Chapter X (1)
The parting guest, unless he be a dear friend, is generally a persona grata to his host. Tristram Hungerford was rather ashamed of the sensation of relief with which he had faced his visitor at the breakfast table this morning, for the Comte de la Roche-Guyon had proved himself throughout his stay uniformly agreeable, lively, and anxious to please. But the elder man was only too conscious of their slender basis of common interests, and, though himself anything but taciturn, he was, like most people who live alone, physically incapable of talking all day without pause, and found the society of those persons so gifted (among whom Armand de la Roche-Guyon appeared to be numbered) rather fatiguing.
Moreover, he had not expected to find himself facing him at all this morning across the coffee-cups. When he had returned from Oxford yesterday morning, the morning after the dance, expecting to speed his guest on his way, he had been met by the young man’s apologetic request to be allowed to stay another night if convenient to his host. He had heard from his father and there were reasons... Tristram made the only answer open to him, premising however that, thinking he should be alone that night, he had unfortunately engaged himself to dine at Faringdon, and would not be home till late. Armand would consequently, he feared, have a solitary dinner unless indeed he were to go over to Compton Rectory. The Comte replied that he might conceivably walk over in the afternoon to pay his respects, but that he did not expect to be asked to dinner. And indeed he had set off in that direction a little before Tristram started for Faringdon.
But when Tristram returned from his dinner party, rather late in the evening, he found that the Frenchman had already gone to bed, and being himself tired, did not altogether regret this. And this morning, whether from a sleepless night, or any other cause, Armand was much less talkative than usual; he looked thoughtful and rather pale, and now, when the after-breakfast ease of two males devoid of the cares of housekeeping was about to descend upon them, he seemed unusually preoccupied.
“I am afraid, La Roche-Guyon, that you had a bad night,” said Tristram, as he rose from the table. “It was remiss of me not to have asked you earlier. You were not indisposed yesterday evening, I trust?”
“On the contrary,” replied his guest somewhat cryptically. A gleam passed over his face, but Tristram, who was hunting on the mantelpiece for the key of the clock, did not see it. “I had the best night of my life.”
“I am glad to hear it,” replied his host. “But I am extremely sorry that I cannot drive or send you into Oxford to catch the coach. I pretty well knocked up both my horses yesterday.”
“Pray not to think of it,” said Armand politely. “I have made arrangements to post from the Fox. Already you have been too kind in taking me so many times to Oxford.... And now I have to beg of you another kindness.”
“I am at your service,” said Tristram, finding and inserting the key.
“Vous êtes bien bon,” said the Comte, his English suddenly deserting him. “C’est que——” He broke off, walked over to the window, and there, taking hold of the tassel of the curtain-cord, said, with more composure:
“The fact is, that Miss Grenville has promised to marry me. And as M. le Recteur, when I saw him yesterday evening, did not appear very much to like the idea, I was obliged to refer him to you. I told him that you could speak for me if you would—that you knew my family, and that I am not a—what do you call it—impostor, as he seemed to think.... It was that which I said to him.”
He ceased, and in Tristram’s head the ticks of the half-resuscitated clock rang like gongs.
“I do not wonder that you are surprised,” went on Armand, in his pleasant voice, and in more and more shaky English. “But I am mad with love of her since the day we meet—tiens, I have thought sometimes that you remarked it—and she... well, she has consented to be my wife. You may guess if I think myself to be the most fortunate man on earth...” He said more; Tristram did not hear it. But he at last forced himself to turn round, and saw the speaker standing there against the window.
“When did this happen?” he asked—or someone asked.
“Yesterday evening. It was why I stayed—I must avow it to you, my friend. First I go to the Rectory—no one is there; they tell me Miss Grenville visits a cottage. I too go to the cottage, and meet her in the lane——.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Armand made a gesture. “To use your good offices for me with M. le Recteur. He was not very polite. He thinks that I am not sufficient of a parti. Mais, figurez-vous bien that on the contrary I shall have work enough to persuade my father to a foreign marriage, even with so divine a creature, and as well-born——”
Tristram was never to know whether he would have succeeded in keeping indefinitely his self-command, for at that moment his housekeeper fortunately entered to tell them that the Fox had just sent to say that they had no post-horses this morning, there having been some mistake about the order yesterday.
Out of the maze of shock and anguish one thing was plain to Tristram, that to have Armand’s presence further inflicted upon him was intolerable. “After all, my horses——” he began, but the Frenchman cut him short.
“No, not for worlds! I will go round to the Fox at once myself. In these cases of ‘no post-horses’ it is always only a question of money. More than ever must I now go quickly to Lulworth—to get my father’s consent,” he added in French for the sole benefit of his host, and vanished.
So this was Horatia’s choice! Tristram stumbled to a chair and covered his face. Coffee-pot and empty cups witnessed the wreck of hopes that might well have had a more tragic setting.
(2)
The door opening noisily brought Tristram almost immediately after to his feet. The intruder was the Hon. and Rev. Stephen Grenville, unannounced, short of breath, and angry as Tristram had never seen him.
He shut the door and looked round with positive ferocity.
“Is that young scamp here?”
Tristram regarded him dizzily. “No... I don’t think so,” he answered, as if he were not quite sure.
“Do you know what has happened?” demanded Mr. Grenville. “Yes, I can see that you do! That foreigner of yours had the impudence to walk into my study last night and ask for my consent to his marriage with Horatia—Horatia!” The Rector became momentarily speechless. “This young adventurer, who has been here a fortnight, has the audacity to say he is going to marry my daughter!” He flung himself down in a chair.
“It was only last night, then, as he says?”
“Yes, it happened last night, but it goes further back than that. My eyes were opened after the dance the night before last, when she gave him I don’t know how many dances, and they disappeared together at the end. Why on earth did you choose that evening to go to Oxford? I took her home, and then in the carriage she began to cry—said she was tired. I didn’t sleep a wink that night, but I congratulated myself that the spark was off yesterday. Imagine my surprise when they walked in together yesterday evening, and he tells me as cool as you please that it is natural I should be surprised, but that you would vouch for him!—Why can’t you say something, man?”
“What does Horatia say?” asked Tristram, very white.
“Don’t speak to me about Horatia!” cried the irate parent. “I ought to have shut her up with bread and water. I have spoilt her, and this is the outcome of it. And as for you—I can’t think why you ever brought a Frenchman about the place!”
Before Tristram could reply to this thrust the Frenchman in question came hastily in, equipped, as was evident, for an immediate start, a cloak over his arm, his hat in his hand.
“I regret that I have to go at once—but at once!” he said to Tristram. “Ah! pardon, M. le Recteur, I did not observe you”—though the bound with which Mr. Grenville had quitted his chair must have rendered him hard to overlook.—“Excuse me that I take leave of my kind host. It seems,” he went on, turning to that individual, “that the horses I have procured are old and slow, and that to catch the coach from Oxford I must start immediately. So, with a thousand apologies——”
“Understand, Sir,” interrupted the Rector in high wrath, “that I will not entertain your proposal for an instant, and that I forbid you to come near my house!”
The Comte de la Roche-Guyon transferred his attention to the angry cleric. “Mais parfaitement, Monsieur,” he responded with a bland little bow. “I should not dream of entering your house again until I have the consent of my father to the alliance. I go at once to Lulworth in the hope of obtaining that consent. It was not, indeed, what I should have wished, to speak to your daughter before approaching you, but, as I had the honour of telling you last night, Monsieur, I did seek to ask your permission first, but you were out, and time was short. Enfin, when I come again I trust it will be more en règle. Meanwhile, I am your humble servant.” He made the Rector another, more formal, valedictory bow, and advanced upon Tristram.
“I know that I leave my cause in good hands,” he said gracefully. “Cher ami, for that, as for your hospitality, I shall be your debtor for life. But you English do not like speeches, I know, and time presses...”
As much to prevent a second ebullition of Mr. Grenville’s wrath as because time pressed the cher ami hastened with his guest from the room. A few last directions from himself, a smile or two from Armand, a shake of the hand, and the man who had so lightly taken his happiness from him was gone, confident, easy, and attractive to the last.
When Tristram came back into the dining-room the Rector was still standing thunderstruck on the hearth-rug.
“Well!” he ejaculated pregnantly, “for sheer impudence commend me to one of that nation!”
Tristram sat wearily down without replying to this cry of the heart, and there was silence, broken only by a sort of soliloquy on the Rector’s part, on the blindness which had been his—and Tristram’s.
“Couldn’t you see it coming, Tristram?” he repeated. “Although I was such a fool, couldn’t you see it. But there, they say Love is blind. It must be, or you would never have... have...”
“Have thrown them together,” finished Tristram bitterly. “Is there any need to tell you that in my wildest moments I could never have conceived of such a thing? I saw that he admired her and paid her compliments, as he might any—perhaps every—woman, but to me he was... just negligible. He was welcome to pay court to her, if she liked it, because... because I could not dream that she...”
“There’s nothing in that!” said the Rector briefly. “With women you never can tell. But, of course, it is impossible that it should be allowed to go on. You must come back with me, Tristram. You at least have influence with her. I have never yet forbidden her anything—it has never been my way—and I would rather she came to it of herself.”
Colour shot into the younger man’s face. “I would do anything to help you, Sir, and much more to help Horatia; but I can’t do that—not yet.”
Mr. Grenville looked away from him. “God bless my soul, what a selfish brute I am... But come now, my dear boy, once he’s gone it will be all right. Horatia will settle down. It’s only a passing fancy; of that I feel certain. I have never known her other than sensible. She will see that it’s out of the question.—You don’t agree with me, eh?”
“From what I know of Horatia, I am afraid that I don’t.”
“But you are going to propose to her yourself!” said the Rector in accents of amazement, slewing round in his chair.
Out of his pain Tristram showed his own surprise. “No, not now; it’s impossible.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Mr. Grenville with great directness. “Then I shall tell her myself.”
“Mr. Grenville, I beg of you, I implore you not to do such a thing!” exclaimed the young man in agitation. “It is useless; worse than useless. It would only grieve her kind heart. How little chance could I have ever had! She has—she must have given her love with both hands; I do not think so meanly of her as to imagine that she could ever transfer it... a gift so priceless,” he added to himself.
The Rector pressed his lips together and rose. “Well, I can’t understand the present generation. If I had been in your shoes I should have been married to her any time these five years. These reticences and delicacies are beyond me. If a man wants a girl, let him ask for her!”
Tristram smiled a rather dreary smile, thinking that even the successful suitor was not finding this course altogether satisfactory.
“You know I never held your views on persistent courtship, Sir. It would have been better for me, perhaps, if I had... But this I will do, for Horatia’s own sake: I will come over directly I can, and I will try my best to show her that there are... difficulties... to take into consideration. But I warn you that if I think it is for her happiness I shall oppose you, Mr. Grenville. I would get her the moon if she wanted it!”
And the sudden passion of this last utterance left Horatia’s father dumb.