Waddington. There is no saying what your uncle may do with his money. Yes, I'll go to the picnic; only I hope the place is not distant." So that matter was settled.
CHAPTER IX
MISS TODD'S PICNIC
That matter of obtaining permission for Sir Lionel to join the picnic was not found difficult of arrangement. Good-looking, pleasant-mannered Sir Lionels, who bear the Queen's commission, and have pleasant military ways with them, are welcome enough at such parties as these, even though they be sixty years of age. When George mentioned the matter to Miss Todd, that lady declared herself delighted. She had heard, she said, of the distinguished arrival at the hotel, but she had been almost afraid to ask such a man as Sir Lionel to join their foolish little party. Then Miss Baker, who in this affair bore the next authority to Miss Todd, declared that she had intended to ask him, taking upon herself the freedom of an old acquaintance; and so that matter was arranged.
The party was not to be a large one. There was Miss Todd, the compounder of it, a maiden lady, fat, fair, and perhaps almost forty; a jolly jovial lady, intent on seeing the world, and indifferent to many of its prejudices and formal restraints. "If she threw herself in Sir Lionel's way, people would of course say that she wanted to marry him; but she did not care a straw what people said; if she found Sir Lionel agreeable, she would throw herself in his way." So she told Miss Baker – with perhaps more courage than the occasion required.
Then there was Mrs. and Miss Jones. Miss Jones was the young lady who lost her parasol on the Mount of Offence, and so recklessly charged the Arab children of Siloam with the theft. Mr. Jones was also in Jerusalem, but could not be persuaded to attend at Miss Todd's behest. He was steadily engaged in antiquarian researches, being minded to bring out to the world some startling new theory as to certain points in Bible chronology and topography. He always went about the city with a trowel and a big set of tablets; and certain among the more enthusiastic of the visitors to Jerusalem had put him down as an infidel.
There were also Mr. and Mrs. Hunter – a bridegroom and bride, now on their wedding trip; a somewhat fashionable couple, who were both got up with considerable attention as to oriental costume. Mrs. Hunter seemed to think a good deal about her trousers, and Mr. Hunter's mind was equally taken up with the fact that he had ceased to wear any. They had a knowing way of putting on their turbans, and carried their sashes gracefully; those, however, who had seen Mr. Hunter roll himself into his sash, were of opinion that sooner or later he would suffer from vertigo in his head. Miss Baker and her niece had fallen in with these people, and were considered to be of the same party.
There was a clergyman to be there, one Mr. Cruse, the gentleman who had been so keenly annoyed at the absence of potatoes from the dinner board. He was travelling in charge of a young gentleman of fortune, a Mr. Pott, by whose fond parents the joint expense of the excursion was defrayed. Mr. Cruse was a University man, of course; had been educated at Trinity College Cambridge, and piqued himself much on being far removed from the dangers of Puseyism. He was a man not of a happy frame of mind, and seemed to find that from Dan to Beersheba everything in truth was barren. He was good-looking, unmarried, not without some talent, and seemed to receive from the ladies there assembled more attention than his merits altogether deserved.
Mr. M'Gabbery had talked of not going, but had been over-persuaded by the good-natured Miss Todd. He had become almost overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings in regard to the sacred associations of the place, since George Bertram had contrived to seat himself between Miss Baker and Miss Waddington. Up to that moment, no one had been merrier than he. He had, so he had flattered himself, altogether cut out Mr. Cruse in that special quarter, the good graces namely of those two ladies, and had been prepared to take on his own shoulders all the hard work of the picnic. But now things were altered with him; he had some doubts whether the sacredness of the valley would not be desecrated by such a proceeding, and consulted Mr. Cruse on the matter. Hitherto these gentlemen had not been close friends; but now they allied themselves as against a common enemy. Mr. Cruse did not care much for associations, seemed indeed to think that any special attention to sacred places savoured of idolatry, and professed himself willing to eat his dinner on any of the hills or in any of the valleys round Jerusalem. Fortified with so good an opinion, and relying on the excellence of his purpose, Mr. M'Gabbery gave way, and renewed his offers of assistance to Miss Todd.
There was also Mr. Pott, Mr. Cruse's young charge, the son of a man largely engaged in the linen trade; a youth against whom very little can be alleged. His time at present was chiefly given up to waiting on Miss Jones; and, luckier in this respect than his tutor, Mr. Cruse, he had no rival to interfere with his bliss.
Miss Baker and Miss Waddington made up the party. Of the former, little more need be said, and that little should be all in her praise. She was a lady-like, soft-mannered, easy-tempered woman, devoted to her niece, but not strongly addicted to personal exertions on her own part. The fact that she was now at Jerusalem, so far away from her own comfortable drawing-room, sufficiently proved that she was devoted to her niece.
And now for Caroline Waddington, our donna primissima. Her qualities, attributes, and virtues must be given more in detail than those of her companions at the picnic, seeing that she is destined to fill a prominent place upon our canvas.
At the time of which we are speaking, she might perhaps be twenty years of age; but her general appearance, her figure, and especially the strong character marked in her face, would have led one to suspect that she was older. She was certainly at that time a beautiful girl – very beautiful, handsome in the outline of her face, graceful and dignified in her mien, nay, sometimes almost majestic – a Juno rather than a Venus. But any Paris who might reject her, awed by the rigour of her dignity, would know at the time that he was wrong in his judgment. She was tall, but not so tall as to be unfeminine in her height. Her head stood nobly on her shoulders, giving to her bust that ease and grace of which sculptors are so fond, and of which tight-laced stays are so utterly subversive. Her hair was very dark – not black, but the darkest shade of brown, and was worn in simple rolls on the side of her face. It was very long and very glossy, soft as the richest silk, and gifted apparently with a delightful aptitude to keep itself in order. No stray jagged ends would show themselves if by chance she removed her bonnet, nor did it even look as though it had been prematurely crushed and required to be afresh puffed out by some head-dresser's mechanism. She had the forehead of a Juno; white, broad, and straight; not shining as are some foreheads, which seem as though an insufficient allowance of skin had been vouchsafed for their covering. It was a forehead on which an angel might long to press his lips – if angels have lips, and if, as we have been told, they do occasionally descend from their starry heights to love the daughters of men.
Nor would an angel with a shade of human passion in his temperament have been contented with her forehead. Her mouth had all the richness of youth, and the full enticing curves and ruby colour of Anglo-Saxon beauty. Caroline Waddington was no pale, passionless goddess; her graces and perfections were human, and in being so were the more dangerous to humanity. Her forehead we have said, or should have said, was perfect; we dare not affirm quite so much in praise of her mouth: there was sometimes a hardness there, not in the lines of the feature itself, but in the expression which it conveyed, a want of tenderness, perhaps of trust, and too much self-confidence, it may be, for a woman's character. The teeth within it, however, were never excelled by any that ever graced the face of a woman.
Her nose was not quite Grecian; had it been so, her face might have been fairer, but it would certainly have been less expressive. Nor could it be called retroussé, but it had the slightest possible tendency in that direction; and the nostrils were more open, more ready to breathe forth flashes of indignation than is ever the case with a truly Grecian nose.
The contour of her face was admirable: nothing could exceed in beauty the lines of her cheeks or the shape and softness of her chin. Those who were fastidious in their requirements might object to them that they bore no dimple; but after all, it is only prettiness that requires a dimple: full-blown
