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She did not ask amateurs to sing or play; but she had one or two professionals staying in the house, who were "charmed" to perform for her; and she had secured a well-known "local man" to play accompaniments. In the case of one at least of the professionals, Lady Pynsent paid a very handsome fee for his services; but this fact was not supposed to transpire to the general public.
The climate never agreed with the poor fellows, and just now he had over four hundred slaves in barracks, and only one son-in-law, an Englishman, to look after them. The old man made me welcome. A father couldn't have shown himself kinder, and when I told him about the Mary Pynsent he could scarce contain himself.
And then, collecting herself, she added, "At least not just yet a little later in the afternoon, I mean." "I'll tell him to look in at four," said Lady Pynsent. So at four Sydney was admitted, and it would have been hard to say whether husband or wife felt the more embarrassment. Sydney tried hard to behave as though nothing were amiss between them.
"Ah! that's the reason she did not come down to dinner. She is a very pretty girl, and no doubt Lady Pynsent keeps her in the nursery or schoolroom as much as possible. I should like to see her again. Perhaps, as to-morrow is Sunday, she may come down with the children." It will be evident to the meanest capacity that Sydney was making an absurd mistake as to the identity of the violinist.
It spoke well for Sydney's genuine affection that he had ceased of late to think of the worldly fortune that Nan might bring him, and remembered only that he wanted Nan Pynsent for herself. She greeted him with a smile. She had grown a little quieter, a little more conventional in manner of late: he did not like her any the worse for that.
It did not occur to him for some time that he was expending a great deal of unusual warmth and irritation on a very trifling matter. What were Miss Pynsent and her opinions to him? Other women admired him, if she did not; other women were ready enough to accept his flattery.
Wagg noted everything that he saw; the barometer and the letter-bag, the umbrellas and the ladies' clogs, Pen's hats and tartan wrapper, and old John opening the drawing-room door, to introduce the new-comers. Such minutiae attracted Wagg instinctively; he seized them in spite of himself. "Old fellow does all the work," he whispered to Pynsent. "Caleb Balderstone.
Pynsent, supposed to be so cold and so ambitious, had formally offered his hand to Miss Bell. No one except herself and her admirer knew of this proposal: or that Pynsent had been rejected by her, and probably the reasons she gave to the mortified young man himself were not those which actuated her refusal, or those which she chose to acknowledge to herself.
Perhaps the phenomenal success which had crowned it had some effect upon him; and Lady Pynsent wrote him a nice letter of congratulation, expressing a great desire to know his "distinguished sister." At all events, the thing was done, and Lettice must now be definitely accepted as a writer of books.
They had the greatest trouble to get her down to play to-night. Awfully lucky for Lady Pynsent," and then the voices were lowered, but Sydney heard something about "the last governess," and "a perfect treasure," which seemed to reveal the truth. "The governess! A violin-playing governess," he thought, with a mixture of scorn and relief, which he did not altogether understand in himself.
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