COLONEL OSBORNE
It has been already said that Colonel Osborne was
a bachelor, a man of fortune, a member of Parliament,
and one who carried his half century of years lightly
on his shoulders. It will only be necessary to
say further of him that he was a man popular with those
among whom he lived, as a politician, as a sportsman,
and as a member of society. He could speak well
in the House, though he spoke but seldom, and it was
generally thought of him that he might have been something
considerable, had it not suited him better to be nothing
at all. He was supposed to be a Conservative,
and generally voted with the conservative party; but
he could boast that he was altogether independent,
and on an occasion would take the trouble of proving
himself to be so. He was in possession of excellent
health; had all that the world could give; was fond
of books, pictures, architecture, and china; had various
tastes, and the means of indulging them, and was one
of those few men on whom it seems that every pleasant
thing has been lavished. There was that little
slur on his good name to which allusion has been made;
but those who knew Colonel Osborne best were generally
willing to declare that no harm was intended, and
that the evils which arose were always to be attributed
to mistaken jealousy. He had, his friends said,
a free and pleasant way with women which women like,
a pleasant way of free friendship; that there was
no more, and that the harm which had come had always
come from false suspicion. But there were certain
ladies about the town—good, motherly, discreet
women—who hated the name of Colonel Osborne,
who would not admit him within their doors, who would
not bow to him in other people’s houses, who
would always speak of him as a serpent, a hyena, a
kite, or a shark. Old Lady Milborough was one
of these, a daughter of a friend of hers having once
admitted the serpent to her intimacy.
‘Augustus Poole was wise enough to take his
wife abroad,’ said old Lady Milborough, discussing
about this time with a gossip of hers the danger of
Mrs Trevelyan’s position, ’or there would
have been a breakup there; and yet there never was
a better girl in the world than Jane Marriott.’
The reader may be quite certain that Colonel Osborne
had no premeditated evil intention when he allowed
himself to become the intimate friend of his old friend’s
daughter. There was nothing fiendish in his nature.
He was not a man who boasted of his conquests.
He was not a ravening wolf going about seeking whom
he might devour, and determined to devour whatever
might come in his way; but he liked that which was
pleasant; and of all pleasant things the company of
a pretty clever woman was to him the pleasantest.
At this exact period of his life no woman was so pleasantly
pretty to him, and so agreeably clever, as Mrs Trevelyan.
