The Wizard's Son. Volume 2of 3

CHAPTER VII

The room was large with that air of bare and respectable shabbiness which is the right thing in a long-established private hotel – with large pieces of mahogany furniture, and an old-fashioned carpet worn, not bare exactly, but dim, the pattern half-obliterated here and there, which is far more correct and comme il faut than the glaring newness and luxury of modern caravanseries. As Mr. Williamson, like a true Englishman (a Scotsman in this particular merely exaggerates the peculiarity), loved the costly all the better for making no show of being costly, it was naturally at one of these grimly expensive places that he was in the habit of staying in London. A large window, occupying almost one entire side of the room, filled it with dim evening light, and a view of roofs and chimneys, against which Katie's little figure showed as she came forward asking, "Is it any one I know?" It was not a commanding, or even very graceful figure, though round and plump, with the softened curves of youth. When the new-comers advanced to meet her, and she saw behind her father's middle-aged form, the slimmer outlines of a young man, Katie made another step forward with an increase of interest. She had expected some contemporaries of papa's, such as he was in the habit of bringing home with him to dinner, and not a personage on her own level. Mr. Williamson, in his good-humoured cordiality, stepped forward something like a showman, with a new object which he feels will make a sensation.

"You will never guess who this is," he said, "so I will not keep ye in suspense, Katie. This is our new neighbour at Loch Houran, Lord Erradeen. Think of me meeting him just by chance on the pavey, as ye may say, of a London street, and us next door to each other, to use a vulgar expression, at home!"

"Which is the vulgar expression?" said Katie. She was very fond of her father, but yet liked people to see that she knew better. She held out her hand frankly to Walter, and though she was only a round-about, bread-and-butter little girl with nothing but money, she was far more at her ease than he was. "I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Lord Erradeen," she said. "We were just wondering whether we should meet you anywhere. We have only been a week in town."

"I don't think we should have been likely to meet," said Walter with that tone of resentment which had become natural to him, "if I had not been so fortunate as to encounter Mr. Williamson as he says, on the pavé."

Katie was not pleased by this speech. She thought that Walter was rude, and implied that the society which he frequented was too fine for the Williamsons, and she also thought that he meant a laugh at her father's phraseology, neither of which offences were at all in the young man's intention.

"Oh," Katie cried, resentful too, "papa and I go to a great many places – unless you mean Marlborough House and that sort of thing. Oh, Captain Underwood!" she added next moment in a tone of surprise. The appearance of Captain Underwood evidently suggested to her ideas not at all in accordance with that of Marlborough House.

"Yes," he said, "Miss Williamson: you scarcely expected to see me. It is not often that a man is equally intimate with two distinct branches of a family, is it? But I always was a fortunate fellow, and here I am back in your circle again."

Walter's mind was considerably preoccupied by his own circumstances, and by the novelty of this new meeting; but yet he was quick-witted enough to remark with some amusement the recurrence of the old situation with which he was quite acquainted – the instinctive repugnance of the feminine side everywhere to this companion of his, and the tolerance and even friendliness of the men. Katie did all but turn her back upon Underwood before his little speech was ended. She said, "Will you ring for dinner, papa?" without making the slightest reply to it: and indeed, after another glance from one to the other, retired to the sofa from which she had risen, with a little air of having exhausted this new incident, and indifference to anything that could follow, which piqued Walter. Had she been a noble person either in fact or in appearance, of an imposing figure and proportions even, it might have seemed less insupportable; but that a little dumpy girl should thus lose all interest in him, classifying him in a moment with his companion, was beyond Lord Erradeen's patience. He felt bitterly ashamed of Underwood, and eager even, in his anger at this presumptuous young woman's hasty judgment, to explain how it was that he was in Underwood's company. But as he stood biting his lip in the half-lighted room, he could not but remember how very difficult it would be to explain it. Why was he in Underwood's company? Because he could get admittance to none better. Marlborough House! He felt himself grow red all over, with a burning shame, and anger against fate. And when he found himself seated by Katie's side at the lighted table, and subject to the questions with which it was natural to begin conversation, his embarrassment was still greater. She asked him had he been here and there. That great ball at the French Embassy that everybody was talking about – of course he had been one of the guests? And at the Duke's – Katie did not consider it necessary to particularise what duke, confident that no Christian, connected ever so distantly with Loch Houran, could have any doubt on the subject. Was the decoration of the new dining-room so magnificent as people said? Walter's blank countenance, his brief replies, the suppressed reluctance with which he said anything at all, had the strangest effect upon Katie. After a while she glanced at Captain Underwood, who was talking with much volubility to her father, and with a very small, almost imperceptible shrug of her little shoulders, turned away and addressed herself to her dinner. This from a little girl who was nobody, who was not even very pretty, who betrayed her plebeian origin in every line of her plump form and fresh little commonplace face, was more than Walter could bear.

"You must think me dreadfully ignorant of the events of society," he said, "but the fact is I have not been going out at all. It is not very long, you are aware, since I came into the property, and – there have been a great many things to do."

"I have always heard," said Katie, daintily consuming a delicate entrée, with her eyes upon her plate as if that was her sole interest, "that the Erradeen estates were all in such order that there was never anything for the heir to do."

"You speak," said Walter, "as if they changed hands every year."

"Oh, not that exactly; but I remember two; and I might have remembered others, for we have only been at Loch Houran since papa got so rich."

"What a pleasant way of remembering dates!"

"Do you think so, Lord Erradeen? Now I should think that to have been rich always, and your father before you, and never to have known any difference, would be so much more pleasant."

"There may perhaps be something to be said on both sides," said Walter; "but I am no judge – for the news of my elevation, such as it is, came to me very suddenly, too suddenly to be agreeable, without any warning."

Katie reconsidered her decision in the matter of Lord Erradeen; perhaps though he knew nobody, he might not be quite unworthy cultivation, and besides, she had finished her entrée. She said, "Didn't you know?" turning to him again her once-averted eyes.

"I had not the faintest idea; it came upon me like a thunderbolt," he said. "You perceive that you must treat me with a little indulgence in respect to dukes, &c. – even if I had any taste for society, which I haven't," he added, with a touch of bitterness in his tone.

"Oh," said Katie, looking at him much more kindly; then she bent towards him with quite unexpected familiarity, and said, lowering her voice, but in the most distinct whisper, "And where then did you pick up that odious man?"

Walter could not but laugh as he looked across the table at the unconscious object of this attack.

"I observe that ladies never like him," he said; "at home it is the same."

"Oh, I should think so," cried Katie, "everybody thought it was such a pity that Lord Erradeen took him up – and then to see him with you! Oona Forrester would be very sorry," Katie added after a pause.

"Miss Forrester!" Walter felt himself colour high with pleasure at the sound of this name, then feeling this a sort of self-betrayal, coloured yet more. "You know her?"

Katie turned round upon him with a mixture of amusement and disdain. "Know her! is there any one on the loch, or near it, that doesn't know her?" she said.

"I beg your pardon," cried Walter. "I forgot for the moment." Then he too retired within himself for so long a time that it was Katie's turn to be affronted. He devoted himself to his dinner too, but he did not eat. At last "Why should she be sorry?" he asked curtly as if there had been no pause.

"How can I tell you now while he sits there?" said Katie, lowering her voice; "some other time perhaps – most likely you will call in the day-time, in the morning, now that we have made your acquaintance."

"If you will permit me," Walter said.

"Oh yes, we will permit you. Papa has always wanted to know you, and so have I since – If you are allowed to come: but perhaps you will not be allowed to come, Lord Erradeen."

"Will not be allowed? What does that mean? and since when, may I ask, have you been so kind as to want to know me? I wish I had been aware."

"Since – well, of course, since you were Lord Erradeen," said the girl, "we did not know of you before: and people like us who have nothing but money are always very fond of knowing a lord – everybody says so at least. And it is true, in a way. Papa likes it very much indeed. He likes to say my friend, the Earl of – , or my friend, the Duke of – . He knows a great many lords, though perhaps you would not think it. He is very popular with fine people. They say he is not at all vulgar considering, and never takes anything upon him. Oh, yes, I know it all very well. I am a new person in the other way – I believe it is far more what you call snobbish – but I can't bear the fine people. Of course they are very nice to me; but I always remember that they think I am not vulgar considering, and that I never pretend to be better than I am."

There was something in this address spoken with a little heat, which touched Walter's sense of humour, a faculty which in his better moods made his own position, with all its incongruities, ruefully amusing to him. "I wonder," he said, "if I pretend to be better than I am? But then I should require in the first place to know what I am more distinctly than I do. Now you, on that important point, have, I presume, no doubt or difficulty? – "

"Not the least," she said, interrupting him. "The daughter of a rich Glasgow man who is nobody – that is what I am – everybody knows; but you, my lord, you are a noble person of one of the oldest families, with the best blood in your veins, with – " She had been eyeing him somewhat antagonistically, but here she broke off, and fell a laughing. "I don't believe you care a bit about it," she said. "Are you going with us to the theatre to see the Falcon, Lord Erradeen?"

"What is the Falcon?" he said.

"You have not seen it nor heard of it? It is Mr. Tennyson's," said Katie with a little awe. "How is it possible you have not heard? Don't you know that lovely story? It is a poor gentleman who has nothing but a falcon, and the lady he loves comes to see him. She is a widow (that takes away the interest a little, but it is beautiful all the same) with a sick child. When he sees her coming he has to prepare an entertainment for her, and there is nothing but his falcon, so he sacrifices it, though it breaks his heart. And oh, to see the terrible stage bird that is brought in, as if that could be his grand hawk! You feel so angry, you are forced to laugh till you cry again. That kind of story should never be brought to the literal, do you think it should?"

"And what happens?" said Walter, young enough to be interested, though not sufficiently well-read to know.

"Oh, you might guess. She had come to ask him for his falcon to save her child. What could it be else? It is just the contrariety of things."

"You cannot know very much, Miss Williamson, of the contrariety of things."

"Oh, do you think so? Why shouldn't I? I think I am precisely the person to do so. It seems to me in my experience," she added, fixing a look upon him which seemed to Walter's conscience to mean a great deal more than it was possible Katie could mean, "that almost everything goes wrong."

"That is a most melancholy view to take."

"But so is everything melancholy," said the girl. Her little simple physiognomy, her rosy cheeks and blue eyes, the somewhat blunted profile (for Katie had no features, as she was aware) and altogether commonplace air of the little person who produced these wonderful sentiments amused Walter beyond measure. He laughed perhaps more than was strictly decorous, and drew the attention of Mr. Williamson, who, absorbed in his talk with Underwood, had almost forgotten his more important guest.

"What is the joke?" he said. "I am glad to see you are keeping his lordship amused, Katie, for the captain and me we have got upon other subjects concerning the poor gentleman, your predecessor, Lord Erradeen. Poor fellow! that was a very sad business: not that I would say there was much to be regretted before the present bearer of the title," the rich man added with a laugh; "but at your age you could well have waited a little, and the late lord was a very nice fellow till he fell into that melancholy way."

"I told you everything was melancholy," said Katie in an undertone.

"And I," said the young man in the same suppressed voice, "shall I too fall into a melancholy way?" He laughed as he said so, but it was not a laugh of pleasure. Could he do nothing without having this family mystery – family absurdity – thrust into his face?

"If you want your cigar, papa – " said Katie getting up, "and you can't live without that, any of you gentlemen – I had better go. Let laws and learning, wit and wisdom die, so long as you have your cigars. But the carriage is ordered at a quarter to ten, and Lord Erradeen is coming, he says. In any case you must come, papa, you know. I can't go without you," she said, with a little imperative air. It was enough to make any one laugh to see the grand air of superiority which this little person took upon her, and her father greeted her exit with a loud laugh of enjoyment and admiration.

"She is mistress and more, as we say in Scotland," he said, "and there must be no trifling where my Katie is concerned. We will have to keep to the minute. So you are coming with us, Lord Erradeen? What will you do, Underwood? I'm doubting if what they call the poetical dramaw will be much in your way."

To which Underwood replied with some embarrassment that it certainly was not at all in his way. He liked Nelly Somebody in a burlesque, and he was always fond of a good ballet, but as for Shakespeare and that sort of thing, he owned it was above him. Good Mr. Williamson disapproved of ballets, utterly, and administered a rebuke on the spot.

"I hope you are not leading Lord Erradeen into the like of that. It is very bad for a young man to lose respect for women, and how you can keep any after those exhibitions is beyond me. Well, I will not say I take a great interest, like Katie, in poetry and all that. I like a good laugh. So long as it is funny I am like a bairn, I delight in a play: but I am not so sure that I can give my mind to it when it's serious. Lord! we've enough of seriousness in real life. And as for your bare-faced love-making before thousands of people, I just can't endure it. You will think me a prejudiced old fogey, Lord Erradeen. It makes me blush," said the elderly critic, going off into a laugh; but blush he did, through all the honest red upon his natural cheeks, notwithstanding his laugh, and his claret, and his cigar. Was he a world behind his younger companion who glanced at him with a sensation of mingled shame, contempt, and respect, or was he a world above him? Walter was so confused in the new atmosphere he had suddenly begun to breathe, that he could not tell. But it was altogether new at all events, and novelty is something in the monotony of life.

"I'll see you at the club after," said Underwood, as they loitered waiting for Miss Williamson at the hotel door. But Walter made no reply.

Now Lord Erradeen, though he had been perverse all his life, and had chosen the evil and rejected the good in many incomprehensible ways, was not – or this history would never have been written – without that finer fibre in him which responds to everything that is true and noble. How strange this jumble is in that confusion of good and evil which we call the mind of man! How often may we see the record of a generous action bring tears to the eyes of one whose acts are all selfish, and whose heart is callous to sufferings of which he is the cause: and hear him with noble fervour applaud the self-sacrifice of the man, who in that language by which it is the pleasure of the nineteenth century to make heroism just half-ridiculous, and to save itself from the highflown, "never funked and never lied; I guess he didn't know how: " and how he will be touched to the heart by the purity of a romantic love, he who for himself feeds on the garbage – and all this without any conscious insincerity, the best part of him more true and real all the time than the worst! Walter, to whom his own domestic surroundings had been so irksome, felt a certain wholesome novelty of pleasure when he set out between the father and daughter to see what Mr. Williamson called the "poetical dramaw," a thing hitherto much out of the young man's way. He had been of late in all kinds of unsavoury places, and had done his best to debase his imagination with the burlesques; but yet he had not been able to obliterate his own capacity for better things. And when he stood looking over the head of Katie Williamson, and saw the lady of the poet's tale come into the poor house of her chivalrous lover, the shock with which the better nature in him came uppermost, gave him a pang in the pleasure and the wonder of it. This was not the sort of heroine to whom he had accustomed himself: but the old Italian romancer, the noble English poet, and the fine passion and high perception of the actors, who could understand and interpret both, were not in vain for our prodigal. When that lady paused in the humble doorway clothed in high reverence and poetry, not to speak of the modest splendour of her mature beauty and noble Venetian dress, he felt himself blush, like good Mr. Williamson, to remember all the less lovely images he had seen. He could not applaud; it would have been a profanation. He was still pure enough in the midst of uncleanness, and high enough though familiar with baseness, to be transported for the moment out of himself.