CHAPTER XLVII
"Helen," said Lord Teviot, "now that this law business is settled, and that I have given G. all my Lisbon information, I think it would be very desirable to get away from this foggy London. I shall never get strong so long as we remain here."
"I am sure you will not," she said; "your doctors are very anxious you should try change of air, indeed, so much so, that I made Phillips write some days ago to St. Mary's, to have all your rooms thoroughly aired, and to say that we should probably be there in a few days."
"Then, my dear child, you said what is entirely untrue. Certainly you may go to St. Mary's if you have set your heart on it, but I cannot possibly have the honour of accompanying you."
"Oh, Teviot, what do you mean? Why not?"
"Because I have set my heart on going to Eskdale," he said, smiling. "I must see your mother and Amelia and all the rest of them again, and we shall have the diversion of watching dear old Beaufort making love. I really wonder, Helen, you are not more eager to go and see all our own belongings. I believe you are ashamed of showing your scarecrow of a husband; but I want to go while I am still looking interesting. I am sure your mother will enjoy petting me and making much of me."
"Who would not, you darling?" said Helen, in a transport of delight. "Oh dear, what a happy invention life is, particularly when it has been a little chequered! just think what a happy Christmas it will be; and how little we could's have expected it six weeks ago! Teviot, I sometimes think I am not half grateful enough for all the blessings I have."
"Well, they seem to agree with you," he said, looking at her with the fondest admiration. "I shall not be ashamed of showing my wife. I flatter myself, Helen, they will think you even handsomer than you were when you left Eskdale on our wedding-day."
"I should think so, indeed," she said, laughing. "I hope they will find me improved in all ways," she added more gravely. "I was a foolish spoiled child then, and now I am a happy woman."
Two days after this conversation, a large family party were assembled at Eskdale: Waldegraves, Waldens, Teviots, Ernest, and the reigning hero and heroine, Beaufort and Mary. Lord Teviot's appearance had at first caused considerable alarm in the circle, he looked so thin and pale; but Helen assured them that he was robust now, compared to what he had been, and that they would see improvement every day. So they all set about expediting his recovery. Lady Eskdale purring over him, and, as he foretold, petting him from morning to night; his sisters-in-law ready to amuse him at all hours, and Helen looking on with undisguised satisfaction at the daily improvement in his health, and feeling in her heart the enjoyment he evidently felt in having become a favourite member of a large and affectionate family.
"Yes, this is all very well," said Ernest one morning when he was sitting with the Teviots and Waldens. "You all seem very happy and settled, and of course had a perfect right to marry if you chose it. But now here is Beaufort going to set up his little altar to domestic felicity (I thought he would have stuck by me); and here am I, the only one of the family left in solitary grandeur.
The last rose of summer, left blooming and lone,
All my lovely companions well married and gone!
I declare it is very affecting."
"But pleasant for you," said Lord Teviot, "to have so many homes to go to; you know we all like to have you, and you will circulate amongst us without the slightest trouble to yourself."
"Yes; but I think I am getting too old now to be the odd man of the family; the dining-out Beaufort. And then, when I come home from one of your well-lit houses, or from my club, it will be very depressing to take out my latch-key, and to find a deplorable little lamp in the hall, which makes the whole house smell greasy; and to have to go tumbling up the dark stairs, to a darker room. I really wish I were married too"; and so saying, he drew his arm-chair almost into the fire, and tried to give a deep sigh.
"But why don't you marry?" said Helen.
"My dear soul, how can I? you can't expect me to go rushing about after all those London girls, who care for nothing but balls, and expect to be danced with, and to be handed to carriages standing miles off; and above all, to have their cloaks found for them. How I loathe a cloakroom, with No. 210 to be looked for, and of course it is underneath all the other wraps, and there are 209 bundles to be moved before one gets at it. No, I mean to eschew balls now I have got into Parliament."
"But there are plenty of girls in the country."
"Vulgar, I fear; and besides, how am I to make acquaintance with them? You can't expect me to go riding about the country, calling at all the neighbours' houses, and asking if the young ladies are at home. No, I do not see how I am to find a wife; but you must all of you set about arranging it. Les grands parents always do, you know, in French novels."
"I very much doubt, Ernest," said Helen, hesitatingly, "whether you would make a good husband. You will excuse me for mentioning it, but you are rather too selfish—I mean self-indulgent."
"Yes; that's just it. I have indulged myself to that degree, that I am, as you mildly observe, Helen, infernally selfish. But then, you know, my wife would be a part of myself; and I should indulge her, and we could both be selfish together. So do find one for me; and now I must go and take my ride. Who will come?"
"I will," said Lord Teviot. "I must try and get back to my old habits. Don't you think I might try a ride, Helen?"
"Decidedly not. You know, dearest, Dr. Grey said you were on no account to go out in an east wind; so I always look at the weathercock the first thing in the morning. It is due east, and bitterly cold."
"But he said I was to take exercise," Lord Teviot suggested very humbly.
"Well, then, come and play at billiards with me; as for going out in this weather, I can't allow it, love; so don't say any more about it."
"There!" said Ernest, as Lord Teviot walked off to the billiard-room, with his arm round his wife's waist. "Now, that is just what I want—somebody who knows which way the wind blows, and who will tell me what I may or may not do; and will make me stay at home when I want to go out, and vice versâ. Just see how it has improved Teviot: he used to look as black as thunder on the slightest contradiction, and now he is the mildest of men, and looks radiant when Helen vouchsafes to snub him. It is strange."
"Not very," said Amelia; "he sees that her whole heart is given up to him; and till he married, he never was really cared for by anybody. He had neither mother nor sisters; and the rest of the world only flattered him. Dear little Nell loves him—that makes all the difference, as you will see when Mrs. Ernest appears."
"I suppose it does," said Ernest; and this time he really sighed, and went off to his solitary ride.
It almost seemed as if Lady Eskdale must have overheard the foregoing conversation, for when she returned from her drive, she brought Eliza Douglas with her. The great election feud had nearly died out. Mr. Douglas had never wished to prolong it, and was in his heart rather pleased with a defeat which left him free to live with his cows and sheep and turnips; and, moreover, he liked the society of the Eskdales, and had a general hatred of neighbourly quarrels. Lord Teviot's dangerous illness had, as was said before, roused Mrs. Douglas's latent tenderness for Helen, and softened her towards Lady Eskdale. She said, indeed, that it might eventually be a great advantage to Helen to get rid of such an ill-tempered man, who was not even what he had pretended to be, probably not Lord Teviot at all; and who, if he lived, would most likely be a pauper; but still, there was something melancholy in Helen's story; and she thought it would be only neighbourly to call. And the first step made, the others were not difficult. The visit was returned. Lady Eskdale looked ill and harassed, which put Mrs. Douglas into extreme good humour. The failure of Mr. Lorimer's pretensions to the title was rather a trial; but Lord Teviot was civil and subdued, and Helen was so radiant with happiness that she was affectionate even to Mrs. Douglas; and altogether that lady was in a better disposition towards the Eskdales than she had been before the election. She had missed them as objects of observation, and had wanted somebody to find fault with.
So when Lady Eskdale invited Eliza to return with her to the Castle for a few days, no objection was made, and Eliza set off in a most hopeful state of mind. Her Extract Book, carefully padlocked, accompanied her, and it seemed likely that its gloomy contents might be enlivened with a few sonnets to "Hope," and "Peace of mind."
"Did you tell my aunt to ask her?" whispered Ernest to Helen, as they sat down to dinner nearly opposite to Eliza. "Certainly not," she said, laughing; "she is a nice little thing; and I shall decidedly interfere, if you begin that course of philandering you pursued at St. Mary's."
"My dear Helen, I do not know what is the feminine of the word philanderer—perhaps philanderess; and I assure you she philanderessed with me in the most innocent but decided manner. But I won't begin again till I feel sure of my own honourable intentions."
He, however, occasionally addressed an observation to the opposite side of the table, and during second course observed to Helen that Miss Douglas had a very pretty hand and arm; and by the time that dessert was on the table, said he had made the discovery that she had a good perception of a joke, and smiled intelligently. "I really think, Helen, I am falling in love! I do not mean in the usual mad, bustling way in which most people set about it; but falling in love very creditably for me. What do you think?"
"That you have not the remotest idea even how to set about it; you are much too worldly and too blasé to appreciate or to please such a good, simple-minded girl as that is; but as you are only in jest, it does not much signify."
Ernest laughed, but he was very much piqued with Helen's views of the subject; and in the evening he took some pains to make himself agreeable to Eliza. But he did not find her so disposed to be amused and interested as she had been at St. Mary's. Mrs. Douglas, with her usual acuteness, had observed all that had passed there, which she thought fully accounted for her daughter's changed spirits since—and before Eliza went to Eskdale, her mother had spoken to her seriously on the subject of Colonel Beaufort's attentions, and without exactly saying that Eliza had invited rather than encouraged them, had desired her upon no account to seek his society; and, above all, to recollect that he "was a regular London fine man, without any heart, and thinking of nothing but his own amusement." In this opinion Eliza did not, of course, concur; but she most conscientiously acted upon it, and was as reserved in her manner as if her mother had been sitting opposite to her making cutting remarks at, and on, Ernest.
He was rather surprised at first at this change in their relations; then he became amused at seeing his attentions rebuffed, for sometimes he really took the trouble of being attentive after his languid fashion; and finally the slight difficulties placed in his way gave a degree of zest to the pursuit, and Lady Eskdale and her daughters took great delight in watching the activity with which Ernest stepped forward to hand Eliza in to dinner; and the patience with which he listened to her singing, openly avowing that he thought music a mere noise, and a painful interruption to the quiet and comfort of the evening. Whereupon Eliza, with a strong sense of filial duty, sang and played with additional ardour, and would have considered herself a little martyr, and pitied herself to a great amount, had she not perceived, with the keenness common on such subjects, that Ernest was, in fact, far more really interested in her now than he had been at St. Mary's. Page 28 of the Extract Book, dedicated to the sorrows of "The Neglected One," was torn out; and "Young Hopes," a poem by "T."—rather trashy, but extremely joyous—copied into the next leaf at full length.