The Semi-attached Couple/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
The gentlemen all dropped in to luncheon, beginning by wondering how people could eat at that time of day, and ending by seating themselves and enjoying a good hot dinner. Beaufort came in last, with a very guilty countenance; but Miss Forrester was talking to Sir Charles Smith, and showed no sign of mortification or pique. He began to dislike her more than ever. The walk with the gamekeepers was apparently given up, as Lady Portmore was imparting to Ernest in an apologetic tone that Teviot insisted on driving her in the phaeton.
"And what vehicle is ordered for me, and who is to drive me?" said Ernest, languidly. "Helen, will you take a little more care of the rest of your guests?"
"You may ride with all of us—Mary, papa, and Beaufort, and me. Sir Charles goes with mamma and Eliza in the britzska, and we are all to meet at the most beautiful ruins you ever saw."
"So be it," he said, "I shall be a beautiful ruin myself by the time I have ridden an hour in this sultry weather; but I am resigned"; and the party set off.
"I shall be dreadfully frightened if we get mixed up with that crowd of people and horses," said Lady Portmore, as she took her place in Lord Teviot's phaeton. "Cannot we take some other road?"
"Certainly, if you are afraid, but my horses are very quiet; and if you wish for a pretty drive"
"But all the drives are very pretty. Let us go down that road, and I will give you my advice as to any improvements that may strike me. Nesfield says I have a good eye for the picturesque; but above all, I want a quiet talk with you, and we should be interrupted if we went with the others. Is that Helen's new horse she is riding? "
"No; Miss Forrester is on Selim."
"Well, I wonder Helen did not prefer your gift. I am sure that from sentiment I should never allow any human being but myself to ride a horse that had been given to me by the person I loved best in the world."
"That is an interesting and romantic idea; but as I shall probably have the honour of furnishing Lady Teviot's stud to the end of our days, it is not very likely that she will refuse to lend a horse to her friends when they come."
"Oh dear, no, that would be selfish; and you know how I hate selfishness. I often say there is nobody thinks so little of self as I do. Still I wonder Helen did not ride Selim."
Lord Teviot was silent.
"Are you well, Teviot?" said Lady Portmore with an air of great interest.
"Quite well, thank you."
"My dear Teviot, do you know I am not quite easy about you. You certainly are not in your usual spirits. Do tell me, is there anything the matter?"
"What can be the matter, Lady Portmore? Pray do not put fancies of illness into my head, and allow for a little additional steadiness in a respectable married man."
"Yes, that is all very well, my dear friend, but I know you too well to be satisfied with that sort of joke. Come, Teviot, shall I put you at your ease at once? that pretty little wife of yours is not the least in love with you, and your vanity—men are so vain—is a little hurt. Is not this the truth?"
"If so, it is another proof that toute vérité n'est pas bonne à dire," said Lord Teviot, hastily, for he was stung to the quick by the remark. Why is it that fools always have the instinct to hunt out the unpleasant secrets of life, and the hardiness to mention them?
"But I am speaking entirely for your good, and you must not be angry with me. You know what a warm friendship I have for you, and the interest I take in your happiness; and I really look upon Helen as a sister of my own. So I want to make out why it is that you are not so happy together as I wish to see you. Perhaps you expect too much from Helen. She is a child, you know, and a petted child; and she has been idolized at home, so it is natural that she should love her own family. I see you think she is too much devoted to them, and perhaps a little afraid of you." Lord Teviot gave the reins a jerk, in the fond hope of giving Lady Portmore a fright; but she went on. "Perhaps that is the case now, but you must give her time. Her little head was turned by your rank and position in the world, and she married without that attachment that a girl older and more experienced would have felt. But trust me, Teviot, she will fall in love with you some of these days. It is impossible it should be otherwise; and then you will forget that now her father and mother and all that Eskdale clan are more to her than you are."
This was the pith of Lady Portmore's harangue. Lord Teviot hated to hear what she was saying; he hated her for saying it, and himself for listening; but yet, because she fed the delusion under which he laboured, because she talked to him of himself, and because she was handsome and foolish, he allowed her to go on putting "rancours in the vessel of his peace," confirming all the painful suspicions against which he had struggled, and extracting from him avowals that he wished unmade the moment they were uttered. Lady Portmore prevented Lord Teviot from meeting his wife and guests at the ruins. She put into words thoughts most repulsive to his better feeling. She told him all that he had rather not have heard; and he came home dispirited and annoyed, but convinced that Lady Portmore was an excellent friend, and that it was most kind of her to persuade him that his wife did not care a straw about him.