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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Where are you going this summer?" she asked him, as they stood beside the shining water, and watched the eddies and ripples of the stream. "I usually go abroad. But Sir John has been asking me to Culverley again." "You do not mean to go to Switzerland, then? You spoke of it the other day." "No, I think not. I do not want to be so far away from from London."
But he was distinctly pleased to find that Sir John's carriage and pair, which met them at the station, was irreproachable, and that Culverley was a very fine old house, situated in the midst of a lovely park and approached by an avenue of lime-trees, which, Sir John informed him, was one of the oldest in the country.
And while he was wondering, with some irritation, what this change might mean, she drew back into a bow window, and motioned to him almost imperceptibly to follow her. "Look at John's gloxinias," said Nan. "They came from Culverley, you know. Oh, Mr. Campion, I want to tell you I'm sorry that I was so rude to you at Culverley last summer."
"She won't like it so well as Culverley," said Sydney to himself, with a half smile, "but it will be better than a drawing-room." He did not like to confess to himself how nervous he felt. His theory had always been that a man should not propose to a woman unless he is sure that he will be accepted. He was not at all sure about Nan's feelings towards him, and yet he was going to propose.
Sydney never truckled: he was perfectly independent in manner and in thought; but the good things of the world were so desirable to him that for some of them as he confessed to himself with a half-laugh at his own weakness he would almost have sold his soul. They arrived at Culverley shortly before dinner, and Sydney had time for very few introductions before going to the dining-room.
But one invitation, given by Sir John Pynsent, for the Sunday subsequent to his election or rather, from Saturday to Monday he thought it expedient as well as pleasant to accept. Vanebury was a very few miles distant from St. John's country-house, and when the baronet, in capital spirits over his friend's success, urged him to run over to Culverley for a day or two, he could not well refuse.
Nan was in the schoolroom when Lady Pynsent first arrived at Culverley, and the child had been treated with kindness and discretion. Nan repaid the kindness by an extravagant fondness for her little nephews, who treated her abominably, and the discretion by an absolute surrender of her will to Lady Pynsent's as far as her intercourse with the outer world was concerned.
She turned and looked at him inquiringly, the color deepening a little in her pale face. "I am staying at Culverley," he said, in an explanatory tone. "I had the pleasure of hearing you play last night." "You are Mr. Campion, I think?" she said. "Yes, I shall be very glad of your help. I need not introduce myself, I see.
He was glad to remember that he was leaving Culverley next day, and he determined that he would rather avoid the female Pynsents than otherwise when they came to town. He could not yet do without Sir John, and he was vexed to think that these women should have any handle however trifling against him.
A long conference in the smoking-room on political matters put music and musicians out of his head; and when he went to sleep, about two o'clock in the morning, it was to dream, if he dreamt at all, of his maiden speech in Parliament, and that elevation to the woolsack which his mother was so fond of prophesying. Sydney was an early riser, and breakfast on Sundays at Culverley was always late.
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