CHAPTER XLVIII.
Next morning there was an unwonted excitement manifest throughout the household. Even the fat butler was up when Yorke came down-stairs; Mr. Peevor was going about in a fidget from room to room, although the expected hero was not due for another hour, giving repeated injunctions to the housekeeper to be sure and keep up a good fire in Mr. Frederic's room — he might want to take some rest after his long journey; while numerous apologies were made to Yorke for breakfast's being put off on Fred's account. When, however, Fred did arrive, himself in the brougham and his luggage in the tax-cart, it was pleasant to witness the unfeigned pleasure caused by his arrival; but in fact there was no doubt about the general amiability of the whole family. Every one went pretty much his or her own way, but no one ever seemed out of temper; and there were none of those little bickerings sometimes observable in even the most affectionate circles — sparks of snappishness elicited by domestic friction. Fred was very like his sister Cathy, rather under middle height, with a slight figure, pale complexion, light hair and small moustache, and bearing the unmistakable appearance of the British light dragoon. He accepted the welcome lavished upon him with easy composure, was civil to his step-mother, affectionate to his sisters, and properly deferential to the guest, as became Yorke's reputation and position in the service.
"Well, Frederic," said his father, as they sat over the breakfast-table, "how is your colonel? quite well, I hope, and all the rest of the officers? Is there any chance of the colonel's coming to England this winter? if so, we shall be very pleased if he will do us the honour to pay us a short visit."
The colonel was coming over, Fred believed, for a few weeks' hunting, but that would be with friends in Leicestershire.
"I suppose so," replied his father; "the colonel's company is very much sought after, naturally; the —th is one of the most fashionable regiments in the service," he added by way of explanation to Yorke; "but wouldn't you like to invite Lord Albert Custance, or Sir Charles Allingham, or any of your other brother officers, to come over for a few days hunting with the Southbywestershire? I should be extremely pleased to see them. There is plenty of room for as many as you like to bring, and plenty of stabling, and corn too for all, and we would try our best to make them comfortable. This house is as much yours as mine, you I know, Frederic, so I hope you won't hesitate to do just as you like."
"Very kind of you, sir, I'm sure," replied his son; "but I don't think any of our fellows are likely to be coming this way just now."
"Well then, at any other time, Fred, you must bring some of them, you know — Lord Albert Custance, or Sir Charles Allingham, or any others. I daresay we shall be able to put them up pretty comfortably. We will give them the best of what we have, at any rate."
"Very good of you, sir, I'm sure," again answered the son, and then turned the conversation in a way which implied that Lord Albert Custance and Sir Charles Allingham and the rest of his brother officers would certainly not receive the invitation.
"Do you know the —th, colonel?" said Mr. Peevor, turning to Yorke. "I am sure they would be very pleased to make your acquaintance."
Yorke replied that he knew them very well when the regiment was in India, a few years ago, but that the old set had almost all sold out or exchanged since they came home.
"It is one of the most fashionable regiments in the service," observed Mr. Peevor — "expensive, of course, but I am able to give my son a comfortable allowance."
"Rather too expensive for some of us, sir, I am afraid," said the young man, laughing; "we haven't all of us got such good-natured governors as some one who could be named; but it keeps promotion going."
Great was the consternation in the household when it became known that Fred's visit was to last only three days, and that he was going to spend the remainder of his leave with some friends at Leamington. This only came out by degrees, for the young man was reserved in manner — in this, as in many other respects, a contrast to his father. It was towards the end of his short visit, when he had come to know Yorke better, that he made a partial confidant of the house guest. "I like coming home, and all that, of course," said the young man, as the two were lounging about the stables together smoking their cigars, "but I can't stand the way in which the governor goes on about his money. He is very generous, and all that — in fact he allows me twice as much as I want to spend, and would give me twice as much more if I asked for it. I believe he would like me to keep a dozen chargers and a couple of drags of my own, and a hunter for each day in the month; but what's the good of being different from the fellows about you? Besides, our colonel, who got the regiment last year, don't like his officers to spend too much money. Our fellows are well connected enough, but they are not a rich lot; and we have lost some very good fellows, who had to go — that was in our late colonel's time — because the pace was too good. Then the governor is always being at me to bring some of them over to stay here. Well, they would behave like gentlemen, I know: but what is the good of having fellows here to be laughing in their sleeve all the time at the bad form in which things are done — the waste and show, and the lot of useless servants who do nothing but overeat themselves, and overdrink themselves too, very often? I declare my grooms would do more work than the whole lot in the stable here put together. Then my father is vexed because I'm going to hunt at Leamington instead of bringing my horses down here. Well, colonel, you've been out with my sister Cathy, and I dare-say you have noticed things, and the insolent way in which some of the people behave. I never go out without wanting to pick a quarrel with somebody. It is no good making a secret of it, and I don't mind telling you in confidence that I would rather not go through any more of it. How the girls stand it I'm sure I don't know; but I think women have more brass than men."
Perhaps the young man thought, by making a confidant of Colonel Yorke in this fashion, to disarm his criticism. At any rate, the latter, if he laughed at all, had no need after this revelation to laugh in his sleeve. And it will be seen that Mr. Peevor had acted the part of a Spartan father by his son, only making himself the example, instead of using the slave. Certainly, if he had deliberately tried to prevent the son from turning out a spendthrift he could not have succeeded better. Lieutenant Peevor was somewhat silent and cold in manner before the assembled family, although lively and unreserved when alone with his sisters, and having a practically unlimited command of money, he was scrupulously economical and methodical in habit. It was evident that Mr. Peevor's substance stood in no danger of being wasted by his son's riotous living.
That afternoon Yorke had to go to London on business. Indeed he had intended to bring his visit to an end on this day, but Mr. Peevor protested so strongly against his putting them off with such a short one, that, nothing loath to see something more of a family which interested him in more ways than one, he promised to return next morning in time for hunting; and the short day, which proved too wet for out-of-door amusements, was passed pleasantly enough, chiefly in the billiard-room with Fred and the girls, who were in high spirits at having their brother's company. And observing how much more lively they had become, the truth dawned upon him that possibly both the young ladies might heretofore have been a little in awe of their military guest. Indeed it was some time before young Peevor himself managed to cross the gulf which separated the subaltern and the colonel.
Fred appeared to more advantage when with his sisters in this way than when his father was present, and he was very gracious to the children, giving them rides on his back up and down the lobby — a thing which it had never occurred to Yorke to do. Nor should it be omitted that their brother had brought each of the little ones a magnificent doll. "They have got about half a hundred apiece of these articles already," he observed to Yorke, in giving them their presents, "but this sort of thing pleases Mrs. Peevor. I've got nothing for you," he said to his elder sisters: "it's no good bringing you anything; you've got everything already that girls can want."
"Everything?" said Lucy, in an undertone, looking archly at her brother.
"Well, everything you are likely to get," he returned, half in fun, half vexed.
The Hamwell railway station, the nearest to "The Beeches," was on a branch line not far from the Shoalbrook Junction, where it joins the main line from London to Castleroyal. Several passengers got into Yorke's compartment at the junction, but in the twilight of a November evening he did not notice their features, but occupied himself in trying to read his evening paper by the dim glare of the ill-fed lamp. The train came to a stop and Yorke came to the end of his paper at the ticket platform about a mile from the London terminus; and as Yorke, who sat at the farther end of the carriage, handed his ticket to the occupant of the other corner to deliver to the collector, he looked at him for the first time, and suddenly recognized his old friend Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, formerly surgeon of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards of Kirke's Horse. The old gentleman was somewhat greyer than when, he retired from the service four years before, but was otherwise little altered. Hearty greetings were of course exchanged between the two friends, and yet Yorke could not help noticing a certain constraint and confusion in the other's manner. He had been down to the neighbourhood of Castleroyal, Maxwell said, on some private business. He lived on his own little place in Fifeshire, and was staying for a short time in London. So much was explained during the short passage from the ticket platform to the terminus; and then Maxwell, shaking hands suddenly with his old friend, said he was in a great hurry to keep an appointment, jumped into a cab, and drove off without giving his town address.
Yorke felt surprised and hurt. Notwithstanding their difference of age. Maxwell and he had been on the footing of confidential friends; they had served together in the eventful defence of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards as close comrades throughout the rest of the sepoy war, and to Yorke alone had Maxwell confided his distress at Olivia's second marriage; and although he had left the regiment before ruin fell upon her and her husband, Maxwell had predicted some misfortune of the kind, and had himself told Yorke that he had left the regiment in order that he might not be present to witness it. Could it be that he resented the share Yorke himself had unwittingly had in that downfall? But no; nothing in Maxwell's manner implied resentment or reproach. His embarrassment obviously arose from something connected with himself, especially since, as it occurred to Yorke, Maxwell must surely have recognized him when he entered the carriage. For some reason, however, he had avoided recognition himself; and as Yorke thought over this strange and unsatisfactory meeting, the recollection of past days came up with unwonted force and freshness; and again indulging in the luxury of giving loose to the useless regrets over his wasted passion, in which he had allowed himself to indulge for so many years, the schemes for the future, which during the last few days he had amused himself in planning more or less vaguely, seemed to have lost all interest; and when, on returning next morning to "The Beeches," Lucy greeted him with a little blush, quite justified by certain passages which had passed between them, his manner was so cold and constrained that the poor girl could not conceal her distress. "What a brute I am, to be sure!" said Yorke to himself when alone later in the day, thinking over the episode. "Yet how am I to know that it is not all a pretence, the easy device of a practised flirt? No doubt the little jade has been taught to make eyes at every man she meets. Who am I to interpret a woman's looks? Whenever I meet one it seems my destiny to blunder."