A Double Knot

“Oh, how cold and impassive you are! I feel as if I must see which way they go, and then we might take a short cut over the grass, and meet them again.”

“When those two fierce-looking old gorgons would see that you were following them up, and they would fire such a round from their watchful eyes that you, my dear boy, would retire in discomfiture, and looking uncommonly foolish. I remember once, when I was somewhere about your age, I had a very severe encounter with a chaperone in a cashmere shawl.”

“Oh, do get up, Glen, there’s a good fellow, and let’s go.”

“I had fallen in love with a young lady. I fancy now that she wore drawers with frills at the bottom, and that her dresses were short – frocks, I believe.”

“There they are again,” cried the boy, jumping up; “look, they are going down that path.”

“I think the young lady was still in the schoolroom, but though undeveloped, and given to slipping her shoulders out of the bands of her frock, she was very pretty – bony, but pretty – and I was desperately in love.”

“How wonderfully they are alike in height!”

“I believe,” continued the captain, in a slow, ponderous way, though all the while he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his companion’s eagerness, “that if I had made love-offerings to my fair young friend – I never knew her name, Dick, and unkindly fate parted us – they would have taken the form of sweet cakes or acidulated drops, and been much appreciated; but alas! – ”

“Oh, hang it all, I can’t stand this! There goes Malpas. He has seen them, and is making chase. Glen, I shall shoot that fellow, or run him through.”

“What for, my boy?”

“Because he is always sitting upon me, and making fun of me at the mess. Hang him! I hate him!”

“Don’t take any notice of his banter,” said Glen seriously, “and if he is very unpleasant, it is more dignified to suffer than to fall out. Between ourselves, and in confidence, I advise you not to quarrel with Major Malpas. He can be very disagreeable when he likes.”

“As if I didn’t know! He was always hanging after our Renée – Mrs Frank Morrison, I mean.”

“Indeed!”

“Before she was married, of course.”

“Oh!”

“And used to treat me like a schoolboy. I hadn’t joined then, you know.”

“No, no, of course not,” said the captain with a peculiar smile.

“But look at him. You can see his black moustache and hooked nose here. He’s going straight for them. Look, don’t you see?”

“Well, yes, he does seem to be doing as you say. If he is, you may just thank your stars.”

“Thank my stars? What for?”

“For his getting the snub that you would have received had you been so foolish as to go after those ladies – for they are ladies, Dick.”

“Yes, of course, but it is horrible to be bested like this. Will you come?”

“No; and I won’t let you go. Sit still, you little stupid, and – there, see how propitious the fates are to you!” he continued, as he saw something unnoticed by his little companion.

“What do you mean?”

“Why, the enemy.”

“The enemy?”

“Well, the Amazonian brigade have seen the demonstration being made by the Major on their left flank, the officer in command has given the order, and they have countermarched and are returning by troops from the left.”

“But are they coming back this way?”

“To be sure they are, and if you sit still you will be able to enfilade them as they retreat.”

“Oh, please don’t – pray don’t, Glen, there’s a good fellow!”

“My dear boy, don’t what?”

“Don’t light another cigar. Elderly ladies hate smoking, and you’ll send them off in another direction. Besides, it’s forbidden.”

“Oh, very well, most inflammable of youths. I shall have to make this the subject of a despatch to mamma.”

“Hush! be quiet. Don’t seem to notice them, or they may turn off another way. I say, old Malpas is done.”

“And you are able to deliver a charge without change of position.”

It might have been from design, or it might have been pure accident, for ladies’ pockets always do seem made to hold their contents unsafely. Certain it was, however, that as the Honourable Misses Dymcox marched stiffly by, closely followed by their nieces, all looking straight before them, and as if they were not enjoying their walk in the slightest degree, there was a glint of something white, and Clotilde’s little old and not particularly fine handkerchief fell to the ground.

Glen saw it, and did not move.

Richard Millet did not see it for the moment, but as soon as it caught his eye he impulsively dashed from his seat, picked it up, and ran a few steps after the little party.

“Excuse me,” he exclaimed.

“Oh, thank you,” said Clotilde; and she stretched out her hand to take the handkerchief, but in a quick, unobtrusive way Miss Isabella interposed her thin stiff form, received the handkerchief from the young officer with a formal obeisance, and before he could recover from the paralysing chill of her severe look, the party had passed on.

“But I had a good look at her,” he cried excitedly, as he rejoined his companion.

“And that severe lady had a good look at you, Dick. What a cold, steely glance it was!”

“But did you see her eyes, Glen – dark as night!” he cried rapturously. “Did you see the glance she gave me?”

“No,” said the young officer bluntly, “seemed to me as if she wanted her glasses;” and then to himself, “She is handsome, and if it were not conceited, I should say she was looking at me.”

Volume One – Chapter Three.

Captain Millet’s Brother’s Wife

Plump, blonde Lady Millet uttered an ejaculation and made a gesture of annoyance as she settled herself in a luxurious lounge.

“Now, do for goodness’ sake wipe your eyes, Gertrude, and be sensible if you can! I declare it’s enough to worry one to death. Once for all, I tell you I do not like these Huishes, and what your father could have been about to listen to your uncle Robert and bring that young man here I can’t think.”

Gertrude Millet forced back her tears, and bent lower over some work upon which she was engaged in the drawing-room of her father’s house in Grosvenor Square.

“They are very plebeian sort of people, and they have no money; but because his father was an old friend of your uncle Robert’s when he was a young man, this Mr John Huish must be invited here, and you, you silly child! must let him make eyes at you.”

“Really, mamma – ”

“Now do let me speak, Gertrude,” said Lady Millet severely. “It is as I say, and I will not have it. Sentimentality does very well for low-class people, but we have a position to maintain, and I have other views for you.”

“But, mamma, you never thought Frank Morrison plebeian,” said Gertrude, raising her bright grey eyes to bring them to bear on her dignified mother, who was arranging the lace about her plump white throat.

“My dear child, comparisons are odious, and at your age you should allow people to think for you. Does it ever occur to you that your mother’s sole wish – the object for which she almost entirely lives – is to see her child happily settled in life? No, no; don’t speak, please: you hurt me. I consented to your sister Renée’s union with Frank for many reasons. Certainly his family is plebeian, but he is a young man whom I am rejoiced to see determined to make use of his wealth to his own elevation – to marry well, and be the founder of a new family of gentry.”

“But I’m sure Renée is not happy, mamma.”

“Then, in her position, it is her own fault, my dear, of course. I had been married years before I had a second carriage. Once for all, there is no comparison between Frank and this Mr Huish. If it had not been out of commiseration for your uncle Robert – it being his wish – Mr Huish would not have been received here at all.”

Gertrude bit her nether lip, and bent lower over her work as sweet and lovable a face as girl of twenty could have.

“Your uncle is a most unhappy man; and if he were not so rich people would call him insane, living such an absurd life as he does. I often feel as if I must go and rouse him up, and force him to act like a Christian. By the way, you have not been to see him lately?”

“No, mamma.”

“Call, then, soon. He must not be neglected. We have our duties to do, and that is one of them. He is always kind to you?”

“Always, mamma.”

“That is right. You must humour him, for he seems to have taken a most unnatural dislike to Richard.”

“Yes, mamma.”

“Do you think so?” said Lady Millet sharply.

“He forbade Dick to call again after he had importuned him for money.”

“Foolish, reckless boy! That’s the way young people always seem to me determined to wreck their prospects. Your uncle Robert has no one else to leave his money to but you children, and yet you persist in running counter to his wishes.”

“I, mamma?”

“All of you. Do you suppose because he desired your father to take a little more notice of this John Huish that you were to throw yourself at his head?”

Gertrude squeezed her eyelids very tightly together, and took three or four stitches in the dark.

“I have always found Uncle Robert particularly kind to me.”

“And so he would be to Renée and to Richard if they were not so foolish. I declare I don’t know what that boy can possibly do with his money. But, there, I suppose being in a regiment is expensive.”

“Do you like Major Malpas, mamma?” said Gertrude suddenly.

“Certainly not!” said Lady Millet tartly; “and really, Gertrude, you are a most extraordinary girl! John Huish one moment, Major Malpas the next. Huish was bad enough; now don’t, for goodness’ sake, go throwing yourself at Major Malpas.”

“Mamma!”

“Will you let me speak, child?” cried Lady Millet angrily. “I don’t know what you girls are thinking about! Why, you are as bad as Renée! If I had not been firm, she would have certainly accepted him, and he is a man of most expensive habits. It was most absurd of Renée. But there: that’s over. But I do rather wonder at Frank making so much of a friend of him. Oh dear me, no, Gertrude! that would be impossible!”

“Of course, mamma!”

“Then why did you talk in that tone?”

“Because I don’t like Major Malpas, and I am sure Renée does not, either.”

“Of course she does not. She is a married lady. Surely she can be civil to people without always thinking of liking! It was a curious chance that Richard should be gazetted into the same regiment; and under the circumstances I have been bound to invite him and that other officer, Captain Glen, here, for they can help your brother, no doubt, a great deal. You see, I have to think of everything, for your poor father only thinks now of his dinners and his clubs.”

Gertrude sighed and went on with her work, while Lady Millet yawned, got up, looked out of the window, and came back.

“Quite time the carriage was round. Then I am to go alone?”

“I promised Renée to be in this morning,” said Gertrude quietly.

“Ah, well; then I suppose you must stop. I wonder whether Lady Littletown will take any notice of Richard now he is at Hampton Court?”

“I should think she would, mamma. She is always most friendly.”

“Friendly, but not trustworthy, my dear. A terribly scheming woman, Gertrude. Her sole idea seems to be match-making. But, there, Richard is too young to become her prey!”

Gertrude’s brow wrinkled, and she looked wonderingly at her mother, whose face was averted.

“I have been looking up the Glens. Not a bad family, but a younger branch. I suppose Richard will accompany his brother officer here one of these days. By the way, my dear, Lord Henry Moorpark seemed rather attentive to you at the Lindleys the other night.”

“Yes, mamma,” said Gertrude quietly; “he took me in to supper, and sat and chatted with me a long time.”

“Yes; I noticed that he did.”

“I like Lord Henry, mamma; he is so kind and gentle and courteous.”

“Very, my dear.”

“One always feels as if one could confide in him – he is so fatherly, and – ”

“My dear Gertrude!”

“What have I said, mamma?”

“Something absurd. Fatherly! What nonsense! Lord Henry is in the prime of life, and you must not talk like that. You girls are so foolish! You think of no one but boys with pink and white faces and nothing to say for themselves. Lord Henry Moorpark is a most distingué gentle – I mean a nobleman; and judging from the attentions he began to pay you the other night, I – ”

“Oh, mamma! surely you cannot think that?”

“And pray why not, Gertrude?” said Lady Millet austerely. “Why should not I think that? Do you suppose I wish to see my youngest daughter marry some penniless boy? Do, pray, for goodness’ sake, throw away all that bread-and-butter, schoolgirl, sentimental nonsense. It is quite on the cards that Lord Henry Moorpark may propose for you.”

“Oh dear,” thought Gertrude; “and I was talking to him so warmly about John Huish!”

Gertrude’s red lips parted, showing her white teeth, and the peachy pink faded out of her cheeks as she sat there with her face contracting, and a cloud seemed to come over her young life, in whose shadow she saw herself, and her future as joyless as that of the sister who had been married about a year earlier to a wealthy young north Yorkshire manufacturer, who was now neglecting her and making her look old before her time.

“There, it must be nearly three,” said Lady Millet, rising; “I’ll go and put on my things. I shall not come in again, Gertrude. Give my love to Renée, and if Lord Henry Moorpark does come – but, there, I have perfect faith in your behaving like a sensible girl. By the way, Richard may run up. If he does, try and keep him to dinner. I don’t half like his being at that wretched Hampton Court; it is so terribly suggestive of holiday people and those dreadful vans.”

With these words Lady Millet sailed out of the room, thinking to herself that a better managing mother never lived, and a quarter of an hour after she entered her carriage to go and distribute cards at the houses of her dearest friends.

Volume One – Chapter Four.

The Remains of a Fall

Gertrude Millet’s anxious look grew deeper as she sat with her work in her lap, thinking of John Huish and certain tender passages which had somehow passed between them; then of Lord Henry Moorpark, the pleasant, elderly nobleman whose attentions had been so pleasant and so innocently received; and as she thought of him a burning blush suffused her cheeks, and she tried to recall the words he had last spoken to her.

The consequence was a fit of low spirits, which did not become high when later on Mrs Frank Morrison called, dismissed her carriage, and sat chatting for some time with her sister, Lady Millet being, she said, in the park.

“You need not tell me I look well,” said Gertrude, pouting slightly. “I declare you look miserable.”

“Oh no, dear, only a little low-spirited to-day. Have you called on Uncle Robert lately?”

“Without you? No.”

“Then let’s go.”

Gertrude jumped at the suggestion, and half an hour later the sisters were making their way along Wimpole Street the gloomy, to stop at last before the most wan-looking of all the dreary houses in that most dreary street. It was a house before which no organ-man ever stopped to play, no street vendor to shout his wares, nor passer-by to examine from top to bottom; the yellow shutters were closed, and the appearance of the place said distinctly “out of town.” The windows were very dirty, but that is rather a fashion in Wimpole Street, where the windows get very dirty in a month, very much dirtier in two months, and as dirty as possible in three. They, of course, never get any worse, for when once they have arrived a this pitch they may go for years, the weather rather improving them, what with the rain’s washing and the sun’s bleaching.

The paint of the front door was the worst part about that house, for the sun had raised it in little blisters, which street boys could not bear to see without cracking and picking off in flakes; and the consequence was that the door looked as if it had had a bad attack of some skin disease, and a new cuticle of a paler hue was growing beneath the old.

Wimpole Street was then famous for the knockers upon its doors. They were large and resounding. In fact, a clever manipulator could raise a noise that would go rolling on a still night from nearly one end of the street to the other. For, in their wisdom, our ancestors seized the idea of a knocker on that sounding-board, a front door, as a means to warn servants downstairs that someone was waiting, by a deafening noise that appealed to those in quite a different part of the place. But this was not allowed at the house with the blistered front door, for a great staple had been placed over one side for years, and when you had passed the two great iron extinguishers that were never used for links, and under the fantastic ironwork that had never held a lamp since the street had been lit with gas, and, ascending three steps, stood at the door, you could only contrive quite a diminutive kind of knock, such as was given upon that occasion by Renée, for Gertrude was carrying a large bouquet of flowers.

The knock was hard enough to bring a little bleached, sparrow-like man, dressed in black, to the door, and his colourless face, made more pallid by a little black silk cap he wore, brightened as he held his head first on one side, then on the other, his triangular nose adding to his sparrow-like appearance, and giving a stranger the idea that he would never kiss anyone, but would peck.

“How is my uncle this morning, Vidler?” said Gertrude.

“Capital, miss,” said the little man, holding wide the door for the ladies to enter, and closing it quickly, lest, apparently, too much light should enter at the same time.

For the place was very gloomy and subdued within. The great leather porter’s chair, the umbrella-stand, and the pictures all looked sombre and black. Even the two classical figures holding lamps, that had not been lighted for a quarter of a century at least, were swarthy, and a stranger would have gone stumbling and feeling his way along; but not so Vidler, Captain Robert Millet’s handy servant. He was as much at home in the gloom as an owl, and in a quick, hurried way that was almost spasmodic he led the visitors upstairs, but only to stop on the first landing.

“If I might make so bold, Miss Gertrude,” he said, holding his head on one side. “I don’t often see a flower now.”

The girl held up the bouquet, and the little man had a long sniff with a noise as if taking a pinch of snuff, said, “Thank you, miss,” and went on up to the back drawing-room door, which was a little lighter than the staircase, for the top of the shutters of one of the three tall narrow windows was open.

A glance round the room showed that it was scrupulously clean. Time had blackened the paint and ceiling, but everything that could be cleaned or polished was in the highest state of perfection.

For Valentine Vidler and his wife Salome, being very religious and conscientious people, told themselves and one another nearly every day that as the master never supervised anything it was the more their duty to keep the place in the best of order. For instance, Vidler would say:

“I don’t think I shall clean all that plate over this week, Salome. It’s as bright as it can be.”

When to him Salome: “Valentine, there’s One above who knows all, and though your master may not know that you have not cleaned the plate, He will.”

“That’s very true, Salome,” the little man would say with a sigh, and then set to work in a green baize apron, and was soon be-rouged up to the eyes as he polished away.

Another day, perhaps, it would be Salome’s turn; for the temptation, as she called it, would attack her. The weather would be hot, perhaps, and a certain languid feeling, the result of a want of change, would come over her.

“Valentine,” she would say, perhaps, “I think the big looking-glass in the drawing-room will do this week; it’s as clean as clean.”

“Hah!” would say Valentine, with a sigh, “Satan has got tight hold of you again, my dear little woman. It is your weakness that you ought to resist. Do you think the Lord cannot see those three fly-specks at the bottom corner? Resist the temptation, woman; resist it.”

Then little Salome, who was a tiny plump downy woman, who somehow reminded people of a thick potato-shoot that had grown in the dark, would sigh, put on an apron that covered her all over except her face, climb on a pair of steps, and polish the great mirror till it was as clear as hands could make it.

She was a pleasant-faced little body, and very neatly dressed. There was a little fair sausage made up of rolled-up hair on each side of her face, two very shiny smooth surfaces of hair over her forehead, and a neat little white line up the centre, the whole being surmounted by one of those quaint high-crowned caps which project over to the front. In fact, there was, in spite of the potato-shoot allusion, a good deal of resemblance in little Mrs Vidler to a plump charity child, especially as she wore an apron with a bib, a white muslin kerchief crossed over her bosom, and a pair of muslin sleeves up to her elbows.

The little woman was in the drawing-room armed with a duster as Valentine showed up the young ladies, and she faced round and made two little bobs, quite in the charity-school-child fashion, as taught by those who so carefully make it the first duty of such children to obey their pastors and masters, and order themselves lowly and reverently, and make bobs and bows to – all their betters.

“Why, my dears, I am glad you’re come,” she exclaimed. “Miss Renée – there, I beg your pardon – Mrs Morrison, what an age it is since I saw you! And only to think you are a married lady now, when only the other day you two were little things, and I used to bring you one in each hand, looking quite frightened, into this room.”

“Ah yes, Salome, times are changed,” said Renée sadly. “How is uncle?”

“Very well, my dear,” said the little woman, holding her head on one side to listen in the same birdlike way adopted by her husband. “He’s not in his room yet. But what beautiful flowers!”

She, too, inhaled the scent precisely in her husband’s fashion, before fetching a china bowl from a chiffonier, and carefully wiping it inside and out, though it was already the perfection of cleanliness.

“A jug of clean water, if you please, Vidler,” she said softly.

“Yes, my dear,” said the little man, smiling at the sisters, and giving his hands a rub together, before obeying his wife.

“I was so sorry, Miss Renée – there, I must call you so, my dear; it’s so natural – I was so sorry that I did not see you when you came. Only to think of my being out a whole month nursing my poor sister! I hadn’t been away from the place before for twenty years, and poor Vidler was so upset without me. And I don’t think,” she added, nodding, “that master liked it.”

“I’m sure he would not,” said Gertrude; and then, the little man coming in very quietly and closing the door after him, water was poured in the china bowl, the flowers duly deposited therein and placed upon a small mahogany bracket in front of a panel in the centre of the room.

“There, my dears, I’ll go now. I dare say he will not be long.”

The little woman smiled at the sisters, and the little man nodded at them in a satisfied way as if he thought them very pleasant to look upon. Then, taking his wife’s hand, they toddled together out of the room.

A quaint, subdued old room – clean, and yet comfortless. Upon a wet day, when a London fog hung over the streets and filled the back yards, no female could have sat in it for an hour without moistening her handkerchief with tears. For it was, in its dim twilight, like a drawing-room of the past, full of sad old memories of the dead and gone, who haunted it and clung to its furniture and chairs. It was impossible to sit there long without peopling the seats with those who once occupied them – without seeing soft, sad faces reflected in the mirrors, or hearing fancied footsteps on the faded carpet.

And it was so now, as the sisters sat thinking in silence, Renée with her head resting upon her hand, Gertrude with her eyes closed, half dreaming of what might have been.

For Gertrude’s thoughts ran back to a miniature in her father’s desk of a handsome, sun-browned young man in uniform, bright-eyed, keen, and animated; and she thought of what she had heard of his history: how he had loved some fair young girl before his regiment was ordered away to Canada. How he had come back to find that she had become another’s, and then that some terrible struggle had occurred between him and his rival, and the young officer had been maimed for life – turned in one minute from the strong, vigorous man to a misanthrope, who dragged himself about with difficulty, half paralysed in his lower limbs, but bruised more painfully in his heart. For, broken in spirit as in body, he had shut himself up, after his long illness, never seeing a soul, never going out of the closely shuttered rooms that he had chosen for himself in his lonely faded house.