Contrary Cousins Page 2

  “Stay to tea, dear?”

  Freddy hesitated. What was coursing through that most astonishing of minds now?

  A certain curiosity had gripped him, however, and he nodded. “Thank you, I should be grateful for a cup. Shall the Americans be here?”

  “Any moment now,” replied her ladyship. “Dependin’ on the weather, of course.”

  And with this questionable prediction, Lady Pendleton took up her writing case, and commenced inscribing several cards of invitation.

  Chapter II

  An elegant and worldly-looking gentleman, who had lost a little of his elegance, and all of his good humor since the commencement of the voyage, squinted shoreward, and muttered aloud, “I cannot imagine a more awful fate than to find oneself anchored beneath London Bridge.”

  “It is pretty awful, isn’t it?”

  The rather eager, distinctly female voice made him start. Lord Blandford had not expected a reply. Indeed, he had hardly been aware of any presence beside him save for that anonymous, swirling, by turns overly chatty and biliously silent entity which generally composes the whole of one’s fellow passengers on any ocean voyage. On the whole, his lordship disliked strangers, and never partook in conversation with them. He was immune to that general exception, made by the rest of mankind, with regard to the cohabitants of the same coach or vessel: one or two lapses made in moments of extreme vexation or boredom had taught him that such interchanges inevitably proved more tiresome than rewarding. One was left, besides, with the unhappy fate of having to recognize the fellow conversant forever afterward as an acquaintance. However amusing they might prove at the moment, once arrived upon terra firma they became suddenly boorish and vulgar. Lord Blandford, therefore, took the precaution of shifting his handsomely caped figure minutely away from the sound before turning a cold eye upon its source.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The owner of the voice, if possible, wore an expression twice as eager as her accents would have led him to expect. Lord Blandford, without much pity, soon saw why.

  The speaker was an exceedingly tall, spinsterly appearing female, with a thin face not much improved by a pair of liquid hazel eyes which seemed to fairly wail a pardon for the rest of her. A homely dull brown bonnet was pulled well down over her brow and ears, obliterating her coiffure: a gown of the same unattractive shade was visible beneath the fringe of her dark shawl. A more unprepossessing figure Lord Blandford had seldom clapped eyes upon. Whatever of plain human sympathy might have crossed his mind, upon seeing so obvious a castaway from that glittering, fashionable world of which he, so obviously, was a desirable part, thus hopefully regarding him, was instantly douched by a sense of ill-usage at being drawn into conversation. Anybody in their senses would have seen he wished to be alone. Anybody, that is, with a modicum of civility.

  This young woman, however, though looking slightly taken aback at his brusque manner, repeated her remark in a surprisingly melodious voice.

  “I said, it is pretty awful. I did not expect it would be. It all seems so—well, so desultory, somehow! Not at all what I supposed.”

  “Ah!” exclaimed the Marquis, as if a particularly annoying insect had just expressed its intention of buzzing about his head. “How so?”

  He instantly regretted the question. Americans—for the lady’s voice had given her away as a citizen of that nation—were said to be uncommonly forward. He had once heard a tale from a friend who had gone to visit some relations in Boston, and returned with half his cousins in tow. They had stayed out the year, testing his hospitality to the nth degree, and only with a struggle were they at last persuaded to depart. Once they got hold of you, his friend had assured him, they had the tenacity of slipweed.

  The lady, however, did not reply at once, but peered about her, as if scrutinizing the dirty embankment, the grim-looking customs house, the crowd of rowdy on-lookers on shore, for a hint to her own meaning. A sudden gust from the opposite end of the Bridge brought with it a stench even more noxious than which already clung about them. Lord Blandford’s nostrils commenced to twitch, and one shining Hessian performed an irritable tapping upon the deck.

  “How,” he repeated, in tones which he hoped conveyed not only his impatience for a response, but his eagerness that it would be brief, “did you suppose it would be?”

  The young woman looked startled, as if she had forgotten he was there, which did little to soothe the Marquis’s nerves.

  “Oh! I am not sure! Much grander, I suppose!”

  She turned her limpid eyes upon him once more, and in response, Lord Blandford bestowed upon her his most frigid stare.

  “I think you will find, madame, that London is hardly to be judged from this view of it. Now, if you will excuse me, I must attend to my luggage.”

  Saying which, Lord Blandford (who had really nothing to attend, having in his employ a most competent valet, who had long since seen to the disposal of his trunks) made a curt bow, and turned upon his heel. He proceeded to circle the deck several times, carefully avoiding the spot where the American lady still stood blinking about her.

  “There you are, dear!” sounded a ringing voice behind her several moments later. “I’ve been searching high and low! Feeling steadier, I hope? Ah! I thought so. Nothing like a breath of air to set one to rights!”

  The newcomer, an exceedingly pretty young woman, with a vivacious air and a laughing eye, suddenly wrinkled up her very charming nose.

  “Not,” said she with distaste, “but what this is my idea of fresh air! Dear me, is this London? How perfectly horrid!”

  The latecomer slipped her arm cozily through that of her friend, and stared about her with interest.

  “So very dirty!” she murmured. “I hope it does not all smell so foul. Is that London Bridge?” she demanded, craning back her neck to get a view of the immense old structure spanning the Thames. A little shiver passed down her spine beneath the merino cape, prettily edged with fox. “What horrors must have gone on here!” exclaimed she after a moment.

  The tall lady, who looked even taller and more awkward beside this graceful, merry creature, craned back as well. “Don’t think of it, Tony! How perfectly frightful!”

  “Perfectly!” agreed Tony, not seeming very horrified. A second shiver, more delicious even than the first, coursed through her. Reaching up a slender hand encased in gray French kid, she pulled the fur closer about her throat.

  “Don’t think of it, dear,” said she, patting her companion’s arm. “Look at all the fog! I suppose we shall have it the whole time. Aunt Winnie said we should expect it. Still, I don’t mind much. It rather adds an eerie effect to everything, don’t you think?”

  The tall lady looked uncertain, but smiled nonetheless.

  “Ah!” exclaimed the pretty one after a little, “there goes the gangplank! I do so hope they shall let us ashore now. D’you suppose there will be anyone to meet us?”

  “Oh, dear! I hope so! I should hate to have to struggle through all this by ourselves.” The tall lady glanced, suddenly fearful, at the commotion on shore. The possibility had not crossed her mind before that they should not be met.

  “Never mind, Rena—I am sure there will be. But if not, we shall do very well by ourselves. I’m sure there are carriages for hire about here, and I have got the direction written down. Now, where did I put it?” The bright head bent, a furrow upon her brow, to investigate the contents of her reticule. After a moment she drew forth a rather scrappy bit of paper, upon which were inscribed the words:

  Lady Winifred Pendleton

  43, Cadogan Place.

  “You see! I knew I should not forget that name. Cadogan Place—how lovely it sounds! And, if I should mislay this paper, there is bound to be someone who shall recognize the name. Even in London, Aunt Winnie must be something of an oddity.”

  At that moment, a tall, elderly gentleman, who had been conversing with the First Officer, made his way toward them through the crowd on deck. He had an erect, angular
carriage, his narrow head was rimmed with a graying thatch, and he possessed the dignity of a peer of the realm. His sharp eyes fastened themselves upon the younger, prettier female after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Miss Powell, I believe?” he inquired.

  “We are both of us Miss Powell, sir,” replied Tony.

  The gentleman looked taken aback, and she explained, “I am Miss Antonia Powell, and this is my cousin, Miss Serena Powell. I hope you have come from Lady Pendleton?”

  The gentleman bowed anew.

  “I am Bentley, butler to her ladyship, miss. She requested me to meet your ship, and to do whatever was in my power to ease your way a little through the customs officials. They can be most uncompromising, I am afraid. Rather tiresome, in fact, particularly coming from the Continent. Most irritating, to be sure, but then there are so many who seem to make it their business to smuggle in French silks and satins—” The butler stopped abruptly, and gazed back and forth between the ladies in vexation. “I hope you have not—that is to say—”

  Antonia smiled and put him out of his misery.

  “Hardly a scrap, I am afraid. Papa would forbid me, and my cousin could not be coaxed!”

  “Ah!” breathed Bentley, looking heartily relieved. “Then we shall certainly encounter no difficulties. Now then, if you will be so good as to direct me to your staterooms, I shall see that your trunks are bestowed above. You have maids traveling with you?”

  “One,” replied Antonia. “She is guarding our luggage in the staterooms.”

  And with another bow, the butler went off upon his mission, moving in and out of the passengers on deck with the patronizing little smile with which all really good butlers regard that segment of humanity with whom they are not acquainted.

  “Well!” exclaimed Antonia, when she had seen his immaculate frockcoat disappear. “Fancy! A butler who could pass for a duke!”

  “He seems very efficient, anyway,” observed Serena, who was herself rather scatterbrained, and shared the awe of her kind of those less intimidated by the everyday facts of existence. “And terribly helpful! I should so hate to have had to struggle on our own. Nothing bothers you, of course, Tony—I should have felt quite safe with you, but still—”

  Antonia, who had been rather looking forward to “struggling by themselves,” patted her cousin’s arm, and murmured, “Yes, dear—isn’t it?” in a rather absent way. Her attention was fastened upon the shore, where a great mob of porters had gathered and were forming themselves into a disorderly queue under the direction of the guard. An official-looking fellow, preceded by an officer splendidly got up in a scarlet coat much decorated with gold braid, thrust his way through the mob and strode purposefully toward the gangplank. There he stood conversing with the ship’s Captain, and glancing about him in a self-important way.

  “Why, there is the gentleman I was talking to!” exclaimed Serena softly.

  “What, dear?” inquired Antonia, still smiling at this little scene. The Captain seemed to be growing more irritable with every smirk of his companion. “What gentleman?”

  “Over there, by the bridge. The tall dark gentleman with all the beautiful capes. Such a lovely traveling cloak! In Baltimore gentlemen are never got up so handsomely.”

  Antonia followed her cousin’s gaze with astonishment. “Why, Rena! You are not going to turn into a flirt, are you?”

  Serena flushed to the roots of her wonderful golden-red hair, so unfortunately hidden beneath that dreadful bonnet. It was, in the opinion of her cousin, her chief asset, and had it been flaunted as it aught, might have done much, together with the huge limpid eyes, to counteract her general air of awkward self-consciousness.

  “Oh,” Serena was explaining, growing redder every moment, “he only observed that it was horrid to be anchored beneath London Bridge, and I agreed. It was not more than that, Tony—only a word or two!”

  Antonia saw her friend’s blush, and looked at her more keenly. Wagging a playful finger, she admonished, “Beware of your fortune-hunting dandies, Rena! Papa warned you fiercely, if you recollect!” But, following her cousin’s gaze, she continued to herself, “Well, he don’t look like a fortune-hunting dandy, anyway. But a dandy nonetheless, I’ll warrant, and a most unpleasant one at that. What a pompous look he has!”

  The gentleman, indeed, was looking about him in a most contemptuous way, with obvious loathing in his eye for everything it fell upon. That eye, lighting upon the young ladies at that instant, passed curiously over the figure of Antonia, before happening to meet Serena’s bashful look. Without smiling, he nodded curtly, and looked abruptly away.

  Antonia, witness to the blush, the look, and the indifferent examination of herself, gave a little shudder of revulsion, and clasped her cousin’s arm more tightly. How eagerly she hoped that Serena had not noticed it as well! Her cousin’s self-confidence was so easily shattered that such a look might certainly destroy her carefully pinned-together composure. A stealthy glance, however, told her that Serena had not noticed—or, if she had, had taken it for the natural conduct of an Englishman. In truth, they had witnessed so many different ways of going, since they had first disembarked at Rotterdam three months before, that nothing much could amaze them anymore.

  How much a tour of the Continent could do in the way of opening a person’s eyes! Antonia smiled at the thought. It sounded to her like one of those exclamatory phrases in the pages of those “Texts for Young Ladies” she had been given to read in school. What a relief it was to be rid of those institutions, which seemed to specialize more in the closing of a young ladies’ eyes than in their disillusionment. She herself was far too eager a student of life to be long enthralled by anything confining, patent, or polite. How she had longed for this trip—and how secretly pleased she was that her father had declined to accompany them further than France. It gave the last shrug to the cloak of habit which she had been eager to get off. Now, at last, they were to be free to sail beneath their own flag, to make or break their own fortunes, at least for a little, upon their own.

  As if divining her thoughts, Serena murmured softly, “How I do wish your papa had come along, Tony!”

  With cheerful mendacity, her cousin replied, “Oh, I know—I miss him dreadfully. Still, it is very pleasant to be rid of his cigars, do not you think? And besides, you know he would not come. Nothing could induce him to set foot in England.”

  “How unhappy it is when families quarrel. I suppose they must, but it would be so pleasant if they could forget about it.”

  Antonia laughed. “A great many things would be pleasant, my dear, if only the world did not do as it does. Everything could be made a great deal more cheerful, I am sure. And a great deal more dull, too. Don’t look so shocked, Rena. You know as well as I that if everyone did as he ought, there would be no war, no tragedy; but neither would there be anything great, or glorious, or thrilling! Why, if Columbus had stayed dutifuly at home, as I am sure his wife would have preferred, he should never have set sail for America. And then, where should we be? But dreams in the eye of the world, my dear. No, if everyone did as they ought, there should be nothing worth living for: no wonderful music, no great paintings, not the Sistine Chapel you admired so much, no Coliseum at Rome, no fashion, no balls; nothing, indeed, save dull and dutiful people doing dull and dutiful things.”

  Serena glanced in amazement at her freind. “How poetic you are, Tony! I never knew you were so passionate.”

  Antonia gave her a little teasing glance. “Didn’t you?” she inquired softly, and, biting her lip, gazed steadfastly at the shore. Her eyes, dark and sparkling, seemed on fire between the thick lashes, her cheeks lit up more brilliantly than ever, with a color which was neither rose nor peach, but something wonderful and subtle between the two. Watching her, Serena was struck with new force by the gulf that lay between them. How vivid she was! Like a new rose, touched with dew, pushing its way bravely up in a great patch of weed. Serena felt herself to be only slightly duller than a fern, which,
struggling to keep its place in the shadow of a stone, is only brought to life by contast with such a rare and wonderful flower as her cousin, and whose sole reward in life was to look on, and wonder what discerning eye might pick it out, and at last, what magical hand would pluck it.

  Serena’s reverie was interrupted by the reappearance, at that moment, of the wonderful Bentley, who, having managed to bribe his way past the guardians of the ship, had seen the young ladies’ trunks and bandboxes bestowed on deck, and their maid set to watch over them. Admonishing the Misses Powell to follow him closely, and not to be molested by any of the beggars they might see on shore, he led the way through the crowd of passengers—by this time grown exceedingly impatient to be let off the ship—and down the gangplank. The little procession, which went miraculously undisturbed by either the guards or the ship’s officers (Bentley having been importuned by his mistress to employ the Golden Key wherever it might be needed, and given him ten guineas for the purpose), was soon standing upon firm ground, by the side of a street. This artery seemed to give right into the heart of town, for while it was bounded on one side by the river, the docks, and the customs house, on the opposite side it was lined with buildings.

  Stepping out into the street, and looking up and down in an imperious manner, Bentley muttered to himself, “Now where the devil has that fellow gone?”

  Just then, as if by magic, a large town carriage resplendent with canary paint, its doors emblazoned with the Pendleton Arms, drew out from behind a line of lesser chariots, and nearly ran him down.

  “Careful where you go, man!” cried the butler, jumping back and brushing down the immaculate front of his coat.

  The Misses Powell, much titillated by this little scene, were soon handed up and ensconced within. The postilions in their canary livery regained their perches, the coachman, whose jocularity had nearly cost Bentley his life, took up the reins, and the butler leaned in at the window.

  “I have instructed Boswell to drive you straight to Cadogan Place, miss. Lady Pendleton said I was to wait here to see your luggage safely through customs. I shall bring along your maid when I come with your trunks.”