Mr. Scarborough's Family. Anthony Trollope
Читать онлайн книгу.
put you up to the time of day," said Mr. Anderson, who did not choose, as he said afterward, that this tidbit should be taken out of his mouth.
"I dare say that all that I shall want will come naturally without any putting up."
"You won't find it amiss to know a little of what's what. You have not got a riding-horse here?"
"Oh no," said Florence.
"I was going on to say that I can manage to secure one for you. Billibong has got an excellent horse that carried the Princess of Styria last year." Mr. Anderson was supposed to be peculiarly up to everything concerning horses.
"But I have not got a habit. That is a much more serious affair."
"Well, yes. Billibong does not keep habits: I wish he did. But we can manage that too. There does live a habit-maker in Brussels."
"Ladies' habits certainly are made in Brussels," said M. Grascour. "But if Miss Mountjoy does not choose to trust a Belgian tailor there is the railway open to her. An English habit can be sent."
"Dear Lady Centaur had one sent to her only last year, when she was staying here," said Lady Mountjoy across her neighbor, with two little puffs.
"I shall not at all want the habit," said Florence, "not having the horse, and indeed, never being accustomed to ride at all."
"Do tell me what it is that you do do," said Mr. Anderson, with a convenient whisper, when he found that M. Grascour had fallen into conversation with her ladyship. "Lawn-tennis?"
"I do play at lawn-tennis, though I am not wedded to it."
"Billiards? I know you play billiards."
"I never struck a ball in my life."
"Goodness gracious, how odd! Don't you ever amuse yourself at all? Are they so very devotional down at Cheltenham?"
"I suppose we are stupid. I don't know that I ever do especially amuse myself."
"We must teach you;—we really must teach you. I think I may boast of myself that I am a good instructor in that line. Will you promise to put yourself into my hands?"
"You will find me a most unpromising pupil."
"Not in the least. I will undertake that when you leave this you shall be au fait at everything. Leap frog is not too heavy for me and spillikins not too light. I am up to them all, from backgammon to a cotillon—not but what I prefer the cotillon for my own taste."
"Or leap-frog, perhaps," suggested Florence.
"Well, yes; leap-frog used to be a good game at Gother School, and I don't see why we shouldn't have it back again. Ladies, of course, must have a costume on purpose. But I am fond of anything that requires a costume. Don't you like everything out of the common way? I do." Florence assured him that their tastes were wholly dissimilar, as she liked everything in the common way. "That's what I call an uncommonly pretty girl," he said afterward to M. Grascour, while Sir Magnus was talking to Sir Thomas. "What an eye!"
"Yes, indeed; she is very lovely."
"My word, you may say that! And such a turn of the shoulders! I don't say which are the best-looking, as a rule, English or Belgians, but there are very few of either to come up to her."
"Anderson, can you tell us how many tons of steel rails they turn out at Liege every week? Sir Thomas asks me, just as though it were the simplest question in the world."
"Forty million," said Anderson—"more or less."
"Twenty thousand would, perhaps, be nearer the mark," said M. Grascour; "but I will send him the exact amount to-morrow."
CHAPTER XV.
MR. ANDERSON'S LOVE.
Lady Mountjoy had certainly prophesied the truth when she said that Mr. Anderson would devote himself to Florence. The first week in Brussels passed by quietly enough. A young man can hardly declare his passion within a week, and Mr. Anderson's ways in that particular were well known. A certain amount of license was usually given to him, both by Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and when he would become remarkable by the rapidity of his changes the only adverse criticism would come generally from Mr. Blow. "Another peerless Bird of Paradise," Mr. Blow would say. "If the birds were less numerous, Anderson might, perhaps, do something." But at the end of the week, on this occasion, even Sir Magnus perceived that Anderson was about to make himself peculiar.
"By George!" he said one morning, when Sir Magnus had just left the outer office, which he had entered with the object of giving some instruction as to the day's ride, "take her altogether, I never saw a girl so fit as Miss Mountjoy." There was something very remarkable in this speech, as, according to his usual habit of life, Anderson would certainly have called her Florence, whereas his present appellation showed an unwonted respect.
"What do you mean when you say that a young lady is fit?" said Mr. Blow.
"I mean that she is right all round, which is a great deal more than can be said of most of them."
"The divine Florence—" began Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot, struggling to say something funny.
"Young man, you had better hold your tongue, and not talk of young ladies in that language."
"I do believe that he is going to fall in love," said Mr. Blow.
"I say that Miss Mountjoy is the fittest girl I have seen for many a day; and when a young puppy calls her the divine Florence, he does not know what he is about."
"Why didn't you blow Mr. Blow up when he called her a Bird of Paradise?" said Montgomery Arbuthnot. "Divine Florence is not half so disrespectful of a young lady as Bird of Paradise. Divine Florence means divine Florence, but Bird of Paradise is chaff."
"Mr. Blow, as a married man," said Anderson, "has a certain freedom allowed him. If he uses it in bad taste, the evil falls back upon his own head. Now, if you please, we'll change the conversation." From this it will be seen that Mr. Anderson had really fallen in love with Miss Mountjoy.
But though the week had passed in a harmless way to Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy—in a harmless way to them as regarded their niece and their attaché—a certain amount of annoyance had, no doubt, been felt by Florence herself. Though Mr. Anderson's expressions of admiration had been more subdued than usual, though he had endeavored to whisper his love rather than to talk it out loud, still the admiration had been both visible and audible, and especially so to Florence herself. It was nothing to Sir Magnus with whom his attaché flirted. Anderson was the younger son of a baronet who had a sickly elder brother, and some fortune of his own. If he chose to marry the girl, that would be well for her; and if not, it would be quite well that the young people should amuse themselves. He expected Anderson to help to put him on his horse, and to ride with him at the appointed hour. He, in return, gave Anderson his dinner and as much wine as he chose to drink. They were both satisfied with each other, and Sir Magnus did not choose to interfere with the young man's amusements. But Florence did not like being the subject of a young man's love-making, and complained to her mother.
Now, it had come to pass that not a word had been said as to Harry Annesley since the mother and daughter had reached Brussels. Mrs. Mountjoy had declared that she would consult her brother-in-law in that difficulty, but no such consultation had as yet taken place. Indeed, Florence would not have found her sojourn at Brussels to be unpleasant were it not for Mr. Anderson's unpalatable little whispers. She had taken them as jokes as long as she had been able to do so, but was now at last driven to perceive that other people would not do so. "Mamma," she said, "don't you think that that Mr. Anderson is an odious young man?"
"No,