Lover or Friend.

by Rosa Nouchette Carey.

CHAPTER I

THE BLAKE FAMILY ARE DISCUSSED

'There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature as man.

It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'--DR.

JOHNSON.

Everyone in Rutherford knew that Mrs. Ross was ruled by her eldest daughter; it was an acknowledged fact, obvious not only to a keen-witted person like Mrs. Charrington, the head-master's wife, but even to the minor intelligence of Johnnie Deans, the youngest boy at Woodcote. It was not that Mrs. Ross was a feeble-minded woman; in her own way she was sensible, clear-sighted, with plenty of common-sense; but she was a little disposed to lean on a stronger nature, and even when Geraldine was in the schoolroom, her energy and youthful vigour began to a.s.sert themselves, her opinions insensibly influenced her mother's, until at last they swayed her entirely.

If this were the case when Geraldine was a mere girl, it was certainly not altered when the crowning glories of matronhood were added to her other perfections. Six months ago Geraldine Ross had left her father's house to become the wife of Mr. Harcourt, of Hillside; and in becoming the mistress of one of the coveted Hill houses, Geraldine had not yet consented to lay down the sceptre of her home rule.

Mrs. Ross had acquiesced cheerfully in this arrangement. She had lost her right hand in losing Geraldine; and during the brief honeymoon both she and her younger daughter Audrey felt as though the home machinery were somewhat out of gear. No arrangement could be effected without a good deal of wondering on Mrs. Ross's part as to what Geraldine might think of it, and without a lengthy letter being written on the subject.

It was a relief, at least to her mother's mind, when young Mrs. Harcourt returned, and without a word took up the reins again. No one disputed her claims. Now and then there would be a lazy protest from Audrey--a concealed sarcasm that fell blunted beneath the calm amiability of the elder sister. Geraldine was always perfectly good-tempered; the sense of propriety that guided all her actions never permitted her to grow hot in argument; and when a person is always in the right, as young Mrs.

Harcourt believed herself to be, the small irritations of daily life fall very harmlessly. It is possible for a man to be so cased in armour that even a pin-p.r.i.c.k of annoyance will not find ingress. It is true the armour may be a little stifling and somewhat inconvenient for work-a-day use, but it is a grand thing to be saved from p.r.i.c.ks.

Mrs. Harcourt was presiding at the little tea-table in the Woodcote drawing-room; there were only two other persons in the room. It was quite an understood thing that the young mistress of Hillside should walk over to Woodcote two or three afternoons in the week, to give her mother the benefit of her society, and also to discuss any little matter that might have arisen during her brief absence.

Mrs. Harcourt was an exceedingly handsome young woman; in fact, many people thought her lovely. She had well-cut features, a good complexion--with the soft, delicate colouring that only perfect health ever gives--and a figure that was at once graceful and dignified. To add to all these attractions, she understood the art of dressing herself; her gowns always fitted her to perfection. She was always attired suitably, and though vanity and self-consciousness were not her natural foibles, she had a feminine love of pretty things, and considered it a wifely duty to please the eyes of her lord and master.

Mrs. Harcourt had the old-fashioned sugar-tongs in her hand, and was balancing them lightly for a moment. 'It is quite true, mother,' she said decisively, as she dropped the sugar into the shallow teacup.

Mrs. Ross looked up from her knitting.

'My dear Geraldine, I do hope you are mistaken,' she returned anxiously.

Mrs. Ross had also been a very pretty woman, and even now she retained a good deal of pleasant middle-aged comeliness. She was somewhat stout, and had grown a little inactive in consequence; but her expression was soft and motherly, and she had the unmistakable air of a gentlewoman. In her husband's eyes she was still handsomer than her daughters; and Dr.

Ross flattered himself that he had made the all-important choice of his life more wisely than other men.

'My dear mother, how is it possible to be mistaken?' returned her daughter, with a shade of reproof in her voice. 'I told you that I had a long talk with Edith. Michael, I have made your tea; I think it is just as you like it--with no infusion of tannin, as you call it'; and she turned her head slowly, so as to bring into view the person she was addressing, and who, seated at a little distance, had taken no part in the conversation.

He was a thin, pale man, of about five or six and thirty, with a reddish moustache. As he crossed the room in response to this invitation, he moved with an air of languor that amounted to la.s.situde, and a slight limp was discernible. His features were plain; only a pair of clear blue eyes, with a peculiarly searching expression, distinguished him from a hundred men of the same type.

These eyes were not always pleasant to meet. Certain people felt disagreeably in their inner consciousness that Captain Burnett could read them too accurately--'No fellow has a right to look you through and through,' as one young staff officer observed; 'it is taking a liberty with a man. Burnett always seems as though he is trying to turn a fellow inside out, to get at the other side of him'--not a very eloquent description of a would-be philosopher who loved to dabble a little in human foibles.

'I have been listening to the Blake discussion,' he said coolly, as he took the offered cup. 'What a wonderful woman you are, Gage! you have a splendid talent for organisation; and even a thorough-paced scandal has to be organised.'

'Scandal!--what are you talking about, Michael?'

'Your talent for organisation, even in trifles,' he returned promptly.

'I am using the word advisedly. I have just been reading De Quincey's definition of talent and genius. He says--now pray listen, Gage--that "talent is intellectual power of every kind which acts and manifests itself by and through the will and the active forces. Genius, as the verbal origin implies, is that much rarer species of intellectual power which is derived from the genial nature, from the spirit of suffering and enjoying, from the spirit of pleasure and pain, as organised more or less perfectly; and this is independent of the will. It is a function of the pa.s.sive nature. Talent is conversant with the adaptation of means to ends; but genius is conversant only with ends."'

'My dear Michael, I have no doubt that all this is exceedingly clever, and that your memory is excellent, but why are we to be crushed beneath all this a.n.a.lysis?'

'I was only drawing a comparison between you and Audrey,' he replied tranquilly. 'I have been much struck by the idea involved in the word "genial"; I had no conception we could evolve "genius" out of it. Audrey is a very genial person; she also, in De Quincey's words, "moves in headlong sympathy and concurrence with spontaneous power." This is his definition, mark you; I lay no claim to it: "Genius works under a rapture of necessity and spontaneity." I do love that expression, "headlong sympathy"; it so well expresses the way Audrey works.'

Mrs. Harcourt gave a little a.s.senting shrug. She was not quite pleased with the turn the conversation had taken; abstract ideas were not to her taste; the play of words in which Captain Burnett delighted bored her excessively. She detected, too, a spice of irony. The comparison between her and Audrey was not a flattering one: she was far cleverer than Audrey; her masters and governesses would have acknowledged that fact.

And yet her cousin Michael was giving the divine gift of genius to her more scantily endowed sister; genius! but, of course, it was only Michael's nonsense: he would say anything when he was in the humour for disputation. Even her own Percival had these contentious moods. The masculine mind liked to play with moral ninepins, to send all kinds of exploded theories rolling with their little ball of wit; it sharpened their argumentative faculties, and kept them bright and ready for use.

'Mother and I were talking about these tiresome Blakes--not of Audrey,'

she said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. 'If you were listening, Michael, you must have heard the whole account of my conversation with Mrs. Bryce.'

'Oh, you mean Harcourt's sister, with whom you have been staying. Did I not tell you that I had heard every word, and was admiring your admirable tactics? The way in which you marshalled your forces of half-truths and implied verities and small mounted theories was grand--absolutely grand!'

Mrs. Harcourt was silent for a moment. Michael was very trying; he often exercised her patience most severely. But there was a threefold reason for her forbearance; first, he was her father's cousin, and beloved by him as his own son would have been if he had ever had one; secondly, his ill-health ent.i.tled him to a good deal of consideration from any kind-hearted woman; and thirdly, and perhaps princ.i.p.ally, he had the reputation for saying and doing odd, out-of-the-way things; and a man who moves in an eccentric circle of his own is never on other people's plane, and therefore some allowance must be made for him.

Mrs. Harcourt could, however, have heartily endorsed Mrs. Carlyle's opinion of her gifted son, and applied it to her cousin--'He was ill to live with.' Somehow one loves this honest, shrewd criticism of the old North-Country woman, the homely body who smoked short black pipes in the chimney-corner, but whom Carlyle loved and venerated from the bottom of his big heart. 'Ill to live with'--perhaps Michael Burnett, with his injured health and Victoria Cross, and the purpose of his life all marred and frustrated, was not the easiest person in the world.

Mrs. Harcourt was silent for an instant; but she never permitted herself to be ruffled, so she went on in her smooth voice:

'I felt it was my duty to repeat to mother all that Edith--I mean Mrs.

Bryce--told me about the Blakes.'

'Please do not be so formal. I infinitely prefer that fine, princess-like name of Edith,' remarked Michael, with a lazy twinkle in his eyes; but Mrs. Harcourt would not condescend even to notice the interruption.

'Mrs. Bryce,' with a pointed emphasis on the name, 'was much concerned when she heard that my father had engaged Mr. Blake for his cla.s.sical master.'

'And why so?' demanded Captain Burnett a little sharply. 'He has taken a good degree; Dr. Ross seems perfectly satisfied with him.'

'Oh, there is nothing against the young man; he is clever and pleasant, and very good-looking. It is only the mother who is so objectionable.

Perhaps I am putting it too strongly--only Mrs. Bryce and her husband did not like her. They say she is a very unsatisfactory person, and so difficult to understand.'

'Poor Mrs. Blake,' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed her cousin, 'to be judged before the Bryce tribunal and found wanting!'

'Don't be ridiculous, Michael!' replied Mrs. Harcourt, in her good-tempered way; 'of course you take her part simply because she is accused: you are like Audrey in that.'

'You see we are both genial persons; but, seriously, Mrs. Blake's list of misdemeanours seems absurdly trifling. She is very handsome; that is misdemeanour number one, I believe.'

'My dear,' observed Mrs. Ross placidly at this point, for she had been too busy counting her st.i.tches to concern herself with the strife of words, 'Geraldine only mentioned that as a fact: she remarked that Mrs.

Blake was a very prepossessing person, that she had rather an uncommon type of beauty.'

'That makes her all the more interesting,' murmured Captain Burnett, with his eyes half closed. 'I begin to feel quite excited about this Mrs. Blake. I do delight in anything out of the common.'

'Oh, Edith never denied that she was fascinating. She is a clever woman, too; only there were certain little solecisms committed that made her think Mrs. Blake was not a thorough gentlewoman. They are undoubtedly very poor; and though, of course, that is no objection, it is so absurd for people in such a position to try and ignore their little shifts and contrivances. Honest poverty is to be respected, but not when it is allied to pretension.'

'My dear Gage, was it you or Mrs. Bryce who made that exceedingly clever speech! It was really worthy of Dr. Johnson; it only wanted a "Sir" to point the Doctor's style. "Sir, honest poverty is to be respected, but not when it is allied to pretension"--a good, thorough Johnsonian speech! And so the poor woman is poor?'

'Yes, but no one minds that,' returned Mrs. Harcourt, somewhat hastily.

'I hope you do not think that anything in her outward circ.u.mstances has prejudiced my sister-in-law against her. As far as that goes, Mrs. Blake deserves credit; she has denied herself comforts even to give her son a good education. No, it is something contradictory in the woman herself that made the Bryces say they would never get on with her. She is impulsive, absurdly impulsive; and yet at the same time she is reserved.

She has a bad temper--at least, Edith declares she has heard her scolding her servant in no measured terms; and then she is so injudicious with her children. She absolutely adores her eldest son, Cyril; but Edith will have it that she neglects her daughter. And there is an invalid boy, too--a very interesting little fellow; at least, I don't know how old he is--and she is not too attentive to him.

Housekeeping worries her, and she is fond of society; and I know the Bryces think that she would marry again if she got the chance.'

'Let the younger widows marry. I hope you do not mean to contradict St.