Part 18 (1/2)
”Oh, he _is_ good-looking.”
”Hanged if he is. Anyhow he's not a half nor a quarter as good-looking as Valentine Purcell. And what's more, though he is my nephew, he is not so much of a gentleman as poor Val is.”
Lady b.u.t.ts, however, stood to her guns.
”What girl in her senses would marry that creature?”
”Creature? Humph! Val isn't over sensible, and he has no backing,--but in his own way he's quite a nice fellow, and has a wonderful appearance when he's dressed. I don't want to see any one look better than Val Purcell turned out for a meet.”
”He's just a big boy, and no one thinks of him as anything else.”
”One person does--or at any rate, pretends she does. You may take your oath old granny yonder has an eye on your pretty widow; and the Purcells are too close to the Bolderos not to have a dozen opportunities of meeting, for one that you and your precious George have. I wouldn't mind laying odds upon the rival candidate.”
Of this conversation we may be sure no echo ever reached other ears, and indeed Lady b.u.t.ts soon forgot its tenor herself, in her exuberation over George's report of his next step. He returned from the Abbey treading on air. Even the general had been civil--though it transpired at the last moment that the young man had been mistaken for his eldest brother--”but he couldn't go back on me then,” chuckled the narrator, ”though I'm bound to say he looked a bit blank. He doesn't yet know there are eight of us, and Heaven forfend his looking us up in Debrett!”
”Did you get any invitation?”
”Rather. To luncheon to-morrow. Beastly things, luncheons,--but I couldn't cadge for anything else. What I did was to say I should be walking past, and ask if I could do anything for anybody in the town?”
”My dear George! You don't propose walking all the way to----”
”Of course I don't; but I propose being prevented by the superior attractions of Boldero Abbey.”
”Oh, I see.” She laughed and considered. There were many things she wanted to ask, but to ask was to suggest, and suggestions were horribly dangerous.
For instance, about the Purcells? Sir Thomas had made her uneasy by his praise of Val Purcell's looks, praise which her own heart endorsed--and George, whose knowledge of the world was extensive, had all along been slow to believe in his own chances of success. He knew what it meant in London to be an eighth son. It was only her repeated a.s.surances of the Boldero's problematic ignorance on this head and her encouragement on every other, which had brought him up to the scratch at all. Thus hints which might have spurred on another man, would quite possibly daunt one alive to his disadvantages and inclined to magnify them. She reverted to Leonore, and he was willing to talk about Leonore to any extent.
But on thinking it over afterwards, she could not see that he had in reality very much to say. The little widow had looked as charming as before, but she had not been so talkative. He thought she was shy before her family; once only, when out of their sight for a few minutes, she had brisked up and chattered as at their first meeting; and she certainly did look pleased when on saying ”Good-bye,” he had added, ”till morrow”; but otherwise--the fact was there had been no opportunity for anything else.
The luncheon party however proved more productive. Let us see how this came about.
”I really can't see what that man is coming for again to-day,” observed Leonore, plaintively, the next morning. ”People at luncheon are a bother, _I_ think.”
”You're not often bothered by them,” drily returned Maud; ”it is months and months since such a thing happened. If we lived in a more habitable neighbourhood we should think nothing of it.”
”Glad we don't then;” Leo pouted like a sullen child. ”It means changing one's frock, and----”
”There's no need of that--for _you_. _You_ are all right. One black thing is the same as another.”
This was what Leo wanted to find out. She had a pretty new coat and skirt, eminently satisfactory to herself, but about which there had been some demur when it first arrived. It was devoid of c.r.a.pe, and had a neat, coquettish air. Sue thought it hardly decent.
”But what am I to do?” queried her sister. ”I did so want something to wear in wet weather. Even when it is only damp and misty--and you know it nearly always is damp and misty about here in the autumn--c.r.a.pe gets limp and wretched looking. However, I'll send this back if you wish, Sue?”
Upon which Sue had relented--as Leo knew she would. ”Of course if you keep it for walking about in the woods, and do not go where you are seen, there might be no harm. Or perhaps it might be trimmed----”
”No, no; it could _not_ be trimmed,” said Leo, hastily. Trimmed?
Disgusting! The very thought of a plain tailor-made coat which was so simple and workmanlike, yet so unspeakably chic in its simplicity, being mauled by a village dress-maker was terrible.
”I must either wear it as it is, or not at all,” she exclaimed with decision; ”but I would not wear it to vex you, dear,” and the sharpness softened; ”only I can't afford to buy another,” murmured Leo,--and of course she was allowed to wear it.