第94章 Lady Caroline's Dinner (4)

The recollection, too, that she had been all her life enjoying the money which he and her sister Jean had forfeited by their opinions, made her grieve the more over the little details of poverty and privation.Old Mr.Raeburn had left all his money to her, bequeathing to his other daughter and his reprobate son the sum of one shilling, with the hope that Heaven would bring them to a better mind.It was some comfort to learn from Erica that at last the terrible load of debt had been cleared off, and that they were comparatively free from trouble just at present.

With these thoughts in her mind, Mrs.Fane-Smith found herself on her way to Lady Caroline's; but her developing breadth of view was destined to receive a severe shock.They were the last guests to arrive, and at the very moment of their entrance Lady Caroline was talking in her most vivacious way to Mr.Cuthbert, a young clergyman, the vicar of one of the Greyshot churches.

"I am going to give you a treat, Mr.Cuthbert," she said laughingly."I know you are artistic, and so I intend you to take down that charming niece of Mrs.Fane-Smith's.I assure you she is like a Burne-Jones angel!"Mr.Cuthbert smiled a quietly superior smile, and coolly surveyed Erica as she came in.Dinner was announced almost immediately, and it was not until Mrs.Fane-Smith had been taken down that Lady Caroline brought Mr.Cuthbert to Erica's side to introduce him."Why, your aunt has never told me your name," she said, smiling.

"My name is Erica Raeburn," said Erica, quite unconscious that this was a revelation to every one, and that her aunt had purposely spoken of her everywhere as "my niece."Lady Caroline gave a scarcely perceptible start of surprise, and there was a curious touch of doubt and constraint in her voice as she pronounced the "Mr.Cuthbert Miss Raeburn." Undoubtedly that name sounded rather strangely in her drawing room, and awoke uncomfortable suggestions..

"Raeburn! Erica Raeburn!" thought Mr.Cuthbert to himself.

"Uncommon name in England.Connection, I wonder! Aunt hadn't given her name! That looks odd.I'll see if she has a Scotch accent.""Are you staying in Greyshot?" he asked as they went down the broad staircase, with its double border of flowering plants.

"Yes," said Erica; "I came last week.What lovely country it is about here!""Country," with its thrilled "r," betrayed her nationality, though her accent was of the slightest.Mr.Cuthbert chuckled to himself, for he thought he had caught Mrs.Fane-Smith tripping, and he was a man who derived an immense amount of pleasure from making other people uncomfortable.As a child, he had been a tease; as a big boy, he had been a bully; as a man, he had become a malicious gossip monger.Tonight he thought he saw a chance of good sport, and directly he had said grace, in the momentary pause which usually follows, he turned to Erica with an abrupt, though outwardly courteous question, carried off with a little laugh.

"I hope you are no relation to that despicable infidel who bears your name, Miss Raeburn?"Erica's color deepened; she almost annihilated him with a flash from her bright indignant eyes.

"I am Luke Raeburn's daughter," she said, in her clearest voice, and with a dignity which, for the time, spoiled Mr.Cuthbert's enjoyment.

Many people had heard the vicar's question during the pause, and not a few listened curiously for the answer which, though quietly spoken, reached many ears, for nothing gives so much penetrating power to words as concentrated will and keen indignation.Before long every one in the room knew that Mrs.Fane-Smith's pretty niece was actually the daughter of "that evil and notorious Raeburn."Mr.Cuthbert had certainly got his malicious wish; he had succeeded in making Mrs.Fane-Smith miserable, in making his hostess furious, in putting his little neighbor into the most uncomfortable of positions.Of course he was not going to demean himself by talking to "that atheist's daughter." He enjoyed the general discomfiture to his heart's content, and then devoted himself to the lady on his other side.

As for Erica her blood was up.Forced to sit still, forced even to eat at a table where she was an unwelcome guest, her anger got the mastery of her for the time.She was indignant at the insult to her father, indignant, too, that her aunt had ever allowed her to get into such a false position.The very constraint she was forced to put upon herself made her wrath all the deeper.She was no angel yet, though Mr.Burne-Jones might have taken her for a model.

She was a quick-tempered little piece of humanity; her passions burned with Highland intensity, her sense of indignation was strong and keen, and the atmosphere of her home, the hard struggle against intolerable bigotry and malicious persecution had from her very babyhood tended to increase this.She had inherited all her father's passion for justice and much of his excessive pride, while her delicate physical frame made her far more sensitive.Moreover, though since that June morning in the museum she had gained a peace and happiness of which in the old days she had never dreamed, yet the entire change had in many ways increased the difficulties of her life.Such a wrench, such an upheaval as it had involved, could not but tell upon her immensely.And, besides, she had in every way for the last three months been living at high pressure.

The grief, the disapproval, the contemptuous pity of her secularist friends had taxed her strength to the utmost, but she had stood firm, and had indeed been living on the heights.

Now the months of Charles Osmond's careful preparation were over, her baptism was over, and a little weary and overdone with all that she had lived through that summer, she had come down to Greyshot expecting rest, and behold, fresh vexations had awaited her!