TRANSFORMATION.
Captain Frank was everything and did
everything that his parents could have hoped for,
except in one direction: he would have nothing
said about marriage. He came home without a
murmur; he never uttered a word of regret about his
giving up a profession that he had fair hopes of advancement
in; he adopted his new set of duties with cheerfulness,
and entered with zest into the festivities of the
season. For the leaf was beginning to fall,
and all the people about were preparing to shoot the
covers, so that parties had to be made up and invitations
issued, and there soon came to be a general stir throughout
the countryside. Captain Frank, though he was
not much of a shot, took his share in all these things;
but he held aloof from womankind, and would not have
his marriage even spoken of by his most intimate relatives.
What was the man made of that he could
resist a scene like this? Imagine an open glade
in a beautiful Wiltshire wood on the morning after
a slight fall of snow. The skies are blue, and
the world is full of clear sunlight; the hollies are
intensely green over the white of the snow; here and
there on the bare branches are a few red leaves.
Also on the snow itself there is a stain of brownish
red in some places, where the light air of the morning
has shaken down withered needles from a tall pine-tree.
Then there is a distant, sharp flutter; the noise
increases; suddenly a beautiful thing a
meteor of bronze and crimson comes whirring
along at a tremendous pace; Captain Frank blazes away
with one barrel and misses; before he knows where he
is the pheasant seems a couple of miles off in the
silver and blue of the sky, and he does not care to
send the second barrel on a roving commission.
He puts his gun over his shoulder, and returns to his
pensive contemplation of the glittering green hollies,
and the white snow, and the maze of bare branches
going up into the blue.
But a new figure appears in the midst
of this English-looking scene. A very pretty
young lady comes along smiling her pink
cheeks looking all the pinker, and her blue eyes all
the bluer, because of the white snow and also the
white fur round her neck. This is pretty Mary
Coventry, who is staying at present at Kingscourt.
She has the brightest of smiles, and the whitest
of teeth.
‘Cousin Frank,’ she says,
‘where do you gentlemen lunch to-day?’
‘Look here,’ he answers,
’you’ve come right up the line between
the guns and the beaters.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’
she says, gaily. ’I know your father doesn’t
allow shooting at ground game into cover.’
‘Lunch is to be up at the Hill Farm.’
’Oh, that’s the very thing.
I want a long walk. And I will help Higgins
to have everything ready for you.’
’It will be very rough and tumble.
You had much better go back home to lunch.’
’But I have come for the very
purpose! I have brought sugar and cinnamon to
mull the claret for you. You will find it scalding
hot when you come.’
A hare ran by some dozen yards off: he did not
fire.
‘I see I am in your way. Good-bye for
the present.’
’Good-bye. If you do mean
to go up to the Hill Farm, you had better keep to
the road. Or else,’ he added, laughing,
’Mr. Ferrers will have something to say to you.’
‘Well,’ said pretty Mary
Coventry to herself, as she passed on and into the
road, ’he did not even thank me for all my trouble.
And I always thought sailors were supposed to be
nice. But perhaps he is lamenting some blackamoor
sweetheart in Patagonia, and won’t take any notice
of anybody.’
It was about a week after this that
Captain Frank, having run up to town, met a young
gentleman in Piccadilly whom he seemed to recognise.
He looked again yes, it could be no other
than Tom Beresford. But it was Tom Beresford
transformed. Mr. Tom was now of age; he had his
club, which he much frequented; he had assumed the
air and manner of a man about town. That is
to say, although he was clever enough and had a sufficient
touch of humour, he cultivated a languid stare, and
was chary of speech; and although he was a well-built
young fellow, he walked with his elbows out and his
knees in, as if the tightness of his trousers and
his boots made it nigh impossible for him to walk at
all. Moreover, his dress was more rigidly correct
than ever; and of course he carried the inevitable
cane inevitable as the walking-stick of
the Athenian.
Frank King went up to him eagerly.
‘Hallo, Beresford, how are you?’
‘How are you?’ was the
answer, as a slight boyish blush somewhat interfered
with the dignity of Mr. Tom. ’How are you?
I heard you were at home again. I heard of
you through the Strathernes.’
‘And I heard of you in the same
way,’ said Captain King, who seemed greatly
pleased to meet an old friend. ’I’ll
turn and walk with you. I’ve nothing particular
to do.’
‘Will you come and lunch with
me?’ said Mr. Tom (he had recovered himself
after the inadvertent blush). ‘We can walk
along to the club.’
’Yes, I will; said Frank King,
heartily. ‘Which is your club?’
’The Waterloo. They call
it that because it isn’t in Waterloo Place.
It’s in Regent Street.’
‘All right,’ said the
other; but instantly he began to pursue his inquiries.
’Yes, I heard of you and your family from the
Strathernes. There have been great changes since
I left England. Your eldest sister is married,
is she not?’
’You mean Moll: yes.
They live in town a small house back there
in Mayfair. He used to be a richer man,’
observed Mr. Tom, contemplatively, ‘before he
took silk.’
‘But they are going to make him a judge, I hear.’
‘Faith, then, I hope he’ll
never have to try me,’ said Mr. Tom, with an
air of conviction. ’He and I never could
hit it off. I hate pompous people, and people
who give themselves airs. Now, I took a liking
to you the first five minutes I saw you.’
Captain King was dutifully grateful
for this condescension. He said he also hated
pompous people he couldn’t bear them.
And then he asked about Tom’s sister Edith.
‘She’s engaged to be married, isn’t
she?’
‘It’s my belief,’
said Mr. Tom, with a smile, ’that she has engaged
herself to both of them, just to make sure; and that
she can’t make up her mind which to send off.
I don’t wonder at her pulling a wry mouth about
having to marry a soda-water manufacturer; but Soda-water
isn’t half a bad sort of fellow, and he is fearfully
rich. You see he is particularly beaming just
now, for there have been two or three blazing hot
summers running, and the demand must have been tremendous.
Then young Thynne, he’s no end of a swell,
no doubt; but you may be cousin to all kinds of earls
and dukes without their giving you anything.
I should fancy his father lets him have two or three
hundred a year. I should like to see the Sentimental
get along with that! You can’t live on
a fellow’s ancestry. I think she should
take Soda-water, even if he hasn’t got anything
like a father to speak of. And even if he hasn’t
got a father this was what Nan said he
might be equally “sans pere et sans reproche."’
‘It was your sister Anne said
that, was it?’ remarked Frank King, quickly.
‘That was in her saucy days,’
said Mr. Tom, sadly. ’It’s quite
different now. Now she’s on the pious lay.’
‘The what?’ said Frank
King. It was clear that, however Mr. Tom had
altered, he had not chosen to improve his manner of
speech.
‘Oh, High Church and reredoses,’
said the irreverent youth. ’Silver embroideries,
don’t you know, and visiting the poor, and catching
all sorts of confounded infection. And then
I suppose she’ll end by marrying that curate
that’s always about the house. What a shame
it is! She used to be such a brick. And
to go and marry a curate.’
‘I heard of that, too,’
said Captain Frank, with a bit of a sigh. It
was indeed among the first things he had heard after
returning to England.
By this time they had reached Mr.
Tom’s club, which was pleasantly situated at
a corner of the great thoroughfare, so that it had
from its coffee-room windows a spacious view, and
was altogether a light and cheerful sort of place.
‘But you don’t ask about
the Baby,’ said Mr. Tom, as he was entering
his friend’s name in the strangers’ book the
Waterloo being a hospitable little club that allowed
visitors to come in at any hour. ‘And the
Baby is in a hole.’
’Well, it must be a sad thing
for a baby to be in a hole; but I don’t quite
understand,’ said Captain King.
‘Don’t you remember the Baby? The
youngest Madge?’
‘Oh. Well, I only saw her once, I think.
What is the matter with her?’
‘First pick out what you want for lunch, and
then I’ll tell you.’
This was easily done; and the two
friends sat down at a small window-table, which enabled
them to glance out at the passing crowd, and even
as far as the Duke of York’s column and the tops
of the trees in St. James’s Park.
‘You see my sisters have all
been wards in Chancery. I was also,’ said
Mr. Tom, with a slight blush; for he was no more than
six months escaped from tutelage. ’I suppose
the executors funked something about my father’s
will; at all events, they flung the whole thing in.
Well, no great harm has come of it; not so much cost
or worry as you would expect. Only the girls
have had bad times of it about their sweethearts.
I mean the Baby ’
‘The Baby! How old is she?’
’Eighteen; and uncommonly good-looking,
I think. Have some sherry. Well, the Baby
made the acquaintance at somebody’s house of
a young fellow son of a barrister not
a farthing but what he picks up at pool. I don’t
think she meant anything I don’t a
bit. There’s a lot of that kind of nonsense
goes on down there: Nan is the only one who has
kept clear out of it. Well, the guardians didn’t
see it; and they went to the Court, and they got the
Vice-Chancellor to issue an order forbidding young
Hanbury from having any sort of communication with
Madge. Now, you know, if you play any games with
an order of that sort hanging over you, it’s
the very devil. It is. Won’t you
have some pickles?’
‘And how is Miss Madge affected
by the order?’ asked Captain King.
‘Oh,’ said this garrulous
youth, who had entirely forgotten his cultivated,
reticent manner in meeting this old friend, ’she
pretends to be greatly hurt, and thinks it cruel and
heart-breaking and all the rest of it; but that’s
only her fun, don’t you know? She’s
precious glad to get out of it, that’s my belief;
and nobody knew better than herself he wouldn’t
do at all. Finished? Come and have a game
of billiards then.’
They went upstairs to a long, low-roofed
apartment, in which were two tables. They lit
cigars, chose their cues, and fell to work. Frank
King had not played half-a-dozen strokes when Mr. Tom
said, generously
‘I will put you on thirty points.’
They played five minutes longer.
‘Look here, I will give you another thirty.’
‘Sixty in a hundred?’
said King, laughing. ’Well, that is rather
a confession of bad play.’
‘Oh, as for that,’ said
Mr. Tom, ’I don’t see that a naval officer
should be ashamed of playing badly at billiards.
He should be proud of it. I shan’t glory
in it if I beat you.’
Mr. Tom was really very friendly.
After a couple of games or so he said
’Look here, it’s nearly
four o’clock. I am going down to Brighton
by the 4.30. Will you come down and see my mother
and the girls? I am afraid we can’t put
you up; but you can get a bedroom at the Norfolk or
Prince’s; and we dine at eight.’
Frank King hesitated for a minute
or two. Ever since he had come to England he
had had a strange wish to see Nan Beresford, even though
he had heard she was going to be married. He
wished to see whether she had turned out to be what
he had predicted to himself; whether she retained
those peculiar distinctions of character and expression
and manner that had so attracted him; somehow he thought
he would like just to shake hands with her for a moment,
and see once before him those clear, blue-gray, shy,
humorous eyes. But this proposal was too sudden.
His heart jumped with a quick dismay. He was
not prepared.
Nevertheless, Tom Beresford insisted.
Was Captain King staying at a hotel? No; he
had got a bedroom in Cleveland Row. That was
the very thing; they could stop the hansom there on
their way to Victoria Station. The girls would
be glad to see him. They had always been watching
his whereabouts abroad, in the Admiralty appointments
in the newspapers.
At last, with some little unexpressed
dread, Frank King consented; and together they made
their way to Victoria Station.
‘You know,’ said Mr. Tom,
apologetically, in the Pullman, ’I’ve been
talking a lot about my sisters; but I tell you honestly
I don’t see any girls to beat them anywhere.
I don’t. The Sentimental is rather stupid,
perhaps; but then she scores by her music. Nan’s
the one for my money, though. She isn’t
the prettiest; but set her down at any dinner table,
and you can lay odds on her against the field.
I believe there are a dozen old gentlemen who have
got her name in their will not that she
cares for worldly things any more it is
all sanctity now. I wish to goodness somebody
would ’
But Mr. Tom had a little discretion. He said
no more.
‘I suppose they are all very
much changed in appearance,’ Frank King said,
thoughtfully. ’I shouldn’t be surprised
if I scarcely recognised them.’
’Oh, yes, they are. And
I will confess that Nan has improved in one way.
She isn’t as cheeky as she used to be; she’s
awfully good-natured she’d do anything
for you. When I get into trouble, I know Nan
will be my sheet-anchor.’
‘Then I hope the cable will hold,’ said
Frank King.
They reached Brighton. Tom Beresford
found his companion strangely silent and preoccupied.
The fact was that Captain Frank was very unusually
agitated. He hoped she might not be alone.
Then he strove to convince himself that she must
be quite altered now. She must be quite different
from the young girl who walked up the Splugen Pass
with him. Then she was scarcely over seventeen;
now she was over twenty. He would see some one
he might fail to recognise; not the Nan of former
days; not the Nan that had long ago enchained him with
her frank odd ways, and her true eyes.
They drove first to a hotel, and secured
a bed; then they went to Brunswick Terrace.
When they went upstairs to the drawing-room, they
found it empty.
‘They can’t be all out,’
said Mr. Tom; ‘I’ll go and find them.’
He left; and Captain Frank began to
try to quiet down this uncalled-for perturbation.
Why should he fear to see her? The past was
over. Never was any decision given more irrevocably;
even if there had been any question as to an open
future, that had been disposed of by the news that
had met him on his return to England. It ought
only to be a pleasure to him to see her. He
thought she would welcome him in a kind way; and he
would show her that he quite accepted circumstances
as they were. Only and this he kept
repeating to himself he must expect to
be disillusionised. Nan would no longer be that
former Nan. Some of the freshness and the young
wonder would be gone; she would be eligible as a friend;
that, on the whole, was better.
Well, the door opened, and he turned
quickly, and then his heart jumped. No; she
had not changed at all, he said to himself, as she
advanced towards him with a smile and a frankly extended
hand. The same pleasant eyes, the same graceful,
lithe figure, the same soft voice, as she said
‘Oh, how do you do, Captain King?’
And yet he was bewildered. There was something
strange.
‘I I am very glad to see you again,
Miss Anne,’ he stammered.
She looked at him for a moment, puzzled,
and then she said, with a quiet smile,
‘Oh, but I’m not Nan. I see you
have forgotten me. I’m Madge.’