‘the rich Sir Thomas,’ as you call him. Lady Lundie is now on her way back to England, for the first time since she left it—I am afraid to say how many years since. I expected her yesterday; I expect her to-day—she may come at any moment. We exchanged promises to meet, in the ship that took her to India—‘vows’ we called them in the dear old times. Imagine how changed we shall find each other when we do meet again at last!”
“In the mean time,” said Mr. Kendrew, “your friend appears to have sent you her little daughter to represent her? It’s a long journey for so young a traveler.”
“A journey ordered by the doctors in India a year since,” rejoined Mrs. Vanborough. “They said Blanche’s health required English air. Sir Thomas was ill at the time, and his wife couldn’t leave him. She had to send the child to England, and who should she send her to but me? Look at her now, and say if the English air hasn’t agreed with her! We two mothers, Mr. Kendrew, seem literally to live again in our children. I have an only child. My friend has an only child. My daughter is little Anne—as I was. My friend’s daughter is little Blanche—as she was. And, to crown it all, those two girls have taken the same fancy to each other which we took to each other in the by-gone days at school. One has often heard of hereditary hatred. Is there such a thing as hereditary love as well?”
Before the guest could answer, his attention was claimed by the master of the house.
“Kendrew,” said Mr. Vanborough, “when you have had enough of domestic sentiment, suppose you take a glass of wine?”
The words were spoken with undisguised contempt of tone and manner. Mrs. Vanborough’s color rose. She waited, and controlled the momentary irritation. When she spoke to her husband it was evidently with a wish to soothe and conciliate him.
“I am afraid, my dear, you are not well this evening?”
“I shall be better when those children have done clattering with their knives and forks.”
The girls were peeling fruit. The younger one went on. The elder stopped, and looked at her mother. Mrs. Vanborough beckoned to Blanche to come to her, and pointed toward the French window opening to the floor.
“Would you like to eat your fruit in the garden, Blanche?”
“Yes,” said Blanche, “if Anne will go with me.”
Anne rose at once, and the two girls went away together into the garden, hand in hand. On their departure Mr. Kendrew wisely started a new subject. He referred to the letting of the house.
“The loss of the garden will be a sad loss to those two young ladies,” he said. “It really seems to be a pity that you should be giving up this pretty place.”
“Leaving the house is not the worst of the sacrifice,” answered Mrs. Vanborough. “If John finds Hampstead too far for him from London, of course we must move. The only hardship that I complain of is the hardship of having the house to let.”
Mr. Vanborough looked across the table, as ungraciously as possible, at his wife.
“What have you to do with it?” he asked.
Mrs. Vanborough tried to clear the conjugal horizon b y a smile.
“My dear John,” she said, gently, “you forget that, while you are at business, I am here all day. I can’t help seeing the people who come to look at the house. Such people!” she continued, turning to Mr. Kendrew. “They distrust every thing, from the scraper at the door to the chimneys on the roof. They force their way in at all hours. They ask all sorts of impudent questions—and they show you plainly that they don’t mean to believe your answers, before you have time to make them. Some wretch of a woman says, ‘Do you think the drains are right?’—and sniffs suspiciously, before I can say Yes. Some brute of a man asks, ‘Are you quite sure this house is solidly built, ma’am?’—and jumps on the floor at the full stretch of his legs, without waiting for me to reply. Nobody believes in our gravel soil and our south aspect. Nobody wants any of our improvements. The moment they hear of John’s Artesian well, they look as if they never drank water. And, if they happen to pass my poultry-yard, they instantly lose all appreciation of the merits of a fresh egg!”
Mr. Kendrew laughed. “I have been through it all in my time,” he said. “The people who want to take a house are the born enemies of the people who want to let a house. Odd—isn’t it, Vanborough?”
Mr. Vanborough’s sullen humor resisted his friend as obstinately as it had resisted his wife.
“I dare say,” he answered. “I wasn’t listening.”
This time the tone was almost brutal. Mrs. Vanborough looked at her husband with unconcealed surprise and distress.
“John!” she said. “What can be the matter with you? Are you in pain?”
“A man may be anxious and worried, I suppose, without being actually in pain.”
“I am sorry to hear you are worried. Is it business?”
“Yes—business.”
“Consult Mr. Kendrew.”
“I am waiting to consult him.”
Mrs. Vanborough rose immediately. “Ring, dear,” she said, “when you want coffee.” As she passed her husband she stopped and laid her hand tenderly on his forehead. “I wish I could smooth out that frown!” she whispered. Mr. Vanborough impatiently shook his head. Mrs. Vanborough sighed as she turned to the door. Her husband called to her before she could leave the room.
“Mind we are not interrupted!”
“I will do my best, John.” She looked at Mr. Kendrew, holding the door open for her; and resumed, with an effort, her former lightness of tone. “But don’t forget our ‘born enemies!’ Somebody may come, even at this hour of the evening, who wants to see the house.”
The two gentlemen were left alone over their wine. There was a strong personal contrast between them. Mr. Vanborough was tall and dark—a dashing, handsome man; with an energy in his face which all the world saw; with an inbred falseness under it which only a special observer could detect. Mr. Kendrew was short and light—slow and awkward in manner, except when something happened to rouse him. Looking in his face, the world saw an ugly and undemonstrative little man. The special observer, penetrating under the surface, found a fine nature beneath, resting on a steady foundation of honor and truth.
Mr. Vanborough opened the conversation.
“If you ever marry,” he said, “don’t be such a fool, Kendrew, as I have been. Don’t take a wife from the stage.”
“If I could get such a wife as yours,” replied the other, “I would take her from the stage to-morrow. A beautiful woman, a clever woman, a woman of unblemished character, and a woman who truly loves you. Man alive! what do you want more?”
“I want a great deal more. I want a woman highly connected and highly bred—a woman who can receive the best society in England, and open her husband’s way to a position in the world.”
“A position in the world!” cried Mr. Kendrew. “Here is a man whose father has left him half a million of money—with the one condition annexed to it of taking his father’s place at the head of one of the greatest mercantile houses in England. And he talks about a position, as if he was a junior clerk in his own office! What on earth does your ambition see, beyond what your ambition has already got?”
Mr. Vanborough finished his glass of wine, and looked his friend steadily in the face.
“My ambition,” he said, “sees a Parliamentary career, with a Peerage at the end of it—and with no obstacle in the way but my estimable wife.”
Mr. Kendrew lifted his hand warningly. “Don’t talk in that way,” he said. “If you’re joking—it’s a joke I don’t see. If you’re in earnest—you