CHAPTER II

I have now to explain how it was that Mr. Aubrey Leigh was so interesting and so melancholy, and thus awoke the friendship and compassion, and secured the ministrations of the Kingsward family. He was in deep mourning, for though he was only eight-and-twenty he was already a widower, and bereaved beside of his only child. Poor young man! He had married with every appearance of happiness and prosperity, but his wife had died at the end of the first year, leaving him with a baby on his inexperienced hands. He was a young man full of feeling, and, contrary to the advice of all his friends, he had shut himself up in his house in the country and dedicated himself to his child. Dedicated himself to a baby two months old!

There was nobody who did not condemn this unnecessary self-sacrifice. He should have gone away; he should have left the child in the hands of its excellent nurse, under the supervision of that charming person who had been such a devoted nurse to dear Mrs. Leigh, and whom the desolate young widower had not the courage to send away from his house. Her presence there was a double reason, people said, why he should have gone away. For though his sorrow and trouble was so great that nobody for a moment supposed that he had any idea of such a thing, yet the presence of a lady, and of a lady still called by courtesy a young lady, though older than himself, and who could not be treated like a servant in his house, was embarrassing and not very seemly, everybody said. Suggestions were made to her that she should go away, but then she answered that she had nowhere to go to, and that she had promised to dear Amy never to forsake her child. The country ladies about who took an interest in the young man thought it was “just like” dear Amy, who had always been a rather silly young woman, to exact such a promise, but that Miss Lance would be quite justified in not keeping it, seeing the child had plenty of people to look after her – her grandmother within reach and her father dedicating himself to her.

Miss Lance, however, did not see her duty in the same way; indeed, after the poor little child died – and there was no doubt she had been invaluable during its illness, and devoted herself to it as she had done to its mother – she stayed on still at Leigh Court, though now at last poor Aubrey was persuaded to go away. The mind of the county was relieved beyond description when at last he departed on his travels. These good people did not at all want to get up any scandal in their midst. They did not very much blame Miss Lance for declining to give up a comfortable home. They only felt it was dreadfully awkward and that something should be done about it, though nobody knew what to do. He had left home nearly six months before he appeared at the Baths with that letter to Mrs. Kingsward in his pocket, and the change and the travel had done him good.

A young man of twenty-eight cannot go mourning all the days of his life for a baby of eight months old, and he had already begun to “get over” the death of his wife before the second event occurred. This troublous beginning of his life had left him very sad, with something of the feeling of a victim, far more badly treated than most in the beginning of his career. But this is not like real grief, which holds a man’s heart with a grip of steel. And he was in the stage when a man is ready to be consoled when Bee’s blue eyes first flashed upon him. The Kingswards had received him in these circumstances with more abandon than they would have done in any other. He was so melancholy; his confidences, when he began to make them, were so touching; his waking up to interest and happiness so delightful to see. And thus, before anyone had thoroughly realized it, the deed was done. They knew nothing about Miss Lance – as how should they? – and what could she have had to do with it if they had known?

So there really was nothing but that doubt of Colonel Kingsward’s approval to alloy the pleasure of the party, and it was only Mrs. Kingsward who thought of it. Charlie pooh-poohed the idea altogether. “I think I should know my father better than anyone,” the young man said, with much scorn of his mother’s hesitation. He was very fond and very proud of his mother, but felt that as a man himself, he probably understood papa better than the ladies could. “Of course he will approve; why shouldn’t he approve? Leigh is a very decent fellow, though I don’t think all the world of him, as you girls do. Papa, of course, knew exactly what sort of a fellow he was; a little too quiet – not Bee’s sort at all. No, you may clamour as you like, but he’s not in the least Bee’s sort – ”

“I’m supposed to prefer a noisy trooper, I believe,” said Bee.

“Well, I should have said that was more like it – but mind you, the governor would never have sent us out a man here who was not good enough for anything. Oh, I understand the old boy!”

“Charlie, how dare you?” cried his mother; but the horror was modified by a laugh, for anything more unlike an old boy than Colonel Kingsward it would not have been very easy to conceive.

“Well, mamma, you wouldn’t have me call him my honoured father, would you?” the young man said. He was at Oxford, and he thought himself on the whole not only by far the most solid and serious member of the present party, but on the whole rather more experienced in the world than the gentleman whom in the bosom of the family he still condescended to call “papa.”

As for little Betty, who up to this time had been Bee’s shadow, and who had not yet begun to feel herself de trop, she, no more than her sister, was moved by any of these cares. She was wholly occupied in studying the new thing which had suddenly started into being before her eyes. Betty was of opinion that it was entirely got up for her amusement and instruction. When she and Bee were alone, she never ceased in her interrogatory. “Oh, Bee, when did you first begin to think about him like that? Oh, Bee, how did you first find out that he was thinking about you? Oh, Bee, don’t you mind that he was once in love before?” Such were the questions that poured in an incessant stream into Bee’s ears. That young lady was equal to them all, and she was not unwilling to let her sister share more or less in the new enlightenment that had come to herself.

“When did I first begin to think of him?” she said. “Oh, Betty, the first minute I saw him coming through the garden with Charlie to speak to mamma! There were all those horrid men about, you remember, in those gaudy uniforms, and their swords and spurs, and so forth – such dreadful bad taste in foreigners always to be in uniform – ”

“But, Bee,” cried Betty, “why, I’ve heard you say – ”

“Oh, never mind what you’ve heard me say! I’ve been silly, I suppose, in my day, like almost everybody. Aubrey says he cannot think how they can live, always done up in those hot, stiff clothes – none of the ease of Englishmen about them.”

“Papa says they are such soldier-like men,” says little Betty, who had not been converted from the regime of the officers, like Bee.

“Oh, well, papa – he is an officer himself, but he never wears his uniform when he can help it, you know.”

“Well,” said Betty, “you may say what you like – for my part, I do love a nice uniform. I don’t want ever again to dance with a man in a black coat. But Bee, you’re too bad – you won’t say a word, and I want so to know how it all came about. What put it into your head? And what did you say to one another? And was it he that began first – or was it you?”

“You little dreadful thing,” said Bee; “how could a girl ever begin? It shows how little you know! Of course he began; but we didn’t begin at all,” she said, after a pause, “it just came – all in a moment when I wasn’t thinking, and neither was he.”

“Do you mean to say that he didn’t intend to propose to you?” said Betty, growing pale.

“Oh!” said Bee, impatient, “as if proposing was all! Do you think he just came out with it point blank – ‘Miss Kingsward, will you marry me?’ ”

“Well,” said Betty: “what did he say then if he didn’t say that?”

“Oh, you little goose!” said Bee.

“I am sure if he had said ‘Oh, you little goose’ to me,” said Betty, “I should never have spoken a word to him again.”

“It is no use talking to little girls,” said Bee, with a sigh. “You don’t understand; and, to be sure, how could you understand – at your age and all?”

“Age!” said Betty, indignant, “there is but fifteen months between us, and I’ve always done everything with you. We’ve always had on new things together, and gone to the same places and everything. It is you that are very unkind now you have got engaged; and I do believe you like this big horrid man better than me.”

“Oh, you little goose!” said Bee, again.

“No, it isn’t a big but a little, horrid man. I made a mistake,” said Betty, “not like Captain Kreutzner that you used to like so much. It’s small people you care for now; not your own nice people like me and mamma, but a man that you had never heard the name of when you first came here, and now you quote and praise him, and make the most ridiculous fuss about him, even to Charlie, who is far nicer-looking! – and won’t even tell your sister what he says!”

This argument came to so high a tone that mamma called out from her room to know what was amiss. “It does not become you girls to carry on your old scuffles and quarrels,” she said, “now that one of you, at least, is so grown up and about to take upon herself the responsibilities of life.”

“Is Aubrey a responsibility?” Betty whispered in her sister’s ears.

“Oh, you little silly thing!” Bee replied; and presently Mrs. Kingsward’s maid came in to say that Mr. Leigh was in the sitting-room, and would Miss Bee go to him as her mistress was not ready; for this was the little fiction that was kept up in those days before Colonel Kingsward’s letter had been received. It will be seen, however, that it was but a fiction, and that as a matter of fact there was very little restraint put on the young people’s intercourse. “You must not consider that anything is settled; you must not think there’s any engagement,” Mrs. Kingsward had said. “Indeed, indeed, I cannot take upon me to sanction anything till I hear from her papa.” But virtually they met as much as they liked, and even indulged in little talks apart, and meetings by themselves, before Mrs. Kingsward was ready; so that as a matter of fact this restriction did very little harm.

And in due time Colonel Kingsward’s letter was received, and it was not unfavourable. The Colonel said that, on the whole, he should have preferred it had Mr. Leigh waited till they had all returned home. It would have been a seemly forbearance, and saved Mrs. Kingsward a great deal of anxiety; but as matters stood and as his dear wife approved, and he heard nothing but good of Mr. Leigh, he would not withdraw the provisional consent which she seemed to have given. “It will be expedient in the circumstances that you should all return home as soon as possible, that I may go into matters with the young man,” the Colonel added in that part of his letter which was not intended to be read to Aubrey Leigh. And he added, as Bee had prophesied, “You might have been sure that I should not introduce a young man to my family, and to yourself, my dear, without ascertaining previously,” etc., etc., just as Bee had said. He added, “Of course I never contemplated anything of this sort: but one can never tell what may happen when young people are thrown together. The property is a good one, and the young man unexceptionable, from all I can hear.” Then Mrs. Kingsward’s mind was set at ease. It seemed to Bee that her father might have said something on the subject of her happiness, and acknowledged Aubrey to be something more than an unexceptionable young man. It was inconceivable, she thought to herself, how cool people are when they come to that age. The property good, and the young man unexceptionable – was that all? Did papa take no more interest than that? But at all events the engagement was now quite permitted and acknowledged, and they might walk out together all day, and dance together all night, without a word said; for which Bee forgave and instantly forgot – it was really of so little importance – the coolness of papa.

Mrs. Kingsward’s “cure” was over, and by this time most people were leaving the Bath. Our party made their preparations for leaving too, in the pleasantest way. It was not to be at all a rapid journey, which would not have been good for Mrs. Kingsward. They were to make their way at leisure from one beautiful old city to another across the breadth of Germany, staying a day here and a day there, travelling for the most part in a large, old-fashioned carriage, such as was the custom then, with a wide-hooded seat in front, like the banquette of a French diligence, in which two people could be extremely happy, seeing the scenery much better than those inside could do, or perhaps not seeing the scenery at all, but occupying each other quite as agreeably with the endless talk of lovers, which is not interesting to anybody but themselves. Before they set out upon this journey, however, which was to hold so great a place in Bee’s life, a little incident occurred to her which did not appear to be of very much consequence, but which made some impression on her mind at the time, and vaguely appeared afterwards to throw light on various other events. The German Bath at which the little story of her love took place is surrounded with woods – woods of a kind that are never seen anywhere else, though they are the special feature of German Baths. They are chiefly composed of fir trees, and they are arranged upon the most strictly mathematical principles, with that precision which is dear to the German mind, row upon row standing close together, as if they had been stuck in so at their present height, with so many cubit feet of air to each, as in the London lodging-houses. They are traversed by broad roads, with benches at intervals, and at each corner there is a wooden board on which is painted indications how to find the nearest restauration where beer is to be had, and the veal of the country – for the German, in his hours of ease and amusement, has continual occasion to be “restored.”

Bee had gone out early in the morning to make a little sketch of an opening in the trees through which a village spire was visible. There were not many points for the artist in landscape, especially one of such moderate powers as Bee, and she was very anxious to finish this to present it, I need scarcely say, to Aubrey, as a memento of the place. Probably there was some other sentimental reason – such as that they had first spoken words of special meaning there, or had first exchanged looks that were of importance in their idyll, or some other incident of equal weight. She was seated on one of the benches, with her little colour box and bottle of water, giving the finishing touches to her sketch. Sooth to say, Bee was no great performer, and the ranks of the dark trees standing arithmetically apart to permit of that little glimpse of distance, were too much for her. They looked in her sketch like two dark green precipices rather than like trees, and had come to a very difficult point, when a lady coming along by one of the side walks, round the corner past the restauration, suddenly sat down by Bee’s side and startled her a little. She was not a girl who was easily frightened, but the suddenness of the apparition out of the silent morning when she had thought nobody was in sight was a little startling and made her hand shake.

“I hope I am not intruding upon you,” the lady said.

“Oh, no!” said Bee, looking up with her bright face. She was as fresh as the morning in her broad Leghorn hat with the blue ribbon, and her eyes that danced and sparkled. The stranger by her side was much older than Bee. She was a handsome woman; dark, with fine eyes, too, a sidelong look in them, and a curious half smile which was like La Gioconda, that famous picture Bee had seen in the Louvre, as we all have. She thought of La Gioconda at once, when she looked up into the lady’s face. She was entirely dressed in black, and there could not have been found anywhere a more perfect contrast to Bee.

They got into conversation quite easily, for Bee was a girl who loved to talk. The lady gave her several hints about her little picture which Bee knew enough to know were dictated by superior knowledge, and then they got talking quite naturally about the place and the people who were there. After they had discussed the society and the number of English people at the Bath, and Bee had disclosed the hotel at which she was staying, and many details of her innocent life, which she was not at all conscious of disclosing – the stranger began to inquire about various people. It was not by any means at once that she introduced the name of Leigh; not indeed till she had been over the Reynoldses, and the Gainsboroughs, and the Collinses, under Bee’s exultant guidance and fine power of narrative; then she said tentatively, that there was she believed, at one of the hotels, a family of Leighs.

“Oh!” cried Bee, her countenance flushing over with a sudden brilliant delightful blush, which seemed to envelop her from top to toe. She had been looking up into her companion’s face so that the stranger got the full benefit of this sudden resplendent change of colour. She then turned very demurely to her sketch, and said meekly, “I don’t know any family, but there is a Mr. Leigh at our hotel.”

“Oh,” said the lady, but in a very different tone from Bee’s startled “oh!” She said it coldly, as if recording a fact. “I thought,” she said, “it was the Leighs of Hurstleigh, friends of mine. I may have been deceived by seeing the name in the lists.”

“But I think, indeed I am sure, that Mr. Aubrey Leigh is connected with the Leighs of Hurstleigh,” Bee said.

“Oh, a young man, a widower, an inconsolable; I think I remember hearing of him. Is that the man?”

“I don’t know if he is an inconsolable,” cried Bee, with a quick movement of anger and then she thought how foolish that was, for of course a stranger like this could have no unkind meaning. She added with great gravity, “It is quite true that he has been married before.”

Poor little Bee, she was not at all aware how she was betraying herself. She was more vexed and indignant than words can say, when the woman (who after all could not be a lady) burst into a laugh. “Oh! I think I can see how matters stand with Aubrey Leigh,” this impertinent intruder cried.