Rest Harrow. Maurice Hewlett
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of Grandmamma, that gaitered gentleman with a square-topped felt hat upon his head and grizzled whiskers below his ears, in favour of a group of five girls in black muslin and lace, sisters evidently, prosperously together, an uncommonly happy five. They look on good terms with themselves and with each other. They look frankly at you out of the frame—and how they must have dazzled the photographer with their five pair of bright, uncompromising eyes! Hands rest easily upon familiar shoulders, elbows on knees. One of them smiles outright, two are very ready to smile; one is more serious, as becomes the eldest of five; and one is round-cheeked and solemn—the baby.
Miss Percival and her sisters, it's clear. One can't mistake the rounded chin, the level brows, the promise of womanhood. Women should always be photographed in evening dress if, like the Misses Percival, they have nothing to hide. But now to pick out our Miss Percival. You will observe that the young ladies' names are neatly printed beneath their persons.
Even if I were sure of dates, I should not insist upon the serious one. So far as I can judge, the photograph is some eight or ten years old. I go by the style of hair-dressing which it shows, and by the name of the photographer, who signs from Wigmore Street. He is out of date; fashion has deserted him. Then that grave, watchful young goddess, who sits enthroned with her nymphs about her, must be a great deal older than our lady of this room, of the doubtful smile and friendly desires. She has the sedate air of eight-and-twenty, and by this time must be thirty-six or even more. She is Philippa, anyhow, we read. Who comes next? Here is Hawise, standing behind her of the throne and the centre, with a hand on her bare shoulder. She is laughing, sleepily; she is distinctly pretty, but distinctly, also, fat. She cannot be the owner of this room.
There's a taste for names in the Percival family: we have Philippa, Hawise. Now for the seated pair, one on either side of Philippa: they are Melusine, who has a long neck and a very demure look, and a great deal of hair, and Victoria, who, having just tossed back her head, lifts her chin and glimmers at you through half-shut eyes. Her lips laugh snugly at some mischief meditating. Neither of these can be our lady, who must therefore be the last and youngest, this child of eighteen or so, round-cheeked, round-eyed and serious, with critical lids, like those of the Farnese Hera, and a beautiful mouth: Sanchia-Josepha, crouched on the floor at the feet of Philippa. A charming bevy of maidens—Philippa, Hawise, Melusine, Victoria, Sanchia-Josepha; ten years ago happily sisters and rich in promise, looking out boldly at the veiled years ahead of them. Ten years ago? Call it eight, and you make our Miss Percival, say, six-and-twenty by this time.
There are many other photographs—girls and women, most of them; but here is a man, dignified by a place apart upon the bureau. He occupies one side of it by himself, balanced by the sisters at the other. A youngish man in yeomanry uniform he appears only in torso. He has the smooth head of a soldier, and rather a low, but very square, forehead. His eyes are smallish, and set deep. They look to be grey, light grey, but may be light blue. He has a good nose, high-bridged, large, thin, and practically straight. Such noses are seldom perfectly straight, and his is not. I observe that he has curled his moustache with the tongs, so that it is well away from his upper lip. If I had been he I should not have done that. It is too much trouble—and if a man takes pains about his toilette, those pains ought not to be evident. Moreover, the mouth is by no means this young man's best feature. There is a twist, the hint of a snarl in the upper lip. The lower protrudes. The gentleman is the least in life underhung. Consider his chin. It has the jut of the Hapsburgs', of Charles the Fifth's, not pronounced by any means, but undoubtedly there. Firmness, or perhaps obstinacy, hard judgment, an uneven temper, a leaning to autocracy, I read in this portrait. There is no signature, nothing to tell you who he is. Certainly, no Percival.
I call your attention to one more photograph, in marked distinction to others of your notice. Those were, in every sense, full—dress affairs; this one, in all senses, undress. It is the work of an amateur, you can see at once—small, rather blurred to begin with, not perfectly focussed, and fading now towards the end of all such gear. It represents a bareheaded young lady in a white gown pinned very high. She is standing in a pond, with the water well over her knees. One hand keeps her balance with a pole, the other grasps a streamer of water-weed. Floating beyond her upon some kind of raft is a man, bareheaded also, in a white sweater with a rolling collar. His face is shadowed—you can see that his hair, black and straight, falls over his eyes. He is raking up the weed with his hand, his arm bare to the shoulder. Below is written, in a round, sprawling hand, “To Sanchia from Percy.” Both the workers are intent upon their task, with no idea that they are posing. The girl has a Greek face, and a very fine pair of legs heedlessly displayed. The man is as thin as a gypsy. Out of the dark in which his face is hidden gleam his white teeth. A classical, rather than romantic scene. The absence of draperies suggest it; but the absence of self-consciousness is conclusive.
But I keep Miss Percival too long at the fender. She had been standing there for some minutes after her entry, first re-reading her telegram, next stroking her chin with it. She was thoughtful still, and still smiling. Once she looked over her shoulder through the window to the dying day, and lightly sighed. The time was April's end, and had been squally, with violent storms; but the last onslaughts of the north-wester had routed the rain-clouds. The day was dying under a clear saffron sky, and a thrush piped its mellow elegy. Miss Percival heard him, and listened, smiling with her lips, and with her eyes also which the serene light soothed. Her lips barely moved, just relaxed their firm embrace, but no more. She held the light gratefully with her eyes, seemed unwilling to lose a moment of it, wistful to be still out of doors. Again she lightly sighed, and presently resumed her downward gazing at the fire.
Knuckles quavered at the door. She straightened herself, turned, and called out definitely, “Come in.” Mrs. Benson stood before her, vast, massive, black-gowned, cloudy for trouble, a cook.
There was instantly to be observed in Miss Percival's lifted head and eyes the same frank appeal for interchange of sentiments as had been manifested to Minnie the maid. Her brows were smoothed out, her smile became less dubious; her intention to be friendly was deliberately expressed. But truth will have it that, just as before, Mrs. Benson's guard turned out at the same moment, as at a signal. To vary the figure, her vedettes, in touch with the advancers, fell back upon the main body.
If the young lady perceived this she did not cease to be amiably disposed. “Oh, Mrs. Benson,” she said, “I've had a telegram.”
Mrs. Benson, with strict non-committal, lifted her eyebrows to “Well, well!” It was as if she implied that such things were to be expected in a world full of trouble. “So I hear, Miss Percival,” she grimly said.
“It's from Mr. Ingram, you know.”
“Ah, well—” Mrs. Benson could have been heard to sigh; but among the many things which Miss Percival chose to ignore, this sort of thing was one. Trouble to her, always, was a signal which braced the nerves and sinews.
“It's to say—but I think you had better read it.” It was held out unfalteringly, while Mrs. Benson dived for, opened, wiped, tested, and fixed her spectacles. These operations concluded, it was received as might have been a dangerous explosive.
Punctuating as she went, Mrs. Benson read, “Home to-morrow—seven people—Ingram.” Then she looked, confirmed in her omens, over the rim of her spectacles. “Seven people, Miss Percival! A house-party! And, as you may say, at a moment's notice. Dear, dear, dear!”
Miss Percival remained cheerful. “Oh, I don't read it like that,” she said, went behind Mrs. Benson, and read over her shoulder, pointing the words with a pencil still wet from her mouth. “'Home to-morrow, seven—with people—Ingram.' That's what it must mean, of course.” She spoke wooingly, but Mrs. Benson was not to be won.
“Then, why does he say 'Seven people,' Miss Percival? Why does he say that?”
“But he doesn't, according to me.” She laughed. “He is telling us the time of his train. How could we meet him and his people if he didn't?”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Benson, heavily prepared for the worst, “how could we? That's where it is, you see. But of course he wouldn't think of us.”
“But