Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her
nephew, Captain Oakley.
They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to
their rooms and dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with
eloquent descriptions of the youthful Captain whom she had
met in the gallery, on his way to his room, with the servant, and told me how he stopped to let her pass, and how 'he smiled so 'ansom.'
I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than
my years; but this talk of Mary Quince's interested me, I must
confess, considerably. I was painting all sort of portraits of this
heroic soldier, while affecting, I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference
to her narration, and I know I was very nervous and
painstaking about my toilet that evening. When I went down
to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talking volubly
to my father as I entered—a woman not really old, but such as
very young people fancy aged—energetic, bright, saucy, dressed
handsomely in purple satin, with a good deal of lace, and a rich
point—I know not how to call it—not a cap, a sort of head-dress—light
and simple, but grand withal, over her greyish, silken
hair.
Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm
figure, with something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like
a young person, and coming quickly to meet me with a smile—
'My young cousin!' she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks. 'You know who I am? Your cousin Monica—Monica Knollys—and very glad, dear, to see you, though she has not set eyes on you since you were no longer than that paper-knife. Now come here to the lamp, for I must look at you. Who is she like? Let me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my dear; but you've the Aylmer nose—yes—not a bad nose either, and, come I very good eyes, upon my life—yes, certainly something of her poor mother—not a bit like you, Austin.'
My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there
for a long time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he—
'So much the better, Monica, eh?'
'It was not for me to say—but you know, Austin, you always
were an ugly creature. How shocked and indignant the little
girl looks! You must not be vexed, you loyal little woman, with
Cousin Monica for telling the truth. Papa was and will be ugly
all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell her—is not it so?'
'What! depose against myself! That's not English law, Monica.'
'Well, maybe not; but if the child won't believe her own eyes, how is she to believe me? She has long, pretty hands—you have—and very nice feet too. How old is she?'
'How old, child?' said my father to me, transferring the
question.
She recurred again to my eyes.
'That is the true grey—large, deep, soft—very peculiar. Yes, dear, very pretty—long lashes, and such bright tints! You'll be in the Book of Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have all the poet people writing verses to the tip of your nose—and a very pretty little nose it is!'
I must mention here how striking was the change in my
father's spirit while talking and listening to his odd and voluble
old Cousin Monica. Reflected from bygone associations, there
had come a glimmer of something, not gaiety, indeed, but like
an appreciation of gaiety. The gloom and inflexibility were
gone, and there was an evident encouragement and enjoyment
of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.
How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual
solitude, I think, appeared from the evident thawing and brightening
that accompanied even this transient gleam of human society. I was not a companion—more childish than most girls of my age, and trained in all his whimsical ways, never to interrupt a silence, or force his thoughts by unexpected question or remark out of their monotonous or painful channel.
I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he
submitted to his cousin's saucy talk; and, indeed, just then
those black-panelled and pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen
room, seemed to have exchanged their stern and awful
character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me, notwithstanding
the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which
the plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.