A Fair Barbarian Read online

  CHAPTER VI.

  ACCIDENTAL.

  When dinner was over, Lady Theobald rose, and proceeded to thedrawing-room, Lucia following in her wake. From her very babyhood Luciahad disliked the drawing-room, which was an imposing apartment of greatlength and height, containing much massive furniture, upholstered infaded blue satin. All the girl's evenings, since her fifth year, had beenspent sitting opposite her grandmother, in one of the straightest of theblue chairs: all the most scathing reproofs she had received had beenadministered to her at such times. She had a secret theory, indeed, thatall unpleasant things occurred in the drawing-room after dinner.

  Just as they had seated themselves, and Lady Theobald was on the point ofdrawing toward her the little basket containing the gray woollen mittensshe made a duty of employing herself by knitting each evening, Dobson,the coachman, in his character of footman, threw open the door, andannounced a visitor.

  "Capt. Barold."

  Lady Theobald dropped her gray mitten, the steel needles falling upon thetable with a clink. She rose to her feet at once, and met half-way theyoung man who had entered.

  "My dear Francis," she remarked, "I am exceedingly glad to see you atlast," with a slight emphasis upon the "at last."

  "Tha-anks," said Capt. Barold, rather languidly. "You're very good, I'msure."

  Then he glanced at Lucia, and Lady Theobald addressed her:--

  "Lucia," she said, "this is Francis Barold, who is your cousin."

  Capt. Barold shook hands feebly.

  "I have been trying to find out whether it is third or fourth," he said.

  "It is third," said my lady.

  Lucia had never seen her display such cordiality to anybody. But Capt.Francis Barold did not seem much impressed by it. It struck Lucia that hewould not be likely to be impressed by any thing. He seated himself nearher grandmother's chair, and proceeded to explain his presence on thespot, without exhibiting much interest even in his own relation of facts.

  "I promised the Rathburns that I would spend a week at their place; andSlowbridge was on the way, so it occurred to me I would drop off inpassing. The Rathburns' place, Broadoaks, is about ten miles farther on;not far, you see."

  "Then," said Lady Theobald, "I am to understand that your visit isaccidental."

  Capt. Barold was not embarrassed. He did not attempt to avoid herladyship's rather stern eye, as he made his cool reply.

  "Well, yes," he said. "I beg pardon, but it is accidental, rather."

  Lucia gave him a pretty, frightened look, as if she felt that, after suchan audacious confession, something very serious must happen; but nothingserious happened at all. Singularly enough, it was Lady Theobald herselfwho looked ill at ease, and as though she had not been prepared for sucha contingency.

  During the whole of the evening, in fact, it was always Lady Theobaldwho was placed at a disadvantage, Lucia discovered. She could hardlyrealize the fact at first; but before an hour had passed, its truth wasforced upon her.

  Capt. Barold was a very striking-looking man, upon the whole. He waslarge, gracefully built, and fair: his eyes were gray, and noticeable forthe coldness of their expression, his features regular and aquiline, hismovements leisurely.

  As he conversed with her grandmother, Lucia wondered at him privately. Itseemed to her innocent mind that he had been everywhere, and seen everything and everybody, without caring for or enjoying his privileges. Thetruth was, that he had seen and experienced a great deal too much. As anonly child, the heir to a large property, and heir prospective to one ofthe oldest titles in the country, he had exhausted life early. He saw inLady Theobald, not the imposing head and social front of Slowbridgesocial life, the power who rewarded with approval and punished with afrown, but a tiresome, pretentious old woman, whom his mother had askedhim, for some feminine reason, to visit. "She feels she has a claim uponus, Francis," she had said appealingly.

  "Well," he had remarked, "that is rather deuced cool, isn't it? We havepeople enough on our hands without cultivating Slowbridge, you know."

  His mother sighed faintly.

  "It is true we have a great many people to consider; but I wish you woulddo it, my dear."

  She did not say any thing at all about Lucia: above all, she did notmention that a year ago she herself had spent two or three days atSlowbridge, and had been charmed beyond measure by the girl's innocentfreshness, and that she had said, rather absently, to Lady Theobald,--

  "What a charming wife Lucia would make for a man to whom gentleness and ayielding disposition were necessary! We do not find such girls in societynowadays, my dear Lady Theobald. It is very difficult of late years tofind a girl who is not spoken of as 'fast,' and who is not disposed totake the reins in her own hands. Our young men are flattered and courteduntil they become a little dictatorial, and our girls are spoiled athome. And the result is a great deal of domestic unhappinessafterward--and even a great deal of scandal, which is dreadful tocontemplate. I cannot help feeling the greatest anxiety in secretconcerning Francis. Young men so seldom consider these matters until itis too late."

  "Girls are not trained as they were in my young days, or even in yours,"said Lady Theobald. "They are allowed too much liberty. Lucia has beenbrought up immediately under my own eye."

  "I feel that it is fortunate," remarked Mrs. Barold, quite incidentally,"that Francis need not make a point of money."

  For a few moments Lady Theobald did not respond; but afterward, in thecourse of the conversation which followed, she made an observation whichwas, of course, purely incidental.

  "If Lucia makes a marriage which pleases her great-uncle, old Mr. DugaldBinnie, of Glasgow, she will be a very fortunate girl. He has intimated,in his eccentric fashion, that his immense fortune will either be hers,or will be spent in building charitable asylums of various kinds. He is aremarkable and singular man."

  When Capt. Barold had entered his distinguished relative's drawing-room,he had not regarded his third cousin with a very great deal of interest.He had seen too many beauties in his thirty years to be greatly moved bythe sight of one; and here was only a girl who had soft eyes, and lookedyoung for her age, and who wore an ugly muslin gown, that most girlscould not have carried off at all.

  "You have spent the greater part of your life in Slowbridge?" hecondescended to say in the course of the evening.

  "I have lived here always," Lucia answered. "I have never been away morethan a week at a time."

  "Ah?" interrogatively. "I hope you have not found it dull."

  "No," smiling a little. "Not very. You see, I have known nothing gayer."

  "There is society enough of a harmless kind here," spoke up Lady Theobaldvirtuously. "I do not approve of a round of gayeties for young people: itunfits them for the duties of life."

  But Capt. Barold was not as favorably impressed by these remarks as mighthave been anticipated.

  "What an old fool she is!" was his polite inward comment. And he resolvedat once to make his visit as brief as possible, and not to be induced torun down again during his stay at Broadoaks. He did not even take thetrouble to appear to enjoy his evening. From his earliest infancy, he hadalways found it easier to please himself than to please other people. Infact, the world had devoted itself to endeavoring to please him, and winhis--toleration, we may say, instead of admiration, since it could nothope for the latter. At home he had been adored rapturously by a largecircle of affectionate male and female relatives; at school his tutorshad been singularly indulgent of his faults and admiring of his talents;even among his fellow-pupils he had been a sort of autocrat.

  Why not, indeed, with such birthrights and such prospects? When he hadentered society, he had met with even more amiable treatment fromaffectionate mothers, from innocent daughters, from cordial paternalparents, who voted him an exceedingly fine fellow. Why should he borehimself by taking the trouble to seem pleased by a stupid evening with anold grenadier in petticoats and a badly dressed country girl?

  Lucia was very glad when, in ans
wer to a timidly appealing glance, LadyTheobald said,--

  "It is half-past ten. You may wish us good-night, Lucia."

  Lucia obeyed, as if she had been half-past ten herself, instead of nearlytwenty; and Barold was not long in following her example.

  Dobson led him to a stately chamber at the top of the staircase, and lefthim there. The captain chose the largest and most luxurious chair, satdown in it, and lighted a cigar at his leisure.

  "Confoundedly stupid hole!" he said with a refined vigor one wouldscarcely have expected from an individual of his birth and breeding. "Ishall leave to-morrow, of course. What was my mother thinking of? Stupidbusiness from first to last."