Wylders Hand | Page 7

questions of
courtesy had been asked, in her low silvery tones, and answered by me.
To me the natural demise of a _tête-à-tête_ discourse has always
seemed a disgrace. But this apathetic beauty had either more moral
courage or more stupidity than I, and was plainly terribly indifferent
about the catastrophe. I've sometimes thought my struggles and
sinkings amused her cruel serenity.
Bella ma stupida!--I experienced, at last, the sort of pique with which
George Sand's hero apostrophises la derniere Aldini. Yet I could not
think her stupid. The universal instinct honours beauty. It is so difficult
to believe it either dull or base. In virtue of some mysterious harmonies
it is 'the image of God,' and must, we feel, enclose the God-like; so I
suppose I felt, for though I wished to think her stupid, I could not. She
was not exactly languid, but a grave and listless beauty, and a splendid
beauty for all that.
I told her my early recollections of Brandon and Gylingden, and how I
remembered her a baby, and said some graceful trifles on that theme,
which I fancied were likely to please. But they were only received, and
led to nothing. In a little while in comes Lord Chelford, always natural
and pleasant, and quite unconscious of his peerage--he was above it, I
think--and chatted away merrily with that handsome animated
blonde--who on earth, could she be?--and did not seem the least chilled
in the stiff and frosted presence of his mother, but was genial and
playful even with that Spirit of the Frozen Ocean, who received his
affectionate trifling with a sort of smiling, though wintry pride and
complacency, reflecting back from her icy aspects something of the
rosy tints of that kindly sunshine.
I thought I heard him call the young lady Miss Lake, and there rose
before me an image of an old General Lake, and a dim recollection of
some reverse of fortune. He was--I was sure of that--connected with the
Brandon family; and was, with the usual fatality, a bit of a mauvais

sujet. He had made away with his children's money, or squandered his
own; or somehow or another impoverished his family not creditably.
So I glanced at her, and Miss Brandon divined, it seemed, what was
passing in my mind, for she said:--
'That is my cousin, Miss Lake, and I think her very beautiful--don't
you?'
'Yes, she certainly is very handsome,' and I was going to say something
about her animation and spirit, but remembered just in time, that that
line of eulogy would hardly have involved a compliment to Miss
Brandon. 'I know her brother, a little--that is, Captain Lake--Stanley
Lake; he's her brother, I fancy?'
'_Oh?_' said the young lady, in that tone which is pointed with an
unknown accent, between a note of enquiry and of surprise. 'Yes; he's
her brother.'
And she paused; as if something more were expected. But at that
moment the bland tones of Larcom, the solemn butler, announced the
Rev. William Wylder and Mrs. Wylder, and I said--
'William is an old college friend of mine;' and I observed him, as he
entered with an affectionate and sad sort of interest. Eight years had
passed since we met last, and that is something at any time. It had
thinned my simple friend's hair a little, and his face, too, was more
careworn than I liked, but his earnest, sweet smile was there still. Slight,
gentle, with something of a pale and studious refinement in his face.
The same gentle voice, with that slight, occasional hesitation, which
somehow I liked. There is always a little shock after an absence of
some years before identities adjust themselves, and then we find the
change is not, after all, so very great. I suspect it is, rather, that
something of the old picture is obliterated, in that little interval, to
return no more. And so William Wylder was vicar now instead of that
straight wiry cleric of the mulberry face and black leggings.
And who was this little Mrs. William Wylder who came in, so homely
of feature, so radiant of goodhumour, so eager and simple, in a very

plain dress--a Brandon housemaid would not have been seen in it,
leaning so pleasantly on his lean, long, clerical arm--made for reaching
books down from high shelves, a lank, scholarlike limb, with a
somewhat threadbare cuff--and who looked round with that anticipation
of pleasure, and that simple confidence in a real welcome, which are so
likely to insure it? Was she an helpmeet for a black-letter man, who
talked with the Fathers in his daily walks, could extemporise Latin
hexameters, and dream in Greek. Was she very wise, or at all learned? I
think her knowledge lay chiefly in the matters of poultry, and