Vera Nevill Part 22

And she pa.s.sed on through the hall into the large drawing-room, where the dancing was going on.

The first person she caught sight of there was her eldest son. He was dancing a quadrille, and his partner was a short young lady in a strawberry-coloured tulle dress, covered with trails of spinach-green fern leaves. This young person had a round, chubby face, with bright apple-hued cheeks, a dark, bullet-shaped head, and round, bead-like eyes that glanced about her rapidly like those of a frightened d.i.c.key-bird.

Her dress was cut very low, and the charms she exhibited were not captivating. Her arms were very red, and her shoulders were mottled: the latter is considered to be a healthy sign in a baby, but is hardly a beautiful characteristic in a grown woman.

"_That_ is my daughter-in-law," said Lady Kynaston to herself, and she almost groaned aloud. "She is _worse_ even than I thought! Countrified and common to the last degree; there will be no licking that face or that figure into shape--they are hopeless! Elise and Worth combined could do nothing with her! John must be mad. No wonder she is good, poor thing,"

added the naughty little old lady, cynically. "A woman with _that_ appearance can never be tempted to be anything else!"

The quadrille came to an end, and Sir John, after depositing his partner at the further side of the room, came up to his mother.

"My dear mother, how are you? I am so sorry about your journey; you must be dead beat. What a fool Bates was to make such a mistake." He was looking about the room as he spoke. "I must introduce you to Vera."

"Yes, introduce me to her at once," said his mother, in a resigned and depressed tone of voice. She would like to have added, "And pray get it over as soon as you can." What she did say was only, "Bring her up to me now. The young lady you have just been dancing with, I suppose!"

"What!" cried Sir John, and burst out laughing. "Good Heavens, mother!

that was Miss Smiles, the daughter of the parson of Lutterton. You don't mean to say you thought a little ugly chit like _that_ was my Vera!"

His mother suddenly laid her hand upon his arm.

"Who is that lovely woman who has just come in with Maurice?" she exclaimed.

Her son followed the direction of her eyes, and beheld Vera standing in the doorway that led from the conservatory by his brother's side.

Without a word he pa.s.sed his mother's hand through his arm and led her across the room.

"Vera, this is my mother," he said. And Lady Kynaston owned afterwards that she never felt so taken aback and so utterly struck dumb with astonishment in her life.

Her two sons looked at her with amus.e.m.e.nt and some triumph. The little surprise had been so thoroughly carried out; the contrast of the truth to what they knew she had expected was too good a joke not to be enjoyed.

"Not much what you expected, little mother, is it?" said Maurice, laughingly. But to Vera, who knew nothing, it was no laughing matter.

She put both her hands out tremblingly and hesitatingly--with a pretty pleading look of deprecating deference in her eyes--and the little old lady, who valued beauty and grace and talent so much that she could barely tolerate goodness itself without them, was melted at once.

"My dear," she said, "you are beautiful, and I am going to love you; but these naughty boys made me think you were something like little Miss Smiles."

"Nay, mother, it was your own diseased imagination," laughed Maurice; "but come, Vera, I am not going to be cheated of this waltz--if John does not want you to dance with him, that is to say."

John nodded pleasantly to them, and the two whirled away together into the midst of the throng of dancers.

"Well, mother?"

"My dear, she is a very beautiful creature, and I have been a silly, prejudiced old woman."

"And you forgive her for being poor, and for living in a vicarage instead of a castle?"

"She would be a queen if she were a beggar and lived in a mud hovel!"

answered his mother, heartily, and Sir John was satisfied.

Lady Kynaston's eyes were following the couple as they danced: for all her admiration and her enthusiasm, there was a little anxiety in their gaze. She had not forgotten the little picture she had caught a glimpse of in the conservatory, nor had her woman's eyes failed to notice that Vera's dress was trimmed with peac.o.c.k's feathers.

Where was Helen? Lady Kynaston said to herself; and why was Maurice devoting himself to his future sister-in-law instead of to her?

Mrs. Romer, you may be sure, had not been far off. Her sharp eyes had seen Vera and Maurice disappear together into the conservatory. She could have told to a second how long they had remained there; and again, when they came out, she had watched the little family scene that had taken place at the door. She had seen the look of delighted surprise on Lady Kynaston's face; she had noted how pleased and how proud of Vera the brothers had looked, and then how happily Maurice and Vera had gone off again together.

"What does it mean?" Helen asked herself, bitterly. "Is Sir John a fool or blind that he does not see what is going on under his nose? She has got him, and his money, and his place; what does she want with Maurice too? Why can't she let him alone--she is taking him from me."

She watched them eagerly and feverishly. They stood still for a moment near her; she could not hear what they said, but she could see the look in Maurice's eyes as he bent towards his partner.

Can a woman who has known what love is ever be mistaken about that?

Vera, all wondering and puzzled, might be but dimly conscious of the meaning in the eyes that met hers; her own drooped, half troubled, half confused, before them. But to Helen, who knew what love's signals were, there was no mystery whatever in the pa.s.sion in his down-bent glance.

"He loves her!" she said to herself, whilst a sharp pang, almost of physical pain, shot through her heart. "She shall never get him!--never!

never! Not though one of us die for it! They are false, both of them. I swear they shall never be happy together!"

"Why are you not dancing, Mrs. Romer?" said a voice at her elbow.

"I will dance with you, Sir John, if you will ask me," answers Helen, smiling.

Sir John responds, as in duty bound, by pa.s.sing his arm around her waist.

"When are you going to be married, Sir John?" she asks him, when the first pause in the dance gives her the opportunity of speech.

Sir John looks rather confused. "Well, to tell you the truth, I have not spoken to Vera yet. I have not liked to hurry her--I thought, perhaps----"

"Why don't you speak to her? A woman never thinks any better of a man for being diffident in such matters."

"You think not? But you see Vera is----"

"Vera is very much like all other women, I suppose; and you are not versed in the ways of the s.e.x."

Sir John demurred in his own mind as to the first part of her speech.

Vera was certainly not like other women; but then he acknowledged the truth of Mrs. Romer's last remark thoroughly.

"No, I dare say I don't know much about women's ways," he admitted; "and you think----"

"I think that Vera would be glad enough to be married as soon as she can.

An engagement is a trying ordeal. One is glad enough to get settled down.

What is the use of waiting when once everything is arranged?"

Sir John flushed a little. The prospect of a speedy marriage was pleasant to him. It was what he had been secretly longing for--only that, in his slow way, he had not yet been able to suggest it.

"Do you really think she would like it?" he asked, earnestly.

"Of course she would; any woman would."

"And how long do you think the preparations would take?"

"Oh, a month or three weeks is ample time to get clothes in."