CHAPTER III

MISS HOLMES

Two and a half hours passed by, most of which time I spent lying down to rest and get rid of a headache caused by the continual, rapid firing and the roar of the gale, or both; also in rubbing my shoulder with ointment, for it was sore from the recoil of the guns.  Then Scroope appeared, as, being unable to find my way about the long passages of that great old castle, I had asked him to do, and we descended together to the large drawing-room.

It was a splendid apartment, only used upon state occasions, lighted, I should think, with at least two or three hundred wax candles, which threw a soft glow over the panelled and pictured walls, the priceless antique furniture, and the bejewelled ladies who were gathered there.  To my mind there never was and never will be any artificial light to equal that of wax candles in sufficient quantity.  The company was large; I think thirty sat down to dinner that night, which was given to introduce Lord Ragnall’s future wife to the neighbourhood, whereof she was destined to be the leader.

Miss Manners, who was looking very happy and charming in her jewels and fine clothes, joined us at once, and informed Scroope that “she” was just coming; the maid in the cloakroom had told her so.

“Is she?” replied Scroope indifferently.  “Well, so long as you have come I don’t care about anyone else.”

Then he told her she was looking beautiful, and stared at her with such affection that I fell back a step or two and contemplated a picture of Judith vigorously engaged in cutting off the head of Holofernes.

Presently the large door at the end of the room was thrown open and the immaculate Savage, who was acting as a kind of master of the ceremonies, announced in well-bred but penetrating tones, “Lady Longden and the Honourable Miss Holmes.”  I stared, like everybody else, but for a while her ladyship filled my eye.  She was an ample and, to my mind, rather awful-looking person, clad in black satin—­she was a widow—­and very large diamonds.  Her hair was white, her nose was hooked, her dark eyes were penetrating, and she had a bad cold in her head.  That was all I found time to notice about her, for suddenly her daughter came into my line of vision.

Truly she was a lovely girl, or rather, young woman, for she must have been two or three-and-twenty.  Not very tall, her proportions were rounded and exquisite, and her movements as graceful as those of a doe.  Altogether she was doe-like, especially in the fineness of her lines and her large and liquid eyes.  She was a dark beauty, with rich brown, waving hair, a clear olive complexion, a perfectly shaped mouth and very red lips.  To me she looked more Italian or Spanish than Anglo-Saxon, and I believe that, as a matter of fact, she had some southern blood in her on her father’s side.  She wore a dress of soft rose colour, and her only ornaments were a string of pearls and a single red camellia.  I could see but one blemish, if it were a blemish, in her perfect person, and that was a curious white mark upon her breast, which in its shape exactly resembled the crescent moon.