Lord Fordham had been in bed long before the others returned, but in the morning a twisted note was handed to his mother, briefly saying he was running down to see how it was with them at Belforest.
When a station fly was seen drawing to the door, Allen, who was drearily leaning over the stone wall of the terrace, much disorganised by having received no answer to his letter, instantly jumped to the conclusion that Elvira had come home, sprang to the door, and when he only saw the tall figure emerge, he concluded that something dreadful had happened, grasped Fordham's hand, and demanded what it was.
It fell flat that she had last been seen full-dressed going off to a party.
"Then, if there's nothing, what brought you here? I mean," said poor Allen, catching up his courtesy, "I'm afraid there's nothing you or any one else can do."
"Can I see your mother?"
Allen turned him into the library and went off to find his mother, and instruct her to discover from "that stupid fellow" how Elvira was feeling it. When, after putting away the papers she was trying to arrange, Caroline went downstairs, she had no sooner opened the door than Barbara flew up to her, crying out-
"Oh, mother, tell him not!"
"Tell him what, my dear?" as the girl hung on her, and dragged her into the ante-room. "What is the matter?"
"If it is nonsense, he ought not to have made it so like earnest," said Babie, all crimson, but quite gravely.
"You don't mean-"
"Yes, mother."
"How could he?" cried Caroline, in her first annoyance at such things beginning with her Babie.
"You'll tell him, mother. You'll not let him do it again?"
"Let me go, my child. I must speak to him and find out what it all means."
Within the library she was met by Fordham.
"Have I done very wrong, Mrs. Brownlow? I could not help it."
"I wish you had not."
"I always meant to wait till she was older, and I grew stronger, but when all this came, I thought if we all belonged to one another it might be a help-"
"Very, very kind, but-"
"I know I was sudden and frightened her," he continued; "but if she could-"
"You forget how young she is."
"No, I don't. I would not take her from you. We could all go on together."
"All one family? Oh, you unpractised boy!"
"Have we not done so many winters? But I would wait, I meant to have waited, only I am afraid of dying without being able to provide for her. If she would have me, she would be left better off than my mother, and then it would be all right for you and Armie. What are you smiling at?"
"At your notions of rightness, my dear, kind Duke. I see how you mean it, but it will not do. Even if she had grown to care for you, it would not be right for me to give her to you for years to come."
"May not I hope till then?"
She could not tell how sorry she should be to see in her little daughter any dawnings of an affection which would be a virtual condemnation to such a life as his mother's had been.
"You don't guess how I love her! She has been the bright light of my life ever since the Engelberg,-the one hope I have lived for!"
"My poor Duke!"
"Then do you quite mean to deny me all hope?"
"Hope must be according to your own impressions, my dear Fordham. Of course, if you are well, and still wishing it four or five years hence, it would be free to you to try again. More, I cannot say. No, don't thank me, for I trust to your honour to make no demonstrations in the meantime, and not to consider yourself as bound."
It was a relief that Armine here came in, attracted by a report of his friend's arrival, and Mrs. Brownlow went in search of her daughter, to whom she was guided by a sonata played with very unnecessary violence.
"You need not murder Haydn any more, you little barbarian," she said, with a hand on the child's shoulder, and looking anxiously into the gloomy face. "I have settled him."
Babie drew a long breath, and said-
"I'm glad! It was so horrid! You'll not let him do it any more?"
"Then you decidedly would not like it?" returned her mother.
"Like it? Poor Duke! Mother! As if I could ever! A man that can't sit in a draught, or get wet in his feet!" cried Babie, with the utmost scorn; and reading reproof as well as amused pity in her mother's eyes, she added, "Of course, I am very sorry for him; but fancy being very _sorry_ for one's love!"
"I thought you liked wounded knights?"
"Wounded! Yes, but they've done something, and had glorious wounds. Now Duke-he is very good, and it is not his fault but his misfortune; but he is such a-such a muff!"
"That's enough, my dear; I am quite content that my Infanta should wait for her hero. Though," she added, almost to herself, "she is too childish to know the true worth of what she condemns."
She felt this the more when Babie, who had coaxed the housekeeper into letting her begin a private school of cookery, started up, crying-
"I must go and see my orange biscuits taken out of the oven! I should like to send a taste to Sydney!"
Yes, Barbara was childish for nearly sixteen, and, as it struck her mother at the moment, rather wonderfully so considering her cleverness and romance. It was better for her that the softening should not come yet, but, mother as she was, Caroline's sympathies could not but be at the moment with the warm-hearted, impulsive, generous young man, moved out of all his habitual valetudinarian habits by his affection, rather than with the light-hearted child, who spurned the love she did not comprehend, and despised his ill- health. Had the young generation no hearts? Oh no-no-it could not be so with her loving Barbara, and she ought to be thankful for the saving of pain and perplexity.
Poor Armine was not getting much comfort out of his friend, who was too much preoccupied to attend to what he was saying, and only mechanically assented at intervals to the proposition that it was an inscrutable dispensation that the will and the power should so seldom go together. He heard all Armine's fallen castles about chapels, schools, curates, and sisters, as in a dream, really not knowing whether they were or were not to be. And with all his desire to be useful, he never perceived the one offer that would have been really valuable, namely, to carry off the boy out of sight of the scene of his disappointment.
Fordham was compelled to stay for an uncomfortable luncheon, when there were spasmodic jerks of talk about subjects of the day to keep up appearances before the servants, who flitted about in such an exasperating way that their mistress secretly rejoiced to think how soon she should be rid of the fine courier butler.
Just as the pony-carriage came round for Armine to drive his friend back to the station, the Colonel came in, and was an astonished spectator of the farewells.
"So that's your young lord," he said. "Poor lad! if our nobility is made of no tougher stuff, I would not give much for it. What brought him here?"
'Kindness-sympathy-" said Caroline, a little awkwardly.
"Much of that he showed," said Allen, "just knowing nothing at all about anybody! No! If it were not so utterly ridiculous I should think he had come to make an offer to Babie:" and as his sister flew out of the room, "You don't mean that he has, mother?"
"Pray, don't speak of it to any one!" said Caroline. "I would not have it known for the world. It was a generous impulse, poor dear fellow; and Babie has no feeling for him at all."
"Very lucky," said the uncle. "He looks as if his life was not worth a year's purchase. So you refused him? Quite right too. You are a sensible woman, Caroline, in the midst of this severe reverse!"
CHAPTER XXX. AS WEEL OFF AS AYE WAGGING
'Lesbia hath a beaming eye, But no one knows for whom it beameth, Right and left its arrows fly, But what they aim at, no one dreameth.'