Leonore Stubbs Part 24

A photograph was presented in lieu of the original, and no one had anything to say against the photograph. It represented an unmistakable soldier, even if he had not been in uniform. The face was clear-cut and clean-shaven, and some might have thought it had rather a melancholy expression--but such expressions in photographs are common, and not always truthful. Leo, for one, openly admired her sister's lover.

"I do detest a smirk," she cried, gaily; "I am so glad Paul's man did not make him smirk. Were you with him when this was taken, Maud?"

No, it had been taken in London on Paul's way through; he had promised copies to his regiment, and Maud had a.s.sisted him to send these out.

Was he sorry to leave the service? She thought he was, a little.

"So you had to--to cheer him up?" rejoined Leo, inwardly laughing over the remembrance of poor Val and his perfunctory proposal. "I daresay it does cheer up people to marry them. Your knight of the lugubrious countenance----ahem!"

"I don't know what you mean," said Maud, coldly.

"Heigho! I came near a cropper that time," muttered Leo, to herself.

When she was alone she took up the photograph again and looked at it.

She could have wished for Maud's sake that she was to be united to a more lively-looking individual. The eyes, she could almost swear, were sad eyes. The mouth had a droop about it.

"It would not matter if it were Sybil or me," reflected she, within herself; "but no one can ever get a word out of Maud unless she pleases, and how is she going to bucket along a solemn spouse?... She seems content with him, and awfully proud of the whole affair--but I always fancied she would end with a jolly, jovial sort of creature, who would not care two straws whether she sulked or not. Now, something in this face,"--she scanned it thoughtfully--"leads me to think that Paul _would_ care. He has a tired look--as if there were a weight upon him.

Good heavens!" quickly, "Maud isn't the person to remove a weight; she's a regular old featherbed herself, when there's nothing to stir her up.

She was all right at the Fosters, no doubt, with this going on, and everybody tootling round her; but if they only knew--if _he_ only knew what she can be like at home!...

"I don't mean to be nasty;" repentance presently made itself felt; "and it may only be that Maud and I don't hit it off; that when I'm in a merry mood, she isn't, and _vice versa_--still," she shook her head sagaciously, "I'm not sure--not quite sure. It is more noticeable than it used to be. Even father gets snubbed and has to put up with it. Both Sue and Syb utterly succ.u.mb.... To think that Maud should be the one--though of course it is her looks--and besides, she herself let slip that the Fosters had got her there on purpose. Paul had come home at a loose end, desperately in need of a wife, and a home, and all the rest of it. The whole thing is clear--the only mystery,--pooh! there's no mystery....

"But it was luck for Maud," she mused on, "and I must say she appreciates her luck, and means to get the uttermost farthing out of it.

How she revels in the idea of a grand wedding! And of course she will be a lovely bride--but I wonder--I hope----" once more her hand strayed towards the photograph, and she gazed at it long and searchingly, "I do hope she will make this poor man happy."

Leo, however, had the wit to keep such speculations to herself. She was only too conscious that she had not managed her own affairs so well as to give her any claim to pry into those of others, and told herself she was a little fool to keep on looking into Paul Foster's face and thinking of him as a poor man.

Directly she saw the real face, it would certainly tell a different tale. Maud breathed satisfaction over her lover's letters; obviously she had no doubts of her empire over him, and even while graciously accepting the encomiums pa.s.sed by her belongings on her choice, let it be seen that she by no means considered all the good fortune to be on her side.

"Paul is deeply religious;" she announced once.

"G.o.d bless my soul!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the general;--indeed there was a universal start, for even Sue, the good, kind Sue, could hardly be regarded as deeply religious. Every eye was bent on Maud.

"Indeed he is," proceeded she, calmly. "He made quite a mark in his regiment, and received no end of testimonials, the Fosters told me.

They did not speak of it before him, but Caroline warned me--I mean told me--privately."

"Took an interest in the schools and that sort of thing, eh? Quite right, very proper;" General Boldero made an effort to recover himself.

"In my day it was quite the thing for the commanding officer to back up the chaplain; but--hum, ha----_that's_ what you mean, I suppose? You are not going to foist a parsonical gentleman upon us, young lady?" Despite the jocular tone, there was a gleam of anxiety.

"I am merely stating a fact," said Maud, stolidly.

"And I am sure we ought to be very glad," murmured Sue in her humble, peacemaking accents--but even she looked disconcerted.

"We can have Custance to meet Paul at dinner, if that will satisfy him,"

was the general's next; he had had a few minutes for reflection, and after rapidly weighing the pros and cons of the new development, decided to swallow it with a good grace. "Will that satisfy him, or will he want the curates too?"

"You may laugh if you choose, but it is as well you should know;" Maud drew up her neck, and retorted stiffly. "Paul has been about the world, and doesn't expect to find people all cut to the same pattern,--only I imagine _I_ shall have to conform to his ideas after we are married, and he has set his heart on getting a house with a private chapel attached."

This was better; the general breathed again. A house with a private chapel? That meant a big house, a stately house, a house he would be proud to go to and refer to. "Oh well, a man must have his fads," quoth he, cheerfully; "and though we have got along well enough at Boldero Abbey without a private chapel, still if one had been here before my day, I don't know, 'pon my word, I don't know that I should have done away with it."

But the above conversation sent Leonore to look again at the photograph.

She was nervous, curiously nervous on behalf of this unknown Paul, of whom every day produced fresh impressions.

As time pa.s.sed, he a.s.sumed a form she had not been prepared for,--and the first joyous flurry having worn off, she felt or fancied that he had in reality been no more fathomed by her sister than she by him.

It will be seen by this that Leonore had herself rapidly altered of late. She had taken to looking below the surface of things. She pondered and prophesied within herself. She perceived the drift of casual observations, and following in thought the byways of life, divined to what they might lead. In fine, her own blunders and mishaps had implanted seeds for reflection, and while less unhappy, she was infinitely more serious than before.

And for Paul Foster's appearance on the scene she grew every day more impatient.

Perhaps she was altogether mistaken about him, and the being of her imagination would prove so unlike the reality that doubts and misgivings would fly to the winds, made ridiculous by a very ordinary individual, devoid of all the mystery, all the glamour cast over him in day-dreams?

If so, of course she would be glad; it would be the best possible thing to happen; and yet? "I shall have to get rid of this Paul from my thoughts somehow," she decided. "He worries me. If he would only come and be done with it!"

It was evident that Maud attached a certain _eclat_ to her lover's piety; she recurred to the subject more than once.

"It is all very well for father to make light of it, but I do hope he understands that it is no joke with Paul. Paul is very sensible, and never thrusts his opinions on other people, but no one ever thinks of laughing at them to him."

"It is only father's way," began Sue, distressed; but her sister continued, unheeding. When Maud had a thing to say she was not to be defrauded of saying it, and she had now got the ear of the house in the shape of two other attentive listeners.

"What I mean is that father always seems to think that it is only clergymen who really care about religion. He looks upon it as their trade,--oh, he does, Sue--and he would be the first to be down on them if they neglected their trade,--but as for other people, particularly other men's caring--and Paul _does_ care, that's the unfortunate part of it."

"Why unfortunate, dear Maud?" said Sue, gently.

"Oh, I only mean lest he and father should clash," explained Maud with perfect coolness. "I am not speaking of my own feelings. _I_ don't mind." After a pause she subjoined: "You might give father a hint, Sue."

"And what about asking Mr. Custance to dinner?" struck in Sybil, who had hearkened to the above uneasily, yet with a different sort of uneasiness from that which made poor Sue breathe an unconscious sigh. "It might create a good impression. Well?"

"It wouldn't take Paul in for a moment," said Maud. "Still," she hesitated and looked over her shoulder as she was leaving the room, "a third person might be of use on the first evening after dinner. Just as you like about that," and she pa.s.sed out with the air of a queen. She felt every inch a queen in those days.

"So it wouldn't take Paul in for a moment?" The words raised a new question in Leonore's mind. If Paul where his deeper feelings were concerned were thus acute and clear-sighted, how came it that he was so blind otherwise? Ah, there she was at it again! Back to her old dilemma--to the bogie which had just been torn in tatters during a merry feminine conclave, in which wedding preparations and wedding clothes had formed the chief objects of discussion.

It was so obvious that no one else had any _arriere pensee_ as regarded the bridegroom elect, that she had suppressed her own successfully for the time being, and entered eagerly into all the details which even Maud condescended to be sociable over.

Maud had been quite sociable and pleasant over everything that morning.

She had read bits of Paul's letter aloud; she had permitted herself to be bantered, even rather mischievously bantered, by Leo; and altogether was so approachable and communicative, that the reference to her lover's religious views and her desire that these should be respected, fell out naturally. Why then should Leo be perplexed anew?

By the time Paul actually arrived, she told herself she was sick to death of him, and everything about him....

And before the first interview was over she was jeering at herself for her fussiness. The man was well enough, but he fell from his pedestal the moment he approached. No, he was not like his presentment. Maud had declared it did not do him justice--Leo thought differently. She ran him up and down with her eye, and though she conceded his stature and general outline to be correctly rendered, there was a disappointing lack of effect; he had not the air of a hero; he had not the lofty, melancholy bearing and inscrutable countenance which was to set him apart from his fellows, a mark for furtive looks and whispers. His brow was not worn and furrowed. His smile was not forced and fleeting.

Obviously he was a bashful man, unused to finding himself the centre of attraction, and almost painfully desirous of acquitting himself well when needs must. When spoken to by a fresh voice, he jerked himself in the speaker's direction with an almost perceptible start, and flushed beneath his tan like a boy.

The position, it must be owned, was trying; Leonore had protested against it beforehand. But her father and Maud were against her, ruling that all should be a.s.sembled and the arrival made an affair of state--in fact neither would have missed it for the world.

"But Paul?" Leo had ventured doubtfully.