Lucilla again expected her guests, on the day of the ball given at Adelonga in honour of the coming of age of her absent stepson; and the hospitable arrangements characteristic of bush households on such occasions, were made for their reception on the usual Adelonga scale. All the visitors were to be "put up" of course; and from the exhaustless piles of material stowed away in the ample store-rooms, bed-rooms were improvised in every hole and corner, and beds made up wherever beds could decently go – in the store-rooms themselves, in the school-room, in the laundry, in the gardener's cottage, as well as in the numerous guest-chambers with which this, in common with other Australian "country seats," was regularly supplied.
Bright log fires burned on every hearth; bright spring flowers adorned all the ladies' dressing-tables; stupendous viands piled the pantry shelves and filled the spacious kitchens with delectable odours.
Servants bustled about with a festive air.
Mr. Thornley, in shirt sleeves, brought forth treasures from the remote recesses of his cellar that no one but he was competent to meddle with.
Mrs. Thornley moved complacently about her extensive domain, regulating all these exceptional arrangements with that housewifely good sense and judgment which distinguished all Mrs. Hardy's daughters.
Rachel found her sphere of action in the ball-room, where with Miss O'Hara and the children, a young gardener to supply material, the station carpenter to do the rough work, and Mr. Kingston to look on and criticise from an arm-chair by the fire, she worked all day at the decorations, which had been designed in committee and partly prepared the day before. The great Japanese screens had been carried away (to be made very useful in the construction of bed and bath-rooms) and the carpets taken up; and now she feathered the great empty room all about with fern-tree fronds – hanging them from extemporised chandeliers, and from wire netting stretched over the ceiling, and from doorless doorways, rooted in masses of shrubs and blossoms that made a bower of the whole place. It was just such a task as she delighted in, and she was considered to have completed it successfully at four o'clock, when she put her finishing touches to a trophy over the chimney-piece, which, though rather complicated as to symbolism, being arranged on a foundation of breech-loaders and riding-whips, had a bold and pleasing effect.
At four o'clock the guests began to arrive. She was directing her attendants to sweep up the last of her litters from the newly-polished floor, when the Digbys' waggonette drove in at the wide-standing garden gates, and rattled up to the house.
After them came other buggies in quick succession. Grooms and house servants poured out to receive them; doors banged; confused voices and laughter rose and fell in waves of pleasant sound through the maze of passages intersecting the rabbit-warren of a house.
Rachel ran to a window and looked out in time to see Lucifer led off to the stables blowing and panting, and jangling his bridle, but stepping out still with unconquered spirit, as became a brave old horse of noble lineage, whom such a master owned.
Mr. Kingston, the only other person just then in the room, came behind her and laid his hands with the air of a proprietor on her shoulders.
"Whose hack is that?" he inquired, with languid curiosity. "Looks a good sort of breed, something like your mare in colour, only much bigger."
"Mr. Dalrymple's," murmured Rachel.
"Dalrymple? – that brother of Mrs. Digby's you spoke of? I've heard of that fellow. I was curious to know who he was, and I made inquiries at the club. He is a rather considerable scamp, if all tales are true."
"All tales are not true," replied the girl, with majestic calmness.
"And pray how do you know?" he retorted quickly, a little amused and a great deal irritated by her highly indiscreet behaviour. "I don't suppose that you have heard all that I have – at any rate, I hope not."
"I know enough," she stammered hurriedly; "I know the worst anyone can say against him."
"I hope not," repeated Mr. Kingston, with ominous gravity.
"And I know he has done wrong – done very wrong, indeed; but he has had such terrible provocations – he has been, oh, so dreadfully unfortunate!" she went on, wishing heartily that she had not undertaken her new friend's defence, yet finding it easier to go through with it now than to turn back and desert him. "And, whatever he may have been once, he is doing nothing to harm anybody now; and it is cruel of people to be always raking up the past, when it is done with and repented of, and throwing it in his teeth. Any of us would think it hard and unfair – you would yourself."
"Never mind me, my dear; my past is not being called in question that I am aware of."
Mr. Kingston's not very placid temper was rising.
"He is doing nothing wrong now," she repeated, frightened but reckless; "if he were, Mr. Thornley would not invite him here – he said so himself. And Lucilla, though she does not like him – nobody likes him, indeed – says he would never do a mean action, and that he has perfect manners, and that he is a thorough gentleman every way. I think they all agree about that."
"And yet don't like him. That is rather inconsistent. And what about yourself, Rachel? If it is not a rude question – are you an exception in this respect, or not?"
He had taken his hands from her shoulders, and was standing sideways in the embrasure of the window, so that he could see her face; and he was smiling in a most unpleasant manner.
Rachel had never seen him like this before, and the first seed of active dislike was sown where as yet there had been nothing worse than indifference. The familiar colour rose and flooded her white brow and her whiter throat. She clenched her hands to still the flutter of her heart. She shut her teeth and struggled in silence against an ignominious impulse to cry.
But Mr. Kingston continued to watch her with that sardonic curiosity; and presently, like the traditional worm, she turned on him.
"Yes," she said, "I am an exception. I like Mr. Dalrymple very much – what little I know of him. I have seen no reason to do otherwise. I do not pay any attention to vulgar gossip."
A timid woman, trying to be defiant, generally fails by overdoing it; and so did she, poor child. Mr. Kingston heard the emphasis of strong emotion, that she would have given worlds to keep back, vibrating through her tremulous accents, and it drove him beyond those considerations of policy and politeness which he made a boast of as his rule of life and action – especially in his dealings with women. Rachel, however, in the category of women, was exceptionally placed with respect to him; and I suppose one must do him the justice to concede that this was an exceptional emergency.
"I'll tell you what," he said, smiling no longer, and speaking with a rough edge to his voice that betokened the original rude nature, usually so carefully clothed, and that she instinctively resented as an indignity, "Thornley can do as he likes about the people he brings here to associate with his wife, but I won't have you making acquaintance with a vagabond like that."
"I have already made his acquaintance," she said quietly.
"Then I beg you will break it off."
"How can I break it off while he is in the same house with me?"
She was surprised to find how strong she was to withstand this incipient tyranny; and yet her heart contracted with a pain very like despair.
"There will be so many people that one – and he a man – may be easily avoided, if you wish to avoid. And you will wish to do what would please me, wouldn't you, dear?" he demanded, perceiving that he was bullying her, and trying to correct
