Thwaite wa^ touched by the misery 
 in the girl's face, and by the self-restraint 
 which prevented her from expressing it, save 
 by the unconscious tightening of every muscle 
 — so that the eyebrows grew contracted and 
 the little mouth drawn — and by the in- 
 voluntary clenching of her hand on one of
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 269 
 
 the white roses of the bouquet, till the flower 
 was crushed, and the petals fell unheeded to 
 the ground. But Lady Thwaite was also 
 provoked and indignant. ' My dear Iris, I 
 am very sorrv. If I had dreamt that you 
 would be so distressed, I should certainly 
 not have spoken to-night and spoilt your 
 pleasure, though it is high time somebody 
 spoke to prevent a great esclandre. But, 
 pardon me, you are speaking very foolishly 
 in what you imply of Sir William. He is not 
 to be mentioned in the same breath with an 
 ordinary workino;-man. Xo doubt, his branch 
 of the family had been permitted to sink into 
 obscurity, so that he was brought up very 
 plainly ; but he was still a Thwaite of White- 
 hills. For my part I think he showed his 
 origin by preferring the army to any small 
 trade, and I believe he proved himself a brave 
 soldier. You know we have all accepted him, 
 and given him his place among us. Every 
 year that passes will see him in oreater 
 harmony with his position. I am convinced 
 he is a rough diamond, with many admirable 
 qualities, as men go. He is young, fairly 
 good-looking — I may say rather handsome 
 than the reverse — manly, honest. You know
 
 270 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 he is as temperate as an ancliorite ' (with an 
 irrepressible smile). ' He attends church as 
 regularly as if he were marched there by a 
 commanding officer. He is kind — I have seen 
 it with animals, and you yourself told me how 
 good he has been to some sick servant. If 
 you were as well acquainted with the world as 
 I am, you would be aware that many, very 
 many girls of your rank, whether they get 
 their choice or not, have to go farther and fare 
 worse, to put up with much heavier objections 
 in their husbands than are involved in marry- 
 ing poor Sir William.' 
 
 To Lady Thwaite's surprise Iris gave a 
 little nervous laugh as her only protest. Lady 
 Thwaite fancied it was in scorn, and she was 
 annoyed at this exhibition of pride in a girl 
 whom Lady Thwaite had imagined only too 
 good, gentle, and docile. 
 
 But the laugh was more hysterical than 
 scornful, though Iris was too healthy in body 
 and mind, with too much native dignity and 
 self-respect in her simplicity, to be guilty of 
 pronounced hysterics. Only Lady Thwaite's 
 words had vividly recalled to her mind a 
 half-forgotten sentence which she herself had 
 spoken of Sir William, when she had seen him
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 271 
 
 first, and said of him afterwards that he seemed 
 ^ a good sort of young man.' And Lady 
 Fermor had protested impatiently such a re- 
 port would have been very well if she had 
 meant to hire him for a servant. 
 
 Yes, the recommendations which Lady 
 Thwaite was citing were just the good character 
 which one might get with a servant. The 
 * rather handsome than the reverse ' miofht 
 stand for the number of inches often required 
 in a footman. For the rest — ' honest, sober, 
 obliging.' Was he obliging ? Such kindness 
 as he had displayed ought to represent good- 
 natured consideration and readiness to please 
 — in refi*aining from over-driving the horses, 
 if he were the coachman, and in beinof found 
 willing to help the other domestics. 
 
 The question was, whether the attributes of 
 a good servant were quite those which a girl 
 would look for in a husband, though it was 
 true she might not fare the better as a wife 
 for the lack of them. 
 
 Iris, in spite of the silence of her lips, had 
 not been without her dream-husband, her 
 ideal of true nobility, honour, grace, with 
 every accomplishment for which she cared a 
 straw. Compared to this ideal Sir William
 
 272 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Tbwaite was a clown, and something worse, if 
 he had so grossly misinterpreted her, and pre- 
 sumed on her friendliness towards him. 
 
 Lady Thwaite went on in spite of the un- 
 propitious laugh : ^ I think he was smitten 
 with you at first sight. I am certain that he 
 now worships the very ground you tread on. 
 You could make almost anything of him. 
 Would it not be worth your pains — a fit task 
 for a girl so kind and unselfish as you are — 
 to enable the poor Beast to break the spell 
 of inadequate training and unfortunate associ- 
 ations, and see him rise the perfect prince 
 of the fairy-tale ? I remember, Iris, finding 
 you, when you were a little girl, reading 
 '' Beauty and the Beast," and crying ^^our 
 eyes out for the poor, self-denying, forsaken 
 Beast.' 
 
 'That was long ago,' said Iris, shak- 
 ing her head. ' I know now that Beauty 
 had her rights, no less than the Beast — in 
 fact, that there are no such Beauties and 
 Beasts.' 
 
 ' Who would have expected cynicism from 
 you ? Was there not some old queen and 
 saint who asserted her queenliness and saint- 
 ship -by christianizing and civilizing a bar-
 
 IRTS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT. 273 
 
 barian of a husband, to whom my Sir AVilliam 
 is a Paladin ?' 
 
 ' I am neither a queen nor a saint,' answered 
 Iris briefly; but she recollected instantly the 
 whole story of St. Margaret, which Lady 
 Thwaite had never read, and that Margaret's 
 royalty and saintliness did not save her from 
 dying of the stab of exquisite anguish dealt 
 by the bitter tidings that her old rustic wooer 
 Malcolm and their first-born son had fallen 
 together in the Northumbrian siege.' 
 
 ' I have only one word more to say,' said 
 Lady Thwaite, beginning to wonder at the 
 zeal of her own pleading, when she was carried 
 away by the spirit of the moment. ' Lady 
 Fermor is a very old woman ; it is simply 
 natural and right that she should be concerned 
 for your future. I don't wish to sadden you, 
 love, but you will be a very lonely girl when 
 she dies, and it is possible that she and Lord 
 Fermor have not been able to make such an 
 ample provision for you as the world supposes. 
 There may be other reasons, which you are 
 too young and do not know enough of the 
 world to comprehend, why it would be speci- 
 ally desirable for you to marry early and well, 
 as society judges marriages. Is it at all 
 VOL. I. ' 18
 
 274 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 surprising that your grandmother should wish 
 to seize the opportunity of seeing you 
 established at Whitehills ? Though it is not 
 above eight months since I lost poor Sir 
 John, I think you must have forgotten what 
 Whitehills is like/ remonstrated Lady Thwaite 
 between warmth and plaintiveness. ^ It is as 
 well, perhaps, that you are to see it again 
 to-morrow. I am not ashamed to confess that 
 I was a proud woman when I came there first 
 as its mistress. Whitehills, with a man who 
 adores you — not at all a bad fellow, not 
 vicious, or even superannuated, quite capable of 
 becoming a respectable and respected county 
 gentleman ! Iris, think twice what you are 
 about/ 
 
 ' Thinking a hundred times would not make 
 any difference,' retorted Iris, stung into 
 passion, and proceeding, in her pain, to deal 
 certain home-thrusts — of which she would 
 have been incapable at a calmer moment — 
 of whose point, in truth, she had little idea. 
 ' I may be left a poor solitary girl — far poorer 
 and more solitary than girls who have been 
 brought up to earn their bread. I may have 
 to bear reproach ; I have not been so happy 
 as to fail entirely in the knowledge of evil.
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT, 275 
 
 whicli will cling to me. And Wliitehills 
 may be a very grand place, with its mistress 
 a most enviable woman. I dare say Sir 
 William will not beat her, or prevent her 
 from being a fine lady, though he is not a 
 gentleman, and her Mends will not forsake 
 her. But for all that, I see no cause why I 
 or any other girl should sell herself. That 
 would be the lowest poverty, the most utter 
 desolation of all, because it would be degrada- 
 tion and a lie.' ^ 
 
 ' Then I imagine you must be suffered to go 
 your own way,' said Lady Thwaite a little 
 loftily and angrily, ' since your notions are so 
 impracticable. I hope you will never regret 
 your resolution. You will allow me to say 
 so,' she continued, recovering her temper. 
 For it recurred to her again with greater force 
 — why should she so press Sir AVilliam's 
 suit ? It would be nicer for her if he were 
 longer in marrying — nay, if he never married 
 at all — though what, in that case, would 
 become of dear old Whitehills ? To think 
 that it should go a-begging ! But now she 
 would have the clearest conscience with reo'ard 
 to ha^dng done her best in seconding Sir 
 William in the wish of his heart, thouofh it 
 
 18—2
 
 276 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 went a little against her convenience rather 
 than her interest. 
 
 Even Bill Kogers might have owned that 
 the dowager had done something to earn 
 her pension. Under the renewed sense of 
 what was best for herself — doubtless for her 
 ' cousin ' and Iris also — and under the full 
 sunshine of an approving conscience, good- 
 natured Lady Thwaite's touch of indignation 
 at Iris's very tall notions and absurd uncon- 
 ventionality vanished speedily. 
 
 ' Iris ' — Lady Thwaite addressed her com- 
 panion soothingly — ' don't mind it too 
 much ; it cannot be helped. It is vexing ; 
 but most girls have troubles of the 
 kind to encounter, sooner or later, 
 and though they are trying they can be 
 got over. Indeed, I am not sure whether 
 any girl would like to be entirely without 
 them — we are such contradictory mortals ; 
 we women especially. This is a free country, 
 though there may be some difficulty with 
 your grandmother, who cannot be expected 
 to see with your eyes, and generally objects 
 to being thwarted. However, I make no 
 question that Sir William will take his conge 
 like a man. But if I were you, my dear,
 
 IRIS WITH THE BALL AT HER FOOT, 277 
 
 I should put him out of pain as quickly 
 and humanely as possible. I am afraid he 
 has deceived himself, and been deceived, 
 without any fault of yours, while he may 
 not stand being undeceived quite calmly just 
 ut first. Onlv don't frio-hten yourself. I 
 dare say he will not go straightway to de- 
 struction, or even forget himself so far as 
 to swear at you.' 
 
 Lady Thwaite was laughing now ; but 
 though Iris felt hurt by this rapid transition 
 to a light mood, as by everything else in the 
 discussion, her wounded pride did not pre- 
 vent her from more nearly breaking down 
 than she had yet shown. She could have 
 implored Lady Thwaite to stay the denouement^ 
 to save everybody from an explanation which 
 could only be painful. If Ladv Thwaite 
 were right, which Iris to this moment doubted, 
 with the doo^oedness of affront and mortilica- 
 tion, and the utmost recoil from the next 
 staofe of the farce — surely it was a farce, not 
 a tragedy — would not Lady Thwaite tell Sir 
 William it could not be ? She, Iris, was very 
 sorry ; but the suggestion was monstrous. 
 Well, if that would be too strong an epithet, 
 the thino; was not to be thouo^ht of for a
 
 278 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 moment. Sir William would take Lady 
 Thwaite's word for his dismissal, and there 
 would be an end of it. Lady Fermor could 
 not say anything if he withdrew of his own 
 accord. 
 
 Iris was saved from an entreaty which 
 must have been refused, by the arrival of a 
 servant, with an urgent request that Lady 
 Thwaite and Miss Compton would return to 
 the ball-room immediately. The second part 
 of the programme, the cotillon, which was to 
 give speciality to the ball, was about to begin, 
 but it could not be started in the absence of 
 the two ladies.
 
 CHAPTER XYL 
 
 THE COTILLON. 
 
 Lady Thwaite was more sorry than ever for 
 having interfered at so inopportune a time, 
 though she had the consolation, which was 
 great to a woman of her character, of knowing 
 now exactly how matters stood. 
 
 ' Are you quite able for it, Iris ?' she in- 
 quired kindly. * Would you Hke to wait 
 here a little longer, or to go to your own 
 room for a few minutes ? Shall I send to say 
 the cotillon must be put off for another half- 
 hour ? It will not matter much, though the 
 supper-hour is coming on.' 
 
 But whatever kind of home Lambford had 
 proved to Iris, it had not been a nursery of 
 self-indulgence. The place had not been 
 without its bracing elements. She pulled 
 herself too^ether, slio^ht vouno: oirl that she 
 was, as a strong man might have done, and
 
 28o BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 after putting her hand to her head for a 
 moment, she answered : ' Xo, thank you ; 
 where would be the good ? I must not keep 
 everybody waiting and disappoint people ;* and 
 then she held up her drooping head and w^alked 
 like a young queen back to the ball-room. 
 
 Lady Thwaite had never admired her so 
 much. * She is too good for him and such a 
 fate,' she said to herself, for her abiding con- 
 viction w^as that the marriage was merely a 
 thing of time. Lady Fermor would prevail 
 eventually, as when had she not prevailed ? 
 Otherwise what would become of Iris, poor 
 girl, in spite of her beauty and spirit, and 
 what fortune she might inherit ? She was 
 overweighted, and unfortunately she was not 
 fit to measure the clogs calculated to drag 
 anyone down. It was a pity that she could 
 not yield without a struggle. Sir William 
 was a bit of a Turk, although all Lady 
 Thwaite had said of him was true. It was to 
 be hoped that he would not develop into a 
 Bluebeard. If Iris could have seen it to be 
 her wisest course, it might have saved useless 
 contention and suffering ; but Lady Thwaite 
 had done her best, her ladyship wound up 
 with a shrug of her shoulders.
 
 THE COTILLON, 281 
 
 So couraofeouslv did Iris carry herself to 
 hide her wound and hinder herself from be- 
 comino^ a drao^ on the satisfaction of her 
 neighbours, that only one person remarked 
 the girl who had left the ball-room the 
 happiest creature there, and who returned to 
 it dizzy from a blow, with her maidenly pride 
 up in arms and humiliated, and her heart 
 fluttering with nameless shame, pain, and 
 terror. It was not her old friend, Lucv, who 
 saw" the change. It was the awkwardly stiff 
 young man, clumsily encumbered with his 
 lessons in polite accomplishments, wretchedly 
 self-conscious, out of his element, and so 
 racked with anxiety and shaken with alternate 
 ague-fits of heat and cold, hope and fear, that 
 he could not offer the slightest response to 
 the many overtures — some of them not un- 
 generous or self-seeking — made to him as he 
 hung about the doors and corners of the 
 room. The consequence was that he was 
 pronounced the merest stick, the most un- 
 social fellow^ in the world. It w^as he w^ho 
 was quick to observe the subtle alteration in 
 Iris Compton's look, though her gait was as 
 elastic, and the rosy flush on her delicate] y- 
 rounded cheek a more perfect carmine than ever.
 
 282 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 * They have allowed her to do herself up/ 
 he complained to himself angrily. ' She is as 
 sick as I am of all this falalling rigmarole.' 
 
 There was a little agreeable murmur rather 
 than hush of expectation. Ladies sat and 
 fanned themselves, and complained of the 
 July heat, but could not make up their minds 
 to go out on the terrace — not just at this 
 moment. They hoped there would be no 
 thunderstorm before to-morrow, both for Sir 
 William's hay and their presence at the hay- 
 making. It was so seldom that there was any 
 summer gaiety in Eastham, except tennis- 
 parties, of which everybody was sick, or 
 harvest festivals and thanksgiving services, 
 which might be pretty and improving, but 
 were not very entertaining. Gentlemen 
 formed a succession of little circles, copying 
 the circle of officers who wore the badge of 
 the stewards of the concluding ceremonies. 
 
 A flutter among those who were not ac- 
 quainted with the cotillon heralded the 
 entrance of servants with a great basketful 
 of bouquets, composed of distinctive individual 
 flowers, of white stephanotis, roses of every 
 hue, striped carnations, purple petunias, blue 
 or scarlet salvias, yellow and brown calceo-
 
 THE COTILLON, 283 
 
 larias, each tied with its appropriate white, 
 red, or blue riband. These bouquets were 
 handed to all the young people, ladies and 
 gentlemen alike. Then the masters of the 
 ceremonies announced to the novices, who 
 were fingering the flowers and gazing doubt- 
 fully at the ribands — not knowing what to 
 make of the posies and their streamers, since 
 the most of the recipients were provided with 
 bouquets already — that these cotillon bouquets 
 matched each other two and two, and were to 
 serve as indexes in the choice of partners, 
 besides being worn without fail by their 
 owners in the waltz which was to follow. 
 
 Then commenced a grand hunt for corre- 
 sponding nosegays, with plenty of jesting and 
 laughter. Short-sighted men peered about 
 for special roses with their special ribands. 
 Colour and form blind men obstinately per- 
 sisted that oleander blossom was the flower of 
 a balsam, or that the large clustered head of 
 the plumbago, with its grey -blue, was one 
 and the same mth the little sky-blue tufts of 
 lobelia. 
 
 * Nanny Hollis tied her nosegay of marigolds 
 under one ear in a trice. She was a tall girl, 
 but she stood up in order that yellow and
 
 284 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 brown might the more easily detect her. 
 Maudie swung her Tom Thumb geraniums 
 from her girdle like a chatelaine, and advised 
 her partner to tie his flowers at his knee as a 
 new Order of the Garter. 
 
 But Iris Compton kept her stephanotis and 
 its bridal- white riband hidden out of sight, 
 while she glanced round in fright. Some 
 witch at Sir William Thwaite's elbow — it 
 might have been Lady Thw^aite — in spite of 
 everything had guided his selection, for he 
 was dangling a handful of stephanotis, and 
 looking about with eager trepidation. 
 
 Iris leant back and stooped down to one 
 of Lady Thwaite's young cousins. She was 
 a little girl of fifteen, full of the enthusiastic 
 admiration which some girls lavish on other 
 girls older than themselves. Iris Compton 
 was at present the object of Janie Fuller's 
 devotion. 
 
 ' Do you like the scent of stephanotis, 
 Janie ?' inquired Iris faintly ; ' I don't ; it 
 makes me sick.' And she had grown as pale 
 as a lily within the last few" minutes. 
 
 ' Oh, then don't keep it near you, dear Miss 
 Compton,' pleaded Janie, intent on serving 
 the heroine she was worshipping. ' Give it to
 
 THE COTILLON, ' 285 
 
 me, I am very fond of the scent, and though I 
 were not, it would not matter. Change with 
 me ; my flower is only heather, with a tartan 
 riband ; that won't hurt you. But will it 
 spoil the dance if we change the flowers ? 
 Will auntie or Lady Fermor be displeased ? 
 Oh, please tell me, Miss Compton,' besought 
 Janie, in an agony of divided feelings. There 
 was her delio^ht in doino^ somethino^ for her 
 goddess. There was her dread of not be- 
 having properly so as to annoy her aunt, who 
 had procured for her, Janie, one of the greatest 
 treats of her young life. Above all, there was 
 the terror of drawing down upon herself the 
 wrath of that awful old Ladv Fermor. 
 
 ' !N^o, no, there will still be partners for 
 everybody, and I will take the responsibility. 
 You know it is my ball, Janie,' said Iri?, 
 hurriedly asserting her privilege with a poor 
 attempt at a smile. At the same time she 
 was ostentatiously shaking out her borrowed 
 heather and tartan. They were successful in 
 bringing to her side a stripling brother of 
 Janie' s, who would certain] v have been a fitter 
 partner for his sister than for the young mis- 
 tress and beauty of the ball. The last dis- 
 tinction had been universally admitted, more
 
 286 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 to the satisfaction of Lucy Acton than of Sir 
 William Thwaite. He might have cared for 
 other people's homage to Iris if he had not 
 been mortally jealous of every man who ap- 
 proached her. 
 
 As for the very young gentleman who led 
 Iris forth to the waltz, he was at the nil ad- 
 mirari stage of his existence. He would not 
 have given a cricket-match for all the balls in 
 the world. He had already enraged Janie by 
 declaring that he could not see what she made 
 such a row about in Miss Compton, a maypole 
 of a girl with a little round turnip of a head, 
 pink-painted cheeks, and the recollection of 
 carrots in her hair. He would have preferred 
 pulling about and teasing his sister by a long 
 chalk to being compelled to stick that beastly 
 rubbish of heather in the pocket of his jacket, 
 and to ' tread a measure/ like any other theatri- 
 cal ass, with the young lady of the house. The 
 gentleman was not even propitiated by the 
 circumstance that Iris, in her excitement and 
 in the reaction produced by her small achieve- 
 ment, chatted to him as if she had been a very 
 chatterbox. 
 
 Sir William fell to the share of the quaking 
 Janie. He was hugely disappointed, and
 
 THE COTILLON. 287 
 
 showed it transparently ; but he had escaped 
 seeing the manoeuvre which gave him his 
 partner, and fancied it was only a stroke of his 
 bad luck, though he was considered by the 
 assembly generally the luckiest fellow going. 
 
 If any other person received a surprise at the 
 result of the pairing of flowers and couples in 
 one case, he or she was fain to conclude that a 
 servant had blundered or had been unable to 
 carry out private instructions. 
 
 The cotillon lottery had been quite fair, 
 several people remarked with approbation, 
 when they saw Miss Compton dancing with 
 a school -boy, and Sir William Thwaite, in his 
 absence of mind, lifting Janie clean off her 
 feet. 
 
 When the waltz was over there was another 
 distribution of indexes and adornments. At 
 the first glimpse, the young people were in- 
 clined to cry that the substitutes for the 
 flowers were too childish and absurd. Then 
 the company found that to every paper helmet 
 or ass's h^ad which was extracted from one 
 of the crackers — that are generally reserved 
 for the amusement of very juvenile parties on 
 Christmas Eve and Twelfth Mght — Lady 
 Termor had been so liberal as to add, by way
 
 288 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 of bribe, a pretty, more or less valuable trinket 
 or fantastic charm, which could be worn either 
 at a lady's or a gentleman's watch-chain. 
 
 A hum of gratification on the discovery 
 testified that a large proportion of the bigger 
 boys and girls there were willing to make 
 fools of themselves for a small reward. 
 
 If her fate and her human foes were alike 
 minded to betray Iris on this occasion, she 
 must submit so far to destiny. She must 
 dance her round with Sir William, as the old 
 desperate villain danced his round beneath the 
 gallows-tree, though every eye in the room 
 should be upon her and her partner, and every 
 soul present mistake the couple's relations and 
 injure and insult Iris by the mistake. Iris 
 could not affect to be overcome by a paper 
 crown, mitre, apron, or tippet, and she could 
 not openly insult Sir William in her grand- 
 mother's house by a marked rejection of his 
 claim, and breach of the laws of the dance. 
 She was too gentle, too courteous, her good- 
 breeding went too far beyond skin-depth, to 
 permit her thus to release herself, at the ex- 
 pense of Sir William and the company. The 
 favour or treachery, call it which you will, 
 appeared again in the -distribution of the
 
 THE COTILLON. 289 
 
 crackers, else Sir T\^illiam was indeed the 
 luckiest of men in externals and empty con- 
 quests. Fortune, half unbandaged, had 
 awarded him a green j)aper sash with an 
 emerald buckle to fasten it, and a fac- simile 
 of the same sash and buckle lay in Iris's lap. 
 His keen eyes detected the coincidence im- 
 mediately. He came up and looked at her 
 appealingly, T\'ith the blue eyes which she had 
 said melted like a woman's sometimes. 
 
 ' I suppose we must seem as great babies as 
 the others,' she said, with a rush of colour to 
 the cheeks which had been pale just before. 
 She spoke in a formal, constrained way — the 
 first time she had shown such a manner to 
 him. He started, and looked at her with a 
 more desperate appeal than ever. 
 
 * " Green is sorrow unseen," I should warn 
 you,' she said, lingering, as if she hoped to 
 find him superstitious, and to ^^lay on his 
 superstition. 
 
 ' I don't mind,' he answered in a voice half- 
 choked with the tumult of his feelings. ^ I 
 don't mind anything.' 
 
 She rose and stopped him from saying more. 
 She ought to have fastened his scarf on his 
 shoulder, but she left that duty to a servant 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 while she clasped her paper rag beneath one 
 arm. 
 
 The scene had changed to a harlequinade, 
 in which Iris's one ray of comfort was that the 
 two must pass comparatively unnoticed among 
 much more ridiculous figures causing merri- 
 ment verging on boisterousness. For had not 
 tall Nanny Hollis fluttering wings pinned to 
 her shoulders, and was she not dancing with 
 the smallest mite of a man in the room, having 
 companion wings tacked to his little shoulders, 
 which, as they waved in time to the music, 
 gave him the air of making a perpetual vain 
 effort to fly up to a level with his partner ? 
 Was not Ludovic Acton waltzing, and point- 
 ing the beak of a vulture over the shoulder of 
 a vulture maiden from no greater distance 
 than Knotley ? 
 
 No wonder Mrs. Mildmay took to reproach- 
 ing her husband as if this were more than 
 she had bargained for, more than any exem- 
 plary matron could come through and live or 
 else be for ever compromised. 
 
 'Is it a masquerade ball, Tom ? Oh, I 
 thought masquerade balls were confined to the 
 opera-houses, and only attended by actors and 
 actresses.'
 
 THE COTILLON, 291 
 
 ' My dear Amelia, you ouglit to go more 
 into society — indeed you ought/ protested the 
 ao-arieved husband. ' This is only one of the 
 figures of the cotillon. You will take fright 
 at calico balls next : you will say calico balls 
 are only got up for music-halls and casinos.' 
 
 Iris would have hoped that she and her 
 partner passed unobserved among the greater 
 notorieties, if Sir William had not waltzed a 
 little wildly, as if he had lost his head, so that 
 he did not stop with the others, or hear her 
 tellino; him she would not have another turn. 
 And when he paused at last, it was before 
 Lady Fermor, who — Herculean old woman as 
 she had shown herself — was in the act of 
 withdrawino: to rest for half an hour before 
 supper. 
 
 Iris tried to meet her grandmother's gaze 
 without betrajing consciousness or tremor; 
 but the girl's modest hazel eyes fell abashed 
 before the bold, half- taunting challenge wliich 
 met hers. ' What characters are you two young 
 people representing ?' cried the old lady in 
 great good-humour. ' A pair of Tyrolean 
 beggars on the tramp with an organ-grinder ? 
 A couple of Foresters from the worshipful 
 company that hold their annual festival at the 
 
 19—2
 
 292 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 Crystal Palace ? only the wives and sweethearts 
 do not go in character; they are supposed 
 to be too retiring for fancy dresses. Well, I 
 am pleased to see that you are enjoying your- 
 selves, and I'm ready to say " God bless you, 
 my children," whenever you like.' 
 
 Iris drew her arm from Sir William's, and 
 moved hastily away. He might take the 
 words as a matter of course. He might not 
 understand them in their stagey slang. This 
 was a forlorn hope. But if he were sharper, 
 what a cruelly mortifying ordeal for her to be 
 thus thrown at any man's head ! At the head 
 of this man, who could hardly be expected to 
 see that she had no share in the unwomanly 
 transaction. It was not to be thought that he 
 would disclaim it for her, or even feel for her 
 in this humiliating position. He had emerged 
 within the last six months from a condition 
 lower than that of any of the servants at 
 Lambford. She had never refused to admit 
 that there were nature's noblemen, but these 
 she understood to be martyrs, heroes, geniuses 
 at the very least, not mere stiff, shy, young 
 squires and baronets. She had been surprised 
 to find Sir William could conduct himself 
 passably, but he had been led into an intoler-
 
 THE COTILLON, 293 
 
 able blunder Trbicli a better-bred man might 
 have avoided. He had been betrayed by the 
 coarseness of perception and vain credulity 
 which had made him become an easy prey to 
 her grandmother's scheme. At this very 
 moment Sir William might be exulting in 
 what his lands and title could do. He might 
 be making up his mind to get rid of all the 
 matters on which the couple differed — of what 
 would appear to him her squeamishness and 
 fads from the time that he consented to take a 
 willing bride. 
 
 Iris was mistress of the situation in the two 
 concluding acts of the cotillon. These were 
 the prettiest, most dramatic, and most foreign 
 of the whole. 
 
 A chair was placed in the middle of the 
 room, and Iris was the first called to fill it. 
 A hand- mirror was given to her; a march was 
 played by the band ; all the young men in the 
 room passed in single file at the back of her 
 chair, each pausing an instant that his image 
 mio^ht be reflected in the o:lass she held. If 
 she accepted the first man for her partner, she 
 must let his image remain till he, recognising 
 the sio:n, came round to the front of the chair 
 fi'om which she had risen, led her out of the
 
 294 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 circle, when the two ought to waltze a single 
 round of the room. Then another girl seated 
 herself in the chair, and the same performance 
 was repeated. Tf Cassiopea rejected the first 
 man, she passed her handkerchief across the 
 mirror, as if she were brushing away the 
 offending image, and she might go on effacing 
 quenched partners, one after another, to the 
 last man, and, blotting him out also, decline 
 to dance at all. 
 
 It was a tableau rather than a dance, a 
 capital tableau for a born actress or a finished 
 coquette, w^ho could improve upon the origi- 
 nal idea by fine touches of coyness, disdain, 
 hesitation, surrender, to the delight of the 
 audience. 
 
 Iris was no coquette, and she had only one 
 thought in her mind, that of publicly refusing 
 to have anything more to do with Sir William 
 Thwaite, by theoretically wiping out his image. 
 Her nimble mind had quickly laid hold of one 
 important deduction. If she accepted the 
 first, second, or third man for her partner, of 
 course taking it for granted that none of the 
 gentlemen was Sir William, her decision 
 would be to a great extent without point. 
 It might look the simple effect of girlish shy-
 
 THE COTILLON, 295 
 
 ness and unwillingness to offend. It would 
 be treating the unpalatable suitor thrust upon 
 her, exactly as she treated a large proportion 
 of the other young men. She must behave 
 as if she were deliberately waiting till the 
 partner of her choice presented himself; she 
 must sit till the reflection of Sir William was 
 in the mirror, and she had the chance of 
 seeming to wijDe it out. Oh, surely then 
 he would take the hint ! and it would dawn 
 upon him that she had never looked upon 
 him in any other light than that of an ac- 
 quaintance and neighbour, who might be the 
 better for a kind word or look. He would 
 comprehend that she had pitied, even liked 
 him, but never cared for him as her grand- 
 mother had arranged that they should care 
 for each other. In her case the two feelings 
 of pity and love, in place of being akin, were 
 as far apart as the poles. He must believe 
 her that she would not willingly have trifled 
 with him, that she had continued in utter 
 ignorance of what had been thought and said 
 by others up to this very evening, when, for 
 his sake as well as her own, she was forced to 
 make her meaning very plain. 
 
 Iris sat the picture of youthful loveliness,
 
 296 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 with an erect, undaunted carriage which she 
 had shown before on special occasions, but 
 only then. The company, thinking of her 
 youth, and having some idea of her relations 
 with her grandmother, marvelled that she 
 acted her part so well. ' She will make a 
 dignified mistress of Whitehills. What a boon 
 to that cub Sir William ! The man may creep 
 altogether into his shell, and remain there for 
 the rest of his days, with so efficient a partner. 
 She will not let herself be put upon. She 
 will know what to do for both — a child like 
 that ! How cool and composed ! She is no 
 school-girl blushing and giggling, and looking 
 fatuously round for guidance and support. 
 She might have been a trained actress, or 
 the heiress to a great estate. It is wonder- 
 ful !' 
 
 The gallants of Eastham behaved with the 
 gentlemanlike gaucherie^ the paralysis of in- 
 telligence and morbid mauvaise honte^ which 
 is apt to attack the young gentlemen of Eng- 
 land when they are unexpectedly called upon 
 for an exhibition of histrionic talent. They 
 tumbled and stumbled, sidled and boggled 
 past Iris, who sat so still and so steadily, with 
 her heart throbbing as if it would burst her
 
 THE COTILLON. i^^-j 
 
 bosom, or make its beating heard above the 
 rhythm of the march, as, with a movement that 
 grew measured and mechanical, she passed 
 her handkerchief lightly across the glass, and 
 hid the reflection of one smiling, reddening 
 face after another. 
 
 Still he did not come. What if in his 
 laggardness, or in his conceit and vulgar 
 desire to flaunt his triumph, he stayed to the 
 last ? Then Iris's fastidiousness and deter- 
 mination, in place of giving a conspicuous 
 denial to his claims, w^ould lend a glaring 
 confirmation to the report and to his hopes. 
 Because, as the daughter of the house and 
 leader of this figure of the cotillon, she could 
 not well avail herself of the welcome privilege 
 of not dancing at all. She began to get dizzy 
 with apprehension, to be conscious of a panic 
 laying hold of her. She would wait no longer. 
 She would leave the next reflection unbroken 
 in the mirror. But happily agitation did not 
 dim her eyes, for what she saw was the repre- 
 sentation of the upright figure and soldierly 
 step tramjDing past — contrasting not unfavour- 
 ably with the irregular, shuflfling paces that 
 had gone before — the head slightly bent, the 
 flushed face glooming with a very passion of
 
 298 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 suspense. It was the image she had been 
 looking for and dreading to see. 
 
 Iris's arm was not unnerved by the appa- 
 rition. With a rapid gesture she swept her 
 handkerchief, as if in the impatience of high 
 disdain, right across the glass. 
 
 Iris was conscious of a little stir of surprise 
 in those around, and then she felt she could 
 go no farther with the play. Instead of 
 looking at Sir William's successor in the 
 nearly completed file of rejected candidates, 
 she shut her eyes for a second and let her arm 
 drop, so that her handkerchief fell to the 
 ground. The next moment she beheld Major 
 Pollock leering and sneering and bowing 
 before her. She had done well ; she had 
 given point to her suggestion with a vengeance. 
 She had as much as said that a broken-down 
 reprobate who belonged to her set, the person 
 she detested most among her acquaintances, 
 was preferable in her eyes to the Squire of 
 Whitehills. 
 
 The consideration was a small consolation 
 to Iris, when she was whirled away by the 
 ci-devant man about town, with his step made 
 up, like everything else about him — to suit 
 his gout in this instance — his hateful, out-
 
 THE COTILLON, 299 
 
 of- date swaggering coxcombry. ' 'Pon my 
 word, I don't know what to say, Miss Comp- 
 ton, for this mark of your favour! I'm a 
 modest man, so that I'm at a loss to know 
 what I've done to deserve it, unless you and 
 I are o^oino; to be better friends in future. 
 You may depend ujDon it I'm eternally obliged 
 to you.' 
 
 Swearing friendship with Major Pollock — 
 was that what Iris had come to ? It was a 
 greater consolation that she was soon done 
 with him. So much time was spent in each 
 girl's making her choice of a partner, that the 
 chosen man had to be content with the honour 
 of his election, and eschew the profit of more 
 than one round of the room. 
 
 Iris did not ventm^e to seek out Sir William 
 with her eyes, and learn, by the evidence of 
 her senses, whether he was rampaging in a 
 rude fury, or merely moderately morose. She 
 was fain to trust that he had got enough of 
 the cotillon, and would keep himself out of 
 the last figure, which was only another version 
 of what had gone before. The reversal of that 
 rule of society by which a gentleman is sup- 
 posed either to select or to be given to his 
 partner, in all the various forms in which
 
 300 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 people dispose of themselves or disport them- 
 selves in the upper circles, must have fascinated 
 the imagination of that master of the cere- 
 monies — or more probably that queen of 
 fashion- — to whom the cotillon is due. The 
 last figure was a repetition, with a slight 
 variety, of the magnanimous permission for a 
 fanciful girl rather than strong-minded woman 
 to select her champion, while it also betokened 
 that the invention of the author was beginning 
 to fail. 
 
 All the girls in the ball-room stood together 
 in the centre of the room, making a stationary 
 blooming ring, with their faces turned to an 
 outer ring of young men that moved round 
 the inner ring. As inclination prompted her, 
 a girl bowed and made a^step forward to a 
 privileged man of her acquaintance, who took 
 her hand and led her to his side. If Iris had 
 been stern in stamping out a false impression 
 — a base insinuation — that she had stooped 
 and sold herself to the master of Whitehills, 
 Sir William Thwaite proved stubborn in in- 
 sisting on a public demonstration which should 
 dispel the dream of his life, and scatter his 
 hopes to the winds. He was in the revolving 
 ring of men, but Iris did not wait for him to
 
 THE COTILLON, 301 
 
 approach her. She eagerly nodded and ad- 
 vanced to Ludovic Acton, when he drew near, 
 and went aside with him. She did not want 
 to hurt Sir AVilHam more than she could help. 
 She was utterly incapable of wanton cruelty. 
 The blow she had dealt had rebounded on her 
 own head, the sword-thrust was quivering in 
 her own heart. She was very glad when Lucy 
 Acton graced Sir AYilliam with her hand before 
 the whole of the young people were whirling 
 round in a final waltz. 
 
 Supper followed immediately afterwards. 
 Iris might have saved herself from a last 
 spasm of fright, for Lady Fermor, who had 
 returned to the ball-room, took Sir William's 
 arm as the crowning mark of what she had 
 intended to have been the sio^nificant distinc- 
 tion conferred on him throughout the evening, 
 and Iris fell thankfully to her last partner. 
 But King Lud did not monopolize the atten- 
 tion of his companion. She could not keep 
 it from straying to Lady Fermor and Sir 
 William ; she could not shake off the sus- 
 picion that they were speaking of her, plotting 
 against her, if it ought to be called a plot, 
 when he might merely be complaining of her 
 avoidance of him, and Lady Fermor smooth-
 
 302 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 ing him down and reassuring him. His face 
 — primitively transparent in spite of its fair 
 share of sense and intelligence — certainly- 
 looked so black that she feared other people 
 must remark it, while Lady Fermor had her 
 rallying, snap-your-fingers, authoritative ex- 
 pression in full force. 
 
 Iris's guess was not wide of the mark. Sir 
 William had said, in his gruff, hurt under- 
 tones, ' I tell you it is of no earthly use. I 
 had better let it alone before worse comes of 
 it. I have your goodwill, I know, but that 
 ain't everything.' 
 
 ' Now, Thwaite, what in creation are you 
 down in the mouth about ? You were all 
 right when I left the room. Do you expect 
 a girl like her to j ump down your throat ? 
 Did you ever hear of such a quality as coyness ? 
 Are you not aware it is the most favourable, 
 flattering symptom women betray at an early 
 stage of a certain malady ? Were you never 
 told that when a woman is willing, a man can 
 but look like a fool ? Do you want to look 
 like a fool ? Would you deprive us of our 
 single, short season of power ? Don't we 
 pay dearly for it to the best of you men in 
 the long-run ? See what your fete champetre
 
 THE COTILLON. 303 
 
 to-morrow will do. Take my word for it 
 that it will turn the scales, if there is any 
 turning needed. She is just the style of girl, 
 at the age to he idiotic about green fields, 
 and rubbish of weeds, beetles, and snails, and 
 all the rest of it. You can show her youi' 
 house, too ; and though it is not like Lamb- 
 ford, to be plain with you — you observe I 
 don't butter you up — it is a fine place of its 
 kind. You have my consent to press your 
 suit. I will see that you are not worsted in 
 the end, but you cannot expect that you are 
 to walk over the field and conquer without a 
 siege or a battle, or the shabbiest skirmish. 
 What cheek you must have ! The prize would 
 not be worth the winning if you got it at so 
 easy a rate.' 
 
 Lucy followed Ms to her room that night. 
 ' Oh dear, it has been such a charming ball — 
 everybody says so !' exclaimed Lucy, in a 
 glow. ' I never enjoyed anything half so 
 much in my life. I feel perfectly demoralized; 
 and, do you know, that dear fellow, Sir 
 William, has promised such a handsome sub- 
 scription for the harvest feast ! He hardly 
 waited for me to speak of it. Of course I 
 should not have thought of asking him to put
 
 304 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, 
 
 down his name the first time I had spoken to 
 him. But when he saw I was pleased with 
 his volunteering a subscription, in the hand- 
 somest, most modest manner, I assure you^ 
 darling, he wished to double it. I had 
 actually to forbid it. There is a man with 
 his heart in the right place ! That is of twice 
 as much consequence as his having stamped 
 and dug his fists into his eyes, after the 
 fashion of Gerald and Charlie over their Latin 
 Grammar, or pulled an oar, or ridden a hurdle- 
 race at Oxford or Cambridge. I was quite 
 struck with his appearance to-night. He is a 
 fine, soldierly-looking man when one comes to 
 study him closely. I don't in the least wonder 
 that you, who value all that is honest and kind, 
 like him so much, though you tease him a little.' 
 
 It became clear enough to Iris, in her heart- 
 sickness, that Lucy's ears had been open, and 
 had picked up a good deal more than the 
 amount of Sir William's subscription. A 
 horrible suspicion arose that Lucy might have 
 such a mania for charities, she could be 
 brought to stretch a point in the bestowal of 
 a bosom-friend for their advantage. 
 
 ' I am glad you have been happy, Lucy,' 
 said Iris wearily.
 
 THE COTILLON, 305 
 
 ' Oh, Happy ! I am only afraid it is wrong 
 to be so happy in a scene of mere worldly 
 gaiety — though the Church does not condemn 
 innocent gaiety, does it, dear ? Then there is 
 to-morrow to look forward to. I shall so 
 enjoy seeing Whitehills again in a new light. 
 But I shall leave you now, Iris, for you do 
 look tired, and no wonder ; but you must be 
 at your brightest to-morrow.' 
 
 Iris was at last at liberty to pace up and 
 down her room, toss on her sleepless pillow, 
 and cry, ' Oh ! I am glad it was not my real 
 birthday,' with the restless, tumultuous, half- 
 fanciful trouble of youth. 
 
 END or VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 000960242