# Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 1/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.
Lord Robert was neither very ugly nor misshapen. Yet, standing beside Colonel Wybrowe that evening, the contrast was disastrous to the former. His sandy head reached to the ex-Guardsman's shoulder. His own shoulders were narrow; he wore a pince-nez, and had an upper lip of inordinate length, which he sought ineffectually to clothe with a sparse brushwood. It had the effect of a few hairs from his eyebrows which had got accidentally displaced. His features were not amiss; but he had a way of snapping at his words, and, when caught, holding them as it were in a vice between his thin lips, apparently afraid that they would escape again. His manner, though abrupt, and his voice were those of a perfect gentleman; but they were without charm. And yet he talked well; too well, some people thought. As a debater, he was said to possess great argumentative ability. Perhaps he was too ready to employ this gift to be very popular. Men were apt to call him "a prig;" women did not find him light in hand. He was not much more conceited, and was unquestionably cleverer, than most young men of his standing; and yet socially he was a failure. Why? No one could say exactly. He was kind, though dictatorial, and had many high and ​good qualities; but these do not always make for fascination. If he had low as well as lofty ambitions, he was hardly to be blamed for that. He had been taught from the schoolroom upwards that it was a duty, a necessity, for him to marry an heiress. And as obstinacy was the keynote of his character, it was certain that, supposing he set his mind upon doing a certain thing, he would leave no stone unturned to accomplish it.
"You have not been long in the county?" he said to Elizabeth, as he sat down on the sofa beside her that evening. "Do you like it as a residence?"
"I prefer my own; but the riding here is better."
"Yes—grass country. About us, particularly open. A few miles distant, I will show you our downs, when you come to us on the 20th. I hope you are coming?"
"I am still in mourning, and not going anywhere at present."
"My mother will be sorry. She and my father wished so much to make your acquaintance. Not a large party. Little dance one night—that's all. I never dance myself. You paint, I think? We have some pictures at Colesover would interest you."
"I have heard of the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs there, and hope I may see them some day."
"I hope so, indeed. I am fond of pictures myself. Should have painted, if I had had time. Public life prevents that. Have you studied—from the life?"
"Not seriously—not as I should like. I hope to go to Paris later, and work there."
"Why not London? Can you not get as good models and as good teaching there? This talk about Paris is all ​nonsense. Are you aware that modern French landscape is entirely founded on our Constable and Bonington? As to portraiture, what man have they had within the last hundred and fifty years to compare with Sir Joshua or Gainsborough?"
"I dare say none. That does not prevent their school-training from being, as I am told, superior to ours."
He did not argue further on this head, but said suddenly and swiftly—
"When shall you go to Paris?"
"Oh! I have not thought about it yet. I go on at present working like a mole, in the dark, at whatever I can find."
"Will you let me see to-morrow what you are doing?"
"I don't think I can. I am very much dissatisfied. It is a head of Colonel Wybrowe, but it is horrid."
"Artists themselves are the worst judges. Sir Thomas Lawrence began my grandfather, and left it half finished, dissatisfied. It is one of the cleverest things he ever painted." Then, with another of the rapid changes which were characteristic of his talk, "Do you care about politics? Do you ever come and listen to the debates?"
"I have never been to London for more than a day. And if I were there, I should not go to hear the debates. I know nothing of politics."
"That is a pity. Do you read much? Are you fond of history?"
"Yes; but I care more for past than present history. When time has mellowed events, I prefer them to looking at them in all their horrid crudeness."
​He laughed. "I see. Pictorial, even in this. I like facts before they are varnished. Life can offer a man no greater interest, I consider, than to have a hand in the making of history."
She began to regard him with some faint curiosity. He might be mercenary, as Mrs. Shaw suggested; he might be a number of bad things, besides possessing a frightful upper lip. But, at least, he was no fainéant; at least, he was made of a very different paste from most of the young men who flocked around her aunt in the hunting-field, and dropped in afterwards to drink curaçoa. Of course, the peerless Wybrowe was different. He did not do much now, it is true; but he had been a soldier; be had hunted lions in Africa; and so splendid a piece of humanity could not be judged by ordinary, rules. No comparison between Lord Robert and him was possible. But Lord Robert, as an intellectual study, held her attention. He was better worth it than any number of Captain Draysons.
That gallant officer was devoting himself to the handsome Miss Palliser, from whom he had been separated at dinner, and who had vainly endeavoured to "make some running" with Lord Robert, seated between her and their hostess. He snapped at the beauty politely, after his fashion, but it was very clear that his ears, like his eyes, were more occupied with the heiress opposite. Miss Palliser was not used to be so treated; she turned round, and delivered herself over to the flirtaceous mercy of General Wargrave on her other side. But the elderly lady-killer was only employed as a stop-gap. Now, after dinner, she and Drayson were deep in conversation upon ​a distant sofa. Which digression is needed to understand the continuation of Lord Robert's dialogue with Elizabeth.
"You must come to London," he was saying, in his slightly dictatorial, but yet perfectly well-bred way; "you really must come, before the session is over, and have tea with me on the terrace—or, better still, dinner some evening when we expect a good debate. I think I could make a convert of you."
Elizabeth smiled. "You had better try with Miss Palliser. I suspect she would be more easily converted. She would probably know many of the speakers. I know no one."
"You would know me. And the knowledge of your presence would fire me to speak my very best. Miss Palliser's presence would have no effect on me whatever—any more than a bust of Venus would."
"Are you not an admirer of beauty? What a loss for you!"
"Not beauty of that kind—rule-and-measure beauty. I like expression—character."
Colonel Wybrowe was playing at bezique a little distance off. The lamplight fell on his classic profile—the one that did not show the cast in his eye. He was animated; he smiled at his antagonist; his fingers played with his fair moustache. Elizabeth, with her small knowledge of mankind, was foolish enough to say—
"There can be regularity of feature and expression also, as in Colonel Wybrowe's head."
"Humph! You are painting him? Know the nickname I gave him?—'The Splendid Shilling.' Read the ​old poem so called? The name fits him rather well. So magnificent, and worth so little!"
"His poverty does not affect me."
"Oh, if it were only his poverty—if it were only his pockets that are empty! Puts all his goods in his front-shop window—'In this style six and nine!' The sort of material I detest. But no man is a judge of another man's looks—never ask for his opinion."
"I did not. I expressed my own."
He gave his little dry laugh, which was more like a bark. "You have me there. One man has no business to speak of another. You are very sharp."
A smile played round the corners of her mouth. "I suppose a woman had need be. But I don't cut."
"There are wounds which are not intentional; you have the capacity of inflicting such." This, with a little complimentary bow, was his nearest approach to a piece of polite flummery. Then, like a snap-shot, "Shall you ride to morrow? I will wire to Colesover for my horse—come by train."
"I think not to-morrow. I shall be painting all the morning, and in the afternoon some people are coming here for lawn-tennis."
The following morning Elizabeth was seated before the half-finished portrait, which she had just placed on the easel. And the splendid Wybrowe, armour and all, was in his old pose, a few yards from her.
"It is very bad—very bad indeed," she said. "But I see where I was wrong now; before I only saw it was horrid. Your advice was good."
​"It always is, if you will only think so. Is Lord Robert Elton coming up here?"
"Not this morning."
"I am glad of that. The fellow gets on my nerves."
"He shall not come while you are sitting," she replied demurely, as she prepared her palette. "I will have him all to myself. He knows something about painting. Perhaps he, too, can give me some advice."
"He is sure to offer it. Such a very superior person! So good-looking, too," he added, twirling his moustache.
"Please put your hand down. Do you know what he said to me yesterday?—that one man ought not to speak of another."
"That was probably after he had given some fellow one in the eye."
It was sharp of him to have divined that. She could not deny it, so changed the conversation.
"Talking of good looks, how beautiful Miss Palliser is! I never saw such colouring. I want to paint her."
"She has done that for herself."
"I should not have expected such a nasty ill-natured speech from you. It is not true. Her colouring is quite natural."
"You are very innocent, Miss Shaw. However, it is all one to me. I hate pink cheeks and golden hair. It is so cheap. I prefer dark eyes and a clear olive complexion."
"You are bound to say that, because you are fair yourself," she returned, unmoved. "Your head a little more to the right. I am going to begin"
There was silence for some minutes. Then he said slowly—
​"Do you like Drayson? I was horribly jealous of his sitting next you at dinner last night."
"He hardly spoke to me," laughed Elizabeth, colouring with pleasure. "He talked chiefly to my aunt. He seems good-natured."
"He is an awful outsider. I positively refuse to sit next to Miss Wargrave to-night. She interferes with my digestion."
"How delicate it must be! I should have thought you would have got on so well together, both so much in London society."
"Get on? The difficulty is to get off. She chokes me. I don't want to hear all that stale London gossip over again down here. I'm sick of it at the clubs. I like something fresher."
"Can nobody be fresh who lives in London?"
"She can hardly be as fresh as you are."
"Fresh is another term for green, isn't it? My aunt says I am much too 'unconventional.'"
"Don't believe her. It is as good as a pick-me-up to hear you."
Elizabeth laughed. "Some people think I am 'knock-me-down.'"
"Don't believe 'em," he repeated. Then, after a long pause, "Isn't it a pity that I didn't live three or four hundred years ago?"
"Why? You know I should not have been able to paint you if you had."
"I could have done something then, I suppose. I could have fought in the lists for my lady. But now—what is the use of being big and strong? I can't write books, ​or spout on the hustings, like Robert Elton. I kill pheasants in England, and lions in Africa. It is a waste of good material."
"Brains can be wasted as well as muscle, if it comes to that."
"I have no brains. I have a heart—that is all, besides my arms and legs."
"Why did you leave the Guards?"
"I have just told you—because I am a fool. If I had brains, and no heart, I should not have made such a mess of my life as I have."
This certainly invited a rejoinder, but again Elizabeth was silent. Her brush was not very steady, as she touched the golden lights upon the beard in the portrait before her; but this her sitter could not see. After a moment's pause he continued—
"Perhaps you are wondering how I have made a fool of myself?"
There was no pause now. She cut him short at once.
"No, I am not. I know you have lost a lot of money."
"Yes," he proceeded, in his soft monotone, and his right eye turned slowly towards her as he spoke. "But that is not the worst. The heart had nothing to do with that—only folly. But now, because I am such a duffer, I have fallen in love with an angel, who is quite indifferent—indeed, blind—to my devotion. Idiotic, isn't it, Miss Shaw?"
"Very." She caught the glance of that right eye. "Turn your head rather more to the left, please."
"Won't you say you pity me? You're awfully unkind."
No doubt, to a cold looker-on, there would have seemed ​something absurd in this big superfine gentleman, with his healthy appetite, and his supreme indifference to the outer world, craving a girl's pity. But his listener was young, and she was not cold.
"I should pity—if I believed you. But somehow I—I really can't!"
"What can I do to make you? It is very hard. I never was more serious in all my life. I know I've been an ass. I know every one thinks me a bad lot. But, with your help, what a different man I should be! What a different life I should lead!"
Elizabeth gave a little strained laugh. She was resolved not to take her sitter seriously.
"The idea of a girl of my age helping a man of yours, who—who knows the world as you do! What nonsense!"
"You think so, just because you are so young, and know nothing of—of—things. No battered woman of the world could do for me what you could do, with your freshness—and—and all that, you know."
"Please turn a little more away. And your breastplate has slipped down—that's it. You really must not talk so much. Colonel Wybrowe. You lose the pose, and I can't paint if you do. Now, just a quarter of an hour more, and then I'll let you off for to-day."
Some such dialogue as this, with variations, was repeated every morning that week. The Wargrave ladies and Miss Palliser sniffed. It was a very odd proceeding— very unconventional, indeed—for a girl to be shut up alone with a man, and such a man as Colonel Wybrowe, for an hour and a half every morning, while she painted his portrait. She had said, to be sure, after the first ​morning, that any one could come to the studio who liked, provided he or she did not attempt to look at the portrait. But the invitation had been given with little cordiality, and Mrs. Shaw had declared, in so many words, that it was much better to leave them undisturbed.
As a matter of fact. Lord Robert came once, by himself; but he was called away from Farley on parliamentary business most unexpectedly, and to his infinite disgust, the second day after his arrival. His only tête-à-tête with Elizabeth was when he visited her studio. He stood with folded arms opposite Wybrowe's portrait, and said—
"You don't mean to tell me you did that alone? It is wonderfully good for—a young lady! Flattered, of course—very much flattered. You have got rid of that villainous left eye."
"This is the right side of the face—in profile."
"Yes. Clever of you to have done that."
"I think the slight blemish of no importance whatever; but no two profiles are exactly alike, and I preferred this one."
"Exactly. You have looked at the 'Splendid Shilling' the right side up. You must now go to the South Kensington or Slade School. Paris all nonsense. Are you still obdurate about coming to Colesover on the 20th?"
"I cannot, thank you, this summer."
"Then your uncle must bring you to London. I shall tell him so."
"I believe it is decided we are not to go."
"I shall make old Twisden—you know him?—your family solicitor as well as ours—I shall make him invent ​some business to bring Mr. Shaw to London. You'll accompany him—you must."
She shook her head. He held out his hand, and so they parted.
She did not dislike his company. He knew about things. He rather amused her. If she had not heard of his set mercenary intentions in coming to Farley, and if Wybrowe had not been there, she would have regretted his departure. As it was, she was glad. The "Splendid Shilling"—Lord Robert had so impudently called him—had it all his own way henceforward, unhindered by a sneer. Lord Robert had, indeed, repeated the nickname to Miss Wargrave, who declared it was the cleverest thing she had ever heard, and took care it should go round the house. Mrs. Shaw heard it, and was indignant. Elizabeth turned a silent, scornful lip: the second-hand sarcasm had not the effect of cauterizing the wound this destroyer of domestic peace had effected. Lady Wargrave was very loud in condemnation.
Of course it was easy to see what it all meant. The colonel was a ruined man—a man whom no nice girl would look at—and he was bent upon marrying this heiress. It was very shocking. She really ought to be warned. But it is difficult with some people to arrive at the stage of intimacy when warning becomes possible; and Elizabeth was of the number. Besides, there were her aunt and uncle, her natural protectors, who were evidently bent on this match. In the face of such obstacles how could the most meddlesome of gossips interfere?
As to the men, General Palliser was dull and cautious. ​He would have extremely regretted seeing his handsome daughter attracted by a man who had nothing but his looks to recommend him; but if the young heiress chose so to bestow herself, it was no business of his. Shaw had as much opportunity of learning what Wybrowe's reputation was as any other man. If he received him as a friend—and it was evident that Wybrowe's intimacy at Farley was of long standing—it could be no concern of the general's. Jack Drayson, on the other hand, was a good-humoured rattle. He was conscious that the magnificent Wybrowe looked on him as "an outsider;" but he had no designs himself on Miss Shaw's fortune, and his motto was "Live and let live." He tried to be sentimental with Miss Palliser; Miss Wargrave and he chaffed each other; Mrs. Shaw and he filled odd half-hours with flirtation. Why should he spoil sport by talking about Wybrowe?
Mrs. Shaw's conduct, as a hostess, was irreproachable. Whatever she may have done in strict privacy, in public she always sacrificed herself to her guests. It was to this that she owed her popularity with other women. Jack Drayson was often peremptorily ordered from her side to make himself pleasant to one of the other ladies, while Mrs. Shaw permitted herself to be bored by General Palliser or Lady Wargrave. Elizabeth, on the other hand, possessed neither patience nor tact. No wonder, then, that none of the cakes and ale which Society allots to those who serve her as amiably as did Mrs. Shaw, fell to her niece's share. She was ticketed as a very "odd" young person; brusque at times, absolutely silent at others, and really quite too unconventional! Why, she ​actually deplored never having been to a life-school of painting, with opportunity for drawing from the nude! And she spoke of this openly, before the men at dinner! It was all very well to be artistic, but one must draw the line somewhere. The line which was not to be drawn by a girl, apparently, was an anatomically correct one.
She was still in deep mourning, and wore the same dress every evening. This was an additional cause for the absence of sympathy between her and the other women: she could not talk chiffons. The reduced size of sleeves left her absolutely unmoved; and her dark hair—strong and stubborn—was swept back, regardless of curling-tongs. What could be said to a girl so blind and deaf to the edicts of Society? Pretty, dainty Mrs. Shaw was always so charmingly dressed, and not a hair out of its place upon her sunny little head. How strange she could not inoculate her niece with some of the virus necessary to preserve the female form from the contagion of a virulent commonness!
At the end of the week, these people, with most of whom we have nothing further to do, departed. Their impression of the new heiress and of her delightful aunt are only worth noting inasmuch as they helped to colour public opinion upon subsequent events.
Colonel Wybrowe stayed on.