“I had the old schoolroom and the bedroom adjoining newly fitted up,” answered Mrs. Poynsett. “Jenny Bowater was here yesterday, and gave the finishing touches. She tells me the rooms look very nice.—Cecil, my dear, you must excuse deficiencies; I shall look to you in future.”

“I hope to manage well,” said Cecil. “Had I not better go up now? Will you show me the way, Raymond?”

The mother and her two younger sons remained.

“Haven’t I brought you home a splendid article?” was Frank’s exclamation. “Julius has got the best of it.”

“I back my Cape Gooseberry,” returned Charles. “She has eyes and hair and skin that my Lady can’t match, and is a fine figure of a woman besides.”

“Much you know of Rosamond’s eyes!”

“Or you either, boxed up in the van.”

“Any way, they have made roast meat of his Reverence’s heart! The other two take it much more easily.”

“She’s a mere chicken,” said Charlie. “Who would have thought of Raymond being caught by a callow nestling?”

“And so uncommonly cool,” added Frank.

“It would take much to transform Raymond,” interposed the mother. “Now, boys, away with you; I must have a little quiet, to repair myself for company after dinner.”

Charlie settled her cushions with womanly skill, and followed his brother. “Well, Frank, which is the White Cat? Ah, I thought so—she’s yet to come.”

“Not one is fit to hold a candle to her. You saw that as plain as I did, Charlie; Eleonora beats them all.”

“Ah, you’re not the youngest brother, remember. It was he who brought her home at last. Come, you need not knock me down; I shall never see any one to surpass the mother, and I’ll have no one till I do.”

CHAPTER II The Population of Compton Poynsett

He wanted a wife his braw hoose to keep, But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashous to seek.

—Laird o’ Cockpen

In the bright lamplight of the dining-table, the new population first fully beheld one another, and understood one another’s looks.

There was much family resemblance between the five brothers. All were well-grown well-made men, strong and agile, the countenance pleasing, rather square of mould, eyebrows straight and thick, nose well cut and short, chin firm and resolute-looking, and the complexion very dark in Raymond, Frank, and the absent Miles. Frank’s eyes were soft, brown, rather pensive, and absent in expression; but Raymond’s were much deeper and darker, and had a steadfast gravity, that made him be viewed as formidable, especially as he had lost all the youthful glow of colouring that mantled in his brother’s olive cheek; and he had a short, thick, curly brown beard, while Frank had only attained to a black moustache, that might almost have been drawn on his lip with charcoal.

Charlie was an exception—fair, blue-eyed, rosy, and with a soft feminine contour of visage, which had often drawn on him reproaches for not being really the daughter all his mother’s friends desired for her.

And Julius, with the outlines of the others, was Albino, with transparent skin mantling with colour that contrasted with his snowy hair, eyebrows, and the lashes, veiling eyes of a curious coral hue, really not unpleasing under their thick white fringes, but most inconveniently short of sight, although capable of much work; in fact, he was a curiously perfect pink-and-white edition of his dark and bronzed brother the sailor.

The dark eyes came from the father’s side; Cecil had them, and very observing orbs they seemed to be, travelling about from one face to another, and into every corner of the room, scrutinizing every picture or piece of plate, and trying to see into the conservatory, which had a glass door opening from one end of the room. She was the youngest of the brides, and her features and form seemed hardly developed, nor had she attained the air of a matron; her fashionable dress of crisp white worked muslin with blue trimmings, and blue ribbons in her brown hair, only gave her the air of a young girl at her first party, in spite of her freedom from all shyness as she sat at the head of the table in contented self-possession, her little slender figure as upright as a perfect spine could make it.

Very different was the bride on Raymond’s right hand. She was of middle height, soft, round, and plump, carrying her head a little tenderly on one side with a delightful dégagée kind of ease, and air of vivacious indolence. Her complexion was creamy and colourless, her nose rather retroussé, her lips full and parting in a delicious roguish smile, answering to the sleepily twinkling eyes, whose irides seemed to shade so imperceptibly into the palest gray, that there was no telling where the pupils ended, especially as the lids were habitually half closed, as if weighed down by the black length of their borders. The habit of arching up one or other of the eyebrows, in surprise or interrogation, gave a drollery to the otherwise nonchalant sweetness of the countenance. The mass of raven black hair was only adorned by a crimson ribbon, beneath which it had been thrust into a net, with a long thing that had once been a curl on the shoulder of the white tumbled bodice worn over a gray skirt which looked as if it had done solitary duty for the five weeks since the marriage, and was but slightly relieved by a crimson sash.

Rosamond made some apology when she saw Cecil’s dainty equipment. “Dressed, you correct little thing! You put me to shame; but I had no notion which box my evening things are in, and it would have been serious to irritate the whole concern.”

“And she was some time with Anne,” added Julius.

“Ah! with my good will Anne should not have been here!” rejoined Rosamond. “Didn’t I meet old Mrs. Nurse at your threshold, with an invitation from Mrs. Poynsett to dine with her in her room, and didn’t we find the bird flown at the first stroke of the gong?”

“Oh, I am very well!” repeated Anne.

Yet she was far more colourless than Julius, for her complexion was not only faded by sickness, but was naturally of the whitest blonde tint; the simple coils of her hair “lint white,” and her eyes of the lightest tint of pure blue. The features were of Scottish type, all the more so from being exaggerated by recent illness; but they were handsome enough to show that she must have been a bonnie lassie when her good looks were unimpaired. Her figure far surpassed in height that of both the other ladies, and was very slender, bending with languor and fatigue in spite of her strenuous attempts to straighten it. She was clad in a perfectly plain, almost quaker-looking light dove-coloured silk dress, fitting closely, and unrelieved by any ribbon or ornament of any description, so that her whole appearance suggested nothing but the words “washed out.”

It was clear that to let her alone was merciful, and there was no lack of mutual communications among the rest. Frank and Charlie gave their account of the condition of the game.

Страница 3 из 131

Назад 1 2 3 4…131 Далее