Pemberley Shades. D. A.Bonavia-Hunt

she had at first intended to call at the Parsonage during the morning and beard Miss Robinson upon the subject of Rachel Stone, she gave up the project and resolved not to go beyond the grounds immediately surrounding the house. She kept, in fact, to the terrace where she spent some time with Richard and listened to some new words he had learnt to say. The child seemed well enough, but a rash on his neck and arms prompted her to consult Mrs. Reynolds. The housekeeper gave it as her opinion that the spots were an effect of the great heat they were having, and then, for it did not need much to set her off talking, she gave her mistress a history of all the complaints suffered by Darcy and Georgiana during their nursery years. Coughs and colds and biliousness had afflicted them both, and at one time Miss Darcy had been a prey to constant sickness. Unripe apricots were the cause, and after the most minute enquiry it was discovered that they had been taken from the greenhouse by her brother, then a boy of twelve or thirteen, and conveyed to her secretly. On being questioned he had confessed to it all.

      “For I never knew Mr. Darcy to tell a lie,” declared Mrs. Reynolds, “and what he did was in ignorance and the affection of his heart for his little sister. But, oh, how relieved we all were! A little senna put everything right, and I would not wonder, ma’am, but what a small dose would be good for Master Richard.”

      At three o’clock, Elizabeth being then indoors, the arrival of a carriage was heard. But, alas, it brought callers—a mother and two daughters. They stayed fortunately but twenty minutes and then departed. Towards four o’clock she went into the breakfast-parlour to look for a book missing from the library which she thought might have been left lying on one of the window seats. The book was not there, but she stood awhile at the window looking out, and her eyes roved over the prospect of lawn, and river, and wooded slopes beyond, and as far as the avenue of beech trees on the extreme left from which the carriage-road issued on its descent into the valley. In the same instant that her eyes reached this point, Darcy’s carriage came into view and down the steep incline towards the river. Now it had crossed the bridge and, though she could see it no longer, as she darted into the hall she could hear its approach. By the time it had drawn up with a clatter of hooves upon the gravel she was standing at the top of the flight of steps outside the entrance.

      Darcy got out first, but there was only time for a look and a smile before he turned to assist someone inside the carriage to alight. Elizabeth next saw a man, not much less tall than her husband, neither handsome nor plain, neither dark nor fair, but tanned by exposure to every sort of weather. An empty sleeve was pinned to the breast of his coat; he mounted the steps to the door with a decided limp. His face was grave and careworn, but on being presented to her by her husband as Major Wakeford, his smile transformed as it illumined his countenance.

      She said a few words of cordial welcome to him and then turned to receive her second guest. Mr. Stephen Acworth stood before her, very dark, spare, of little more than middle height. His darkness was indeed to the degree of swarthiness; as he removed his hat his hair was seen to be black and curly. His nose was large and aquiline, his mouth wide but not unhandsome in its curves. His dark, sunken eyes had a bright intensity of gaze. As Elizabeth gave him her hand, because she had given it to Major Wakeford, he bowed over it with an excessive gesture of gallantry.

      She recalled afterwards that there had been the light either of curiosity or recognition in his eyes—she could not determine which—as he approached her. In the agitation of the arrival, of having to command the variety of emotions it called forth and to appear most completely mistress of the occasion, she did not discern it until later when she had time to think over every minute circumstance of the introduction. For what chiefly struck her at the moment of first beholding him was her instant conviction of having seen him before, though the when and the where escaped recollection, and try as she would, could not be brought to mind.

      CHAPTER IV.

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      The late arrival of the travellers gave Elizabeth no opportunity for any private talk with her husband before they were all to meet at dinner. She was therefore unable to relate her astonishing conviction that Mr. Acworth’s physiognomy was not that of a complete stranger. The few minutes they might have had alone together on descending to the hall, there to await their guests, were interrupted by Georgiana who followed them almost immediately. In her shyness of the strangers she was about to meet, she kept as close to her brother and sister as possible. Darcy could only ask Elizabeth whether she had received his letter, and she could only reply with an expressive look that indeed she had, before Mr. Acworth also made his appearance from the staircase and came towards them. She was then in a position to judge whether the long journey with its enforced intimacy, the opportunities it gave of close observation, and its leisure to discuss almost every subject under the sun, had in any degree softened Darcy’s opinion of the young man. It was instantly apparent by the change in his demeanour from happy, domestic ease to dignified gravity that no such alteration had taken place.

      At dinner, with Major Wakeford and Mr. Acworth on either side of her, so that she had continually to look from one to the other, she could not but mark the contrast between the two men, which was so complete that it could truly be said that whatever the one was, the other was not. Major Wakeford was serious and quiet; his expression varied little; he had the austere aspect of a man of action who is also a thinker. When he spoke it was in the fewest possible words and was directly intelligible, admitting of only one significance. He was as spare of movement as of speech; he made no fuss of his maimed condition, and showed no self-consciousness in accepting the assistance which the loss of an arm made necessary.

      Mr. Acworth, on the other hand, was seen to be of a naturally vivacious temperament. He had a quick-glancing eye, a mobile mouth, and his whole countenance reflected every passing thought and emotion. Elizabeth had the continuous impression that every look, every movement, and that very many of his speeches were the result of previous deliberation and were so designed as to produce a certain effect upon those before him. There was no doubt that he was trying to please. When, as not infrequently happened, he could take no direct part in the conversation, he fell into a drooping, moping silence, and then looked extremely melancholy. This would last until some chance remark, usually from Elizabeth herself, roused him and his face would instantly light up and his eyes sparkle with renewed animation.

      The talk ran at first upon the journey from town and then discussed travelling in general. There was comparison of routes, roads and inns; everyone had some dire or amusing experience to relate. It was agreed that the route to Derbyshire through Oxford and Warwick was the pleasantest, though not the most direct.

      “I am always happy to stay the night at Oxford,” said Elizabeth, “but I remember one occasion, several years ago, when we were kept from sleeping by some horrid disturbance in the street outside the inn.”

      “Some town and gown affair, probably,” said Darcy. “It may be a time-honoured custom that the two parties should periodically come to blows, but it is none the less annoying to the blameless, peaceable traveller.” He then turned to Acworth and asked him whether he had not been a student of Balliol College.

      “Yes,” replied Acworth. But immediately afterwards he exclaimed, “No, no, what am I saying? I was at Magdalen.”

      To Elizabeth her husband appeared to be trying not to look surprised. The gentleman’s consternation at being mistaken for a member of a college not his own struck her, however, as being merely laughable. She knew that certain colleges at the University ranked higher in consequence than others, either from being considered more fashionable, or from having a greater reputation for learning, but there was no horrifying difference that she had ever heard of between the two that had been mentioned. Nevertheless there are sentiments harboured by the male heart that are forever incomprehensible to female intelligence, and this rivalry of scholastic institutions was undoubtedly one of them.

      Exerting herself to break the rather uncomfortable silence which followed, Elizabeth asked Major Wakeford whether in the course of his campaigning he had ever come so near Bonaparte as to be sensible of his proximity. She was afraid the question might sound downright silly to a soldier of experience, but