so, three men, all good fellows in their way, and two possessed of qualities not common, and destined to be influenced throughout all their lives by the seeming chance that had made them acquainted with her, were thinking of katharine guyon, rather than of any or all their more immediate and important concerns. she had dawned, a new luminary, on their horizon; and two were conscious worshippers of the bright visible presence, the other had not yet turned his eyes that way. he will do so before long, and then----?
as for katharine guyon herself, she had thoughts at present for but one person, and speculations only on one subject. her warm, impulsive, wholly undisciplined heart had accepted gordon frere as its tenant and ruler, after a sudden fashion, which was not to be defended or excused if judged by the standard of conventionality, or indeed of common-sense. when the latter quality shall be in any one instance admitted into a case of love-at-first-sight, it may advance a claim to invariable acknowledgment; certainly not otherwise. as for conventionality, katharine in no way bowed to its authority; and it was fortunate indeed that her good taste and innate good-breeding preserved her from any boldness or vulgarity of demeanour; for those were her only safeguards. legitimate rule over her there was none, and she would not for a moment have brooked usurped authority. her position was peculiar, and, though there was a good deal of the glitter of fashion and the reality of enjoyment about it, to clear-sighted eyes, looking below the surface, pitiable.
katharine's mother had brought her husband no advantages in their short, not remarkably happy, marriage, except those attached to an extensive and distinguished family connection. she had no fortune, no possessions of any kind, except some handsome jewels, which were secured to her, to descend to her children. she lived only a short time; but it is probable she thought the period sufficiently prolonged; for she died, when katharine was born, with no further expression of regret than that she wished she could have taken the child with her; but was consoled by learning that the physicians thought the feeble infant very unlikely to live. isabella stanbourne--for such was the name of katharine's mother--was a handsome woman, of fine mind and high principles. these qualities had not availed to prevent her making the tremendous though not unusual mistake of a wholly uncongenial marriage; but they did her the questionable service of opening her eyes to the blunder she had committed before she had been edward guyon's wife many weeks. once opened, mrs. guyon's eyes were not the sort of optics ever to be even partially closed again; and they perceived and scrutinised every particular of her husband's character and conduct with merciless clearness and vigilance. that gentleman furnished them with ample material for their scrutiny; and from the close of the honeymoon to the termination of her life mrs. guyon held the partner of her existence, whom she knew to be a liar and a profligate, and suspected to be a swindler, in quiet, undemonstrative, but supreme contempt. she was a woman in whom the existence of any kind of regard or even compassion was incompatible with the least feeling of scorn; and so she never tried to persuade herself that she entertained either towards her husband, from the day she found out that the man she had married was a being of a totally different order to the idol which her fancy had set up and worshipped. she did not leave him, even when she made further and more serious discoveries: in the first place, because she disliked the scandal of a separation; in the second, because she was conscious of great delicacy of health, and had a strong presentiment that she should not survive the birth of her child. she determined to give herself the chance, if, contrary to her conviction, she lived; she could then decide upon her future. the chance befriended her, and mrs. guyon died. her last days were undisturbed by her husband's presence. he had gone to doncaster when the event which made him a father and a widower took place; and having made rather a good thing of the expedition, he returned to town in very tolerable spirits, and felt that he should now be more interesting and irresistible than ever as a young widower, and could easily get over the inconsolable stage by a trip on the continent. his dead wife's sister-in-law, the hon. mrs. philip stanbourne, undertook very gladly to look after the little motherless infant, at whom the elegant ned barely glanced, during her days of babyhood; and she redeemed her promise well.
it is unnecessary to inquire into the career of mr. guyon between the period of katharine's birth and that of her début in society. it was evident that, however well-founded his anticipations of success, it had not been in the matrimonial direction; and indeed some rather amusing anecdotes were current in society concerning "ned's" audacious attempts and egregious failures. his wife's relatives had never particularly admired mr. guyon; but they were kindly, unaffected people; and mrs. guyon had been strictly and uniformly silent on all her domestic concerns; so that, though they surmised that the brief marriage had not been the altogether ecstatic union isabella had imagined it would prove, they had nothing but surmise in their minds respecting it; and they never thought of withholding from the motherless girl any of the advantages derivable from their social position and influence. these were far more important to katharine's father than her guileless uncles, aunts, and cousins imagined--to whom a life of shifts, scheming, and pretence was an utterly unknown and unsuspected possibility--and much more important too to katharine herself, as regulating her father's conduct towards her, than the girl ever knew or dreamed of. she would probably have been placed economically out of sight, at a foreign boarding-school, and left there to attain the age of womanhood, unnoticed by her father, had not the kind relatives under whose care her early childhood had been happily passed given her consequence in mr. guyon's eyes, causing him to regard her as a valuable possession, a court-card in fact. so, instead of a cheap foreign school being selected as an oubliette for the child,--in virtue of whom mr. guyon had a seat at the tables of many who were more great than wise,--an expensive establishment for young ladies in the regent's park was honoured by mrs. stanbourne's choice; and there katharine was brilliantly, if not solidly educated, the larger portion of the pension and her personal expenses being paid by her uncle. in katharine's early girlhood the hon. philip stanbourne died; and she sustained by this calamity a double loss: not only that of her kind relative and friend, but of her aunt's counsel, training, and protection in the perilous time which lay before her,--the time of early womanhood, and her entrance into society. the widow went abroad with her daughter, who was some years older than katharine; and though she was in london when the events just related took place, she was not likely to be again a settled resident in england, as her daughter had married an austrian nobleman, high in the diplomatic world, and desired to have as much of her mother's society as possible.
the fashionable "establishment" had turned out few girls so well calculated to do it credit and extend its fame as katharine guyon, when, at a little more than seventeen, she appeared in a circle of society where, though her father, with all his cleverness and savoir faire, received little more than toleration, she at once made a favourable impression. in her appearance she combined the personal attractions of both her parents: she had her mother's high-bred look, her father's vivacity and his fine features; she had the elegant carriage, the delicate hands and feet, the refined voice of isabella stanbourne, and the airy easy manner which in mr. guyon had a soup?on of impudence. in disposition she resembled her mother exclusively; but there were strong points of difference between them,--difference deepened no doubt by the circumstances of katharine's girlhood, by the fact that she had never been the object, as her mother had been of exclusive and conscientious female care since she had ceased to be a child. she had not the clear, direct, keen perception of her mother; but she was her equal in resolution, and more than her equal in implacability. she was high-spirited now, and impatient of contradiction to a degree that indicated some violence of temper; her feelings were keen and impulsive, and her affections strong and passionate, though undeveloped; for indeed who had the girl to love? she had gone through the ordinary schoolgirl friendships, and also through the customary flirtations since the former had come to a natural end; but she did not really love any body in the world, except perhaps mrs. stanbourne, and of her she had seen but little for some time.
her feelings towards her father were of a mixed, and, on the whole, of an unsatisfactory character; such as any one watching the girl with anxiety and experience must have recognised with regret. she was fond of him after a fashion, and there was a good deal of camaraderie between them; but she had an intuitive distrust of him, and she knew instinctively that all his indulgence, all his flattery, all his yielding to her wishes and furnishing her pleasures, were superficial compliances. he liked the kind of life she liked; she knew him well enough, without formally reasoning upon her knowledge, to feel convinced that if their tastes or wishes clashed in any way, hers and not his would be expected, if not obliged, to yield. she admired her father's pleasant manners and social talents; she had but rarely any opportunity of contrasting his fulfilment of the paternal relation with that of other men; and she was full of youth, health, spirits, and capacity for the enjoyment of every kind of pleasure that offered; so she went her way carelessly and joyously, and reasoned little upon the present or the future. katharine and her father were not real friends, but they were always technically "good friends;" a result to which the underlying violence of the girl's nature no doubt unconsciously conduced. mr. guyon hated trouble and detested scenes; and he had a tolerably correct occult sense that he might find himself "in for" both if he interfered much with katharine: consequently he did not interfere; and as she was totally in the dark respecting his pecuniary circumstances, and never asked any troublesome questions, they got on very well together. real companionship they had none, but they did not miss it; and while her father's chief anxiety about katharine was that she should make a good match before she "went off" in looks--a good match implying a rich son-in-law, conveniently indifferent about settlements, and ready to "do" bills to any reasonable or unreasonable amount--katharine's chief anxiety about him was, that he should dye his hair and whiskers with greater success, and drink less wine on evenings when he went to parties with her. she knew he was proud of her beauty, and thought her "doosid good company;" but she did not for a moment imagine he had any sentimental love for her; indeed she fancied he had not much feeling, for he had never mentioned her mother to her in his life. their relation, in fact, was pleasant, hollow, and heathen; and when katharine abandoned herself to her newborn love for gordon frere, she never thought of her father's feelings or wishes in the matter, or had a more dutiful notion in her mind than that it "made it pleasant that papa liked his coming about the house." you see she was no exceptional being, no angel alighted for a little on a sphere unworthy of her footsteps and her wings; but an interesting, captivating, self-willed woman,--such as circumstances had made her; a woman whose weaknesses were as visible as her charms, whose strength was latent and unsuspected.
it was not to be supposed that a girl like katharine--handsome, clever, dashing, and independent in her ideas and manners, of a not precisely-to-be-defined position in society, and with a not-exactly-to-be-commended father--should escape sharp and not kind or altogether candid criticism. she was very much admired; she commanded admiration indeed, however reluctantly accorded; and men liked her very much, even men who were not in love with her, and with whom she did not take the trouble to flirt. women did not like her; and yet the girl gave them no fair excuse for their prejudice. she was not a determined coquette, conquering and monopolising; she was not rudely inattentive to women, as "beauties" and "blues" usually are: she was smiling and agreeable, and perfectly indifferent to them all; and, with a host of acquaintances, had but one female friend, her aunt mrs. stanbourne. with lady henmarsh, who was a distant relative on her father's side, katharine lived on terms of great intimacy,--the lady was indeed her constant, her official chaperone,--but it was an intimacy of the kind which more frequently precludes than includes friendship.
lady henmarsh was a woman of the world, in every possible meaning and extent of the term. she was the exact opposite of mrs. stanbourne, in manners, mind, tastes, opinions, and principles; and she disliked mrs. stanbourne so cordially, that she might have endeavoured to influence katharine in a contrary direction to that of her wishes, simply to annoy that lady; but she was saved from any thing so unphilosophical by the fact that it suited her in every way to appoint herself high-priestess of miss guyon's world-worship. as no one ever saw, and many had never heard of lady henmarsh's husband, it was a pardonable mistake, frequently made by strangers, to suppose that she was a widow. this, however, was not the case. a miserable invalid--whose migrations, if not quite confined to goldsmith's itinéraire, were only from his dull house in hampshire to his dull house in cavendish square; a cross, palsied, querulous old man, called sir timothy henmarsh, who had long since lapsed out of the sight and the memory of society--still existed, not altogether to the displeasure of his lady, who would be seriously impoverished by his death; existed in a condition of illness and suffering which rendered it indispensable that his wife should, in deference to what society calls common decency, provide herself with some further excuse for her neglect of him, and her constant presence at gay and festive scenes of every description, than the real, but unproduceable one, that she liked dissipation and disliked him. lady henmarsh and mr. guyon had been very good friends indeed in former days, when he was a young widower, thoroughly consoled, and hetty lorimer was a pretty portionless girl, who knew that she had nothing to look to but marriage, and that if she desired to secure the enjoyment of such things as her soul loved, she must take care that it was a "good" one. a marriage with her handsome cousin would have been any thing but one of the required description; and indeed neither of them ever contemplated such a possibility. they were persons of a discreet and practical turn, and mr. guyon went to hetty lorimer's wedding (a solemnity at which sir timothy henmarsh's son, a gentleman some years the bride's senior, sternly declined to be present) with perfect alacrity and good humour. they had been excellent friends ever since; and when, the time having arrived at which mr. guyon found it convenient to transfer his daughter from the "establishment" to queen anne street, lady henmarsh gave him her advice, and offered him her services with enthusiastic friendship, what more proper and satisfactory arrangement could possibly have been entered into than that lady henmarsh should "do the maternal" by katharine?
"i've no doubt you'll do it to perfection, hetty," said mr. guyon, as he rose and terminated the interview; "only you won't look the part within a dozen years." and the good-looking deceiver went down the stairs with a smile, which expanded into a grin when he reached the street; for miss hester lorimer and miss isabella stanbourne had been girls together, and the former was a little older than the lady who had married the irresistible ned guyon.
this unexceptionable arrangement had now lasted a considerable time, and no likelihood of its coming to a conclusion by the marriage of katharine had yet presented itself. lady henmarsh was better pleased than mr. guyon that it should be so, and less surprised. she understood katharine better than her father understood her; she knew how entirely unscathed she had been amid the lightning flashes of real admiration and simulated sentiment which had played around her girlish head; she knew that in katharine's perfectly impartial brightness, her frank acceptance of the incense offered before her, her smiling pleasure and indifference, consisted the barrier to mr. guyon's wishes. for her part, she was in no hurry about the matter; indeed, the longer miss guyon should require some one (meaning herself) to go about with her, the better pleased she would be. but though lady henmarsh did not disquiet herself because mr. guyon's wishes remained unfulfilled, she would very seriously and earnestly have disapproved of their being traversed and thwarted. she did not particularly care that katharine should marry soon, but she fervently desired that she should marry well; and it was with a new and very unpleasant sense of misgiving that she observed the eager and vivacious pleasure which katharine evinced in the society of mr. gordon frere, and watched the faces and the manner of the two from the alcove, whence she beheld the dancers at mrs. pendarvis's ball. lady henmarsh knew very little of gordon frere; indeed, only one fact, beyond the good looks and the good manners patent to all observers. but in that one fact lay the only important item of knowledge, in the estimation of lady henmarsh. gordon frere was a poor man, with no income to speak of, and only very desultory, undefined, and contingent expectations. clearly this would not meet either mr. guyon's views or her own. she hoped, she trusted, nay she believed, that katharine would not be so infatuated as to think of marrying frere; she trusted frere was too much a man of the world to think of marrying katharine. it was only a flirtation,--it must be only a flirtation; but even that, if she carried it to such an extent as she had done at the ball, katharine must be induced to give up. it would be remarked, it would keep off other men: of course it was quite foolish to be afraid of any thing serious; so lady henmarsh hoped, and trusted, and believed, and yet she doubted and feared. she did not altogether like to acknowledge to herself, perhaps, how little confidence she felt in her own power of "inducing" katharine to do any thing which did not accord with her own inclination and humour. the tie between them was formed of mutual complaisance, not of influence and respect. lady henmarsh did not understand either the strength of katharine's feelings or the determination of her temper; she had never seen either roused into action, and she regarded her as rather shrewder and more worldly-minded than most girls, as well as cleverer and better-looking. so, though she knew her to be self-willed, she calculated on her sense and shrewdness overcoming her obstinacy in a matter in which her worldliness would teach her that obstinacy was injurious and misplaced.
lady henmarsh pondered these things one fine summer's day, while katharine rambled about the botanical gardens with gordon frere and others; while every glance caught from his blue eyes, and every sentence intoned especially for her ear by his earnest musical voice, bound the girl's heart more closely to him, and rendered the task which lady henmarsh proposed to herself more difficult of fulfilment, more infructuous in result.
"at all events, it shall not go on like this beyond to-night," said her ladyship to herself: "if she looks at and dances with him as she did at mrs. pendarvis's, i shall tell ned guyon about it, and find out what he thinks; but my decided opinion is that it is full time some steps were taken." and then she went to visit sir timothy.
mrs. streightley and her daughter had returned to the brixton villa, had been affectionately received by robert, and had heard from him the history of all his doings in their absence. of course ellen had, allowed the briefest possible space of time to elapse between her return and the despatch of an eager summons entreating hester gould to come to her with the least possible delay. hester arrived about two hours before the ordinary dinner-hour; and the young ladies passed that space of time in the interchange of delightful confidences; complete and heartfelt on the part of ellen streightley, and as meagre as might be on that of hester gould. all the particulars of ellen's engagement, which she had already detailed by letter, were again confided to hester; all the particulars of the visit from which they had just returned, and which had been made to certain relatives of mrs. streightley's, of the agricultural persuasion, were once more related in full.
"i used to think thorswold rather a stupid place, dearest hester," said ellen, and a fine blush overspread her pretty honest face: "little did i ever think i should meet my fate there. i do so long for you to see decimus. you will think him so delightful."
"i shall be very much pleased to see him, ellen," returned hester; "and i rejoice, as i am sure you know, in your happiness. but tell me about your brother,--what does he say to it all?"
"well, indeed, hester," said ellen, hesitating and laughing, "that is what i hardly can tell you, he has said so little. he kissed me, and pulled my ear, and called me a little goose, in his own kind way, you know; but he is so taken up with some new friends he has made, i cannot make him out. he looks quite different, i am sure; and is so particular about his dress! a lot of new clothes have just come home from his tailor's, and a whole boxful of lavender-kid gloves. isn't it funny, hester? dear old robert, he talks a great deal about mr. guyon; but i suspect he thinks more of miss. though indeed i only found out there was a miss guyon quite by accident."
hester gould's face flushed with sudden anger, and into her calm calculating heart there came a pang of unaccustomed doubt and fear. but it was quite in her ordinary tone she said:
"so your brother's friend is mr. guyon, is he? does he live in queen anne street?"
"yes, yes; i am sure that is the street i have heard him mention. stay, there's an invitation stuck in the chimney-glass--here it is. 'mr. and miss guyon request'--and so--yes, '110 queen anne street' do you know them, hester?"
"no, not personally; but i have seen miss guyon frequently. i used to teach singing to the miss morrisons in the next house, no. 109--it is vacant now, and shut up since sir christopher died--and i often saw her going out to ride. she used to go just about at my hour."
"and is she nice, hester,--is she pretty? robert never has told me any thing particular about her. men never can describe any one."
"she is very handsome, very elegant, and very fashionable," replied hester; and then she departed from her usual cautious reticence so far as to say, "and i heard the morrisons say mr. guyon was very 'fast,' and lived beyond his means."
"indeed," said ellen in a very grave tone, for to her the accusation of living beyond one's means sounded very portentous; "i am sure robert would not approve of that."
hester gould watched robert streightley quietly and closely the whole of that evening. she saw him different to any thing he had ever been; preoccupied, absent, but not unhappy. a smile played frequently over his features; and though he sunk into frequent fits of abstraction, they were evidently not painful. he was as kind and affectionate as usual to his mother and sisters, as attentive to herself; but a change had passed upon him which she fully understood. in her cold repressed way, she was bitterly angry.
she went home rather early. as robert streightley saw her to the cab, and bade her good-night, she said to herself:
"daniel thacker knows this mr. guyon,--his sisters may know something about the girl. i'll go to hampstead to-morrow; they don't mind sunday visitors; and i may have a chance of seeing their brother. really that girl ellen grows sillier every day."
