D. Broster - The Vision Splendid (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

"It was only last night, then, as he says?"

"Yes, it happened last night, but it goes further back than that. My eyes were opened after the dance the night before last, when she gave him I don't know how many dances, and they disappeared together at the end. Why on earth did you choose that evening to go to Oxford? I took her home, and then in the carriage she began to cry – said she was tired. I didn't sleep a wink that night, but I congratulated myself that the spark was off yesterday. Imagine my surprise when they walked in together yesterday evening, and he tells me as cool as you please that it is natural I should be surprised, but that you would vouch for him! – Why can't you say something, man?"

"What does Horatia say?" asked Tristram, very white.

"Don't speak to me about Horatia!" cried the irate parent. "I ought to have shut her up with bread and water. I have spoilt her, and this is the outcome of it. And as for you – I can't think why you ever brought a Frenchman about the place!"

Before Tristram could reply to this thrust the Frenchman in question came hastily in, equipped, as was evident, for an immediate start, a cloak over his arm, his hat in his hand.

"I regret that I have to go at once – but at once!" he said to Tristram. "Ah! pardon, M. le Recteur, I did not observe you" – though the bound with which Mr. Grenville had quitted his chair must have rendered him hard to overlook. – "Excuse me that I take leave of my kind host. It seems," he went on, turning to that individual, "that the horses I have procured are old and slow, and that to catch the coach from Oxford I must start immediately. So, with a thousand apologies – – "

"Understand, Sir," interrupted the Rector in high wrath, "that I will not entertain your proposal for an instant, and that I forbid you to come near my house!"

The Comte de la Roche-Guyon transferred his attention to the angry cleric. "Mais parfaitement, Monsieur," he responded with a bland little bow. "I should not dream of entering your house again until I have the consent of my father to the alliance. I go at once to Lulworth in the hope of obtaining that consent. It was not, indeed, what I should have wished, to speak to your daughter before approaching you, but, as I had the honour of telling you last night, Monsieur, I did seek to ask your permission first, but you were out, and time was short. Enfin, when I come again I trust it will be more en règle. Meanwhile, I am your humble servant." He made the Rector another, more formal, valedictory bow, and advanced upon Tristram.

"I know that I leave my cause in good hands," he said gracefully. "Cher ami, for that, as for your hospitality, I shall be your debtor for life. But you English do not like speeches, I know, and time presses..."

As much to prevent a second ebullition of Mr. Grenville's wrath as because time pressed the cher ami hastened with his guest from the room. A few last directions from himself, a smile or two from Armand, a shake of the hand, and the man who had so lightly taken his happiness from him was gone, confident, easy, and attractive to the last.

When Tristram came back into the dining-room the Rector was still standing thunderstruck on the hearth-rug.

"Well!" he ejaculated pregnantly, "for sheer impudence commend me to one of that nation!"

Tristram sat wearily down without replying to this cry of the heart, and there was silence, broken only by a sort of soliloquy on the Rector's part, on the blindness which had been his – and Tristram's.

"Couldn't you see it coming, Tristram?" he repeated. "Although I was such a fool, couldn't you see it. But there, they say Love is blind. It must be, or you would never have ... have..."

"Have thrown them together," finished Tristram bitterly. "Is there any need to tell you that in my wildest moments I could never have conceived of such a thing? I saw that he admired her and paid her compliments, as he might any – perhaps every – woman, but to me he was ... just negligible. He was welcome to pay court to her, if she liked it, because ... because I could not dream that she..."

"There's nothing in that!" said the Rector briefly. "With women you never can tell. But, of course, it is impossible that it should be allowed to go on. You must come back with me, Tristram. You at least have influence with her. I have never yet forbidden her anything – it has never been my way – and I would rather she came to it of herself."

Colour shot into the younger man's face. "I would do anything to help you, Sir, and much more to help Horatia; but I can't do that – not yet."

Mr. Grenville looked away from him. "God bless my soul, what a selfish brute I am ... But come now, my dear boy, once he's gone it will be all right. Horatia will settle down. It's only a passing fancy; of that I feel certain. I have never known her other than sensible. She will see that it's out of the question. – You don't agree with me, eh?"

"From what I know of Horatia, I am afraid that I don't."

"But you are going to propose to her yourself!" said the Rector in accents of amazement, slewing round in his chair.

Out of his pain Tristram showed his own surprise. "No, not now; it's impossible."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Mr. Grenville with great directness. "Then I shall tell her myself."

"Mr. Grenville, I beg of you, I implore you not to do such a thing!" exclaimed the young man in agitation. "It is useless; worse than useless. It would only grieve her kind heart. How little chance could I have ever had! She has – she must have given her love with both hands; I do not think so meanly of her as to imagine that she could ever transfer it ... a gift so priceless," he added to himself.

The Rector pressed his lips together and rose. "Well, I can't understand the present generation. If I had been in your shoes I should have been married to her any time these five years. These reticences and delicacies are beyond me. If a man wants a girl, let him ask for her!"

Tristram smiled a rather dreary smile, thinking that even the successful suitor was not finding this course altogether satisfactory.

"You know I never held your views on persistent courtship, Sir. It would have been better for me, perhaps, if I had ... But this I will do, for Horatia's own sake: I will come over directly I can, and I will try my best to show her that there are ... difficulties ... to take into consideration. But I warn you that if I think it is for her happiness I shall oppose you, Mr. Grenville. I would get her the moon if she wanted it!"

And the sudden passion of this last utterance left Horatia's father dumb.

(1)

Not only the slumber proper to the Long Vacation, but the particular drowsy calm of the afternoon hung that day in sunlight over Oriel. In his lodge at the gate the porter dozed peaceably over Jackson's Oxford Journal ; and, owing to this charmed sleep, a stray black spaniel, of an architectural turn of mind, who had now for half an hour or so been exploring both quadrangles, was at this moment seated quietly in the outer, in front of that porch which distinguishes Oriel from all other colleges, appearing to meditate, in the intervals of scratching himself, on the characteristics of Oxford Gothic, or to admire the few plants in pots, relics of the summer term, ranked down the steps against the wall. Across this porch the September sun cut diagonally, so that half the statue of the Virgin above it was in shade, and one of the two Kings beneath her, and the shadow of the gables from the gateway front lay in sloping battlements on the gravel. Merton tower, looking down over the long roof with its air of being part of the same building, was still in full sunlight, like the Provost's lodgings on the north side of the quadrangle, but, save the slowly creeping shadows, the spaniel was the only living thing visible in the sleepy peace which no undergraduate clamour had disturbed for three months past. Such Fellows as were in residence were out walking or riding – all but two. The porter, if roused, could have told an inquirer – as he was shortly to tell Tristram – that Mr. Dormer was in his rooms; that he was working very hard, he believed, and had not been out of college, let alone on a horse, for three days. Up the staircase on the right – not that he gave this unnecessary indication to Mr. Hungerford.