“I wish you wouldn’t sit in the dark,” said Fred, dropping the curtain behind him as he entered. “I can’t see where you are sitting, and if I am not so respectful as I ought to be, I hope I may be forgiven, for I can see nothing. Oh, here you are!”
“It is not the princess; you are not expected to go on your knees,” said his sisters, while Effie once more felt herself blush furiously at being the subject of the conversation. “You are going to be presented to Miss Ogilvie—don’t you know the young lady in white?—oh, of course, you remember. Effie, my brother Fred. And now you know us all, and we are going to be the best of friends.”
“This is very familiar,” said Fred. “Miss Ogilvie, you must not visit it upon me if Phyll and Dor are exasperating. They always are. But when you come to know them theyare not so bad as you might think. They have it all their own way in this house. It has always been the habit of the family to let the girls have their own way—and we find it works well on the whole, though in point of manners it may leave something to be desired.”
He had thrown himself carelessly on the sofa beside his sister as he spoke. Effie sat very still and erect on her chair and listened with a dismay and amazement which it would be hard to put into words. She did not know what to say to this strange group. She was afraid of them, brother and sisters and altogether. It was the greatest relief to her when Mrs. Ogilvie returned into the room again, discoursing in very audible tones with the mistress of the house.
“I am sure I am very glad to have met with you,” Mrs. Ogilvie was saying. “They will be so pleased to hear everything. Poor thing! she is but lonely, with no childrenabout her, and her husband dead this five years and more. He was a great loss to her—the kindest man, and always at her call. But we must just make up our mind to take the bitter with the sweet in this life. Effie, where are you? We must really be going. We have Rory, that is my little boy, with us in the carriage, and he will be getting very tired of waiting. I hope it will not be long before we see you at Gilston. Good-bye, Mrs. Dirom; Effie, I hope you have said to the young ladies that we will be glad to see them—and you too,” giving her hand to Fred—“you especially, for we have but few young men in the country.”
“I accept your invitation as a compliment to the genus young man, Mrs. Ogilvie—not to me.”
“Well, that is true,” she said with a laugh; “but I am sure, from what I can see of you, it will soon be as particular as you could wish. Young people are a great want just in thiscorner of the country. Effie, poor thing, has felt it all her life: but I hope better things will be coming for her now.”
“She shall not be lonely if we can help it,” said the sisters. They kissed her as they parted, as if they had known her for years, and called her “dear Effie!” waving their hands to her as she disappeared into the light. They did not go out to the door with the visitors, as Effie in the circumstances would have done, but yet sent her away dazzled by their affectionateness, their offers of regard.
She felt another creature, a girl with friends, a member of society, as she drove away. What a thing it is to have friends! She had been assured often by her stepmother that she was a happy girl to have so many people who took an interest in her, and would always be glad to give her good advice. Effie knew where to lay her hand upon a great deal of good advice at any moment;but that is not everything that is required in life.
Phyllis and Doris! they were like names out of a book, and it was like a picture in her memory, the slim figure in white sunk deep in the yellow damask of the sofa, with her dark hair relieved against the big soft puffy cushion. Exactly like a picture; whereas Effie herself had sat straight up like a little country girl. Mrs. Ogilvie ran on like a purling stream as they drove home, expressing her satisfaction that it was Mary’s friend who was the mistress of the house, and describing all the varieties of feeling in her own mind on the subject—her conviction that this was almost too good to be true, and just more fortunate than could be hoped.
But Effie listened, and paid no attention. She had a world of her own now to escape into. Would she ever be bold enough to call them Phyllis and Doris?—and thenFred—but nobody surely would expect her to call him Fred.
Effie was disturbed in these delightful thoughts, and Mrs. Ogilvie’s monologue was suddenly broken in upon by a sound of horses’ hoofs, and a dust and commotion upon the road, followed by the apparition of Dr. Jardine’s mare, with her head almost into the carriage window on Effie’s side. The doctor’s head above the mare’s was pale. There was foam on his lips, and he carried his riding whip short and savagely, as if he meant to strike some one.
“Tell me just one thing,” he said, without any preliminary greetings; “have these women been there?”
“Dear me, doctor, what a fright you have given me. Is anything wrong with Robert; has anything happened? Bless me, the women! what women? You have just taken my breath away.”
“These confounded women that spoileverything—will ye let me know if they were there?”
“Oh, the Miss —— Well, yes—I was as much surprised as you, doctor. With their best bonnets on, and all in state in Mr. Ewing’s carriage; they were there to their lunch.”
The doctor swore a solemn oath—by——! something which he did not say, which is always a safe proceeding.
“You’ll excuse me for stopping you, but I could not believe it. The old cats! And to their lunch!” At this he gave a loud laugh. “They’re just inconceivable!” And rode away.
Theacquaintance thus formed between the houses of Allonby and Gilston was followed by much and close intercourse. In the natural order of things, there came two dinner parties, the first of which was given by Mrs. Ogilvie, and was a very elaborate business. The lady of Gilston began her preparations as soon as she returned from that first momentous call. She spent a long time going over the list of possible guests, making marks upon the sheet of paper on which Effie had written out the names.
“Johnstones—three—no, but that will never do. Him and her we must have, of course: but Mary must just stay at home,or come after dinner; where am I to get a gentleman for her? There will have to be two extra gentlemen anyway for Effie, and one of the Miss Diroms. Do ye think I’m just made of men? No, no, Mary Johnstone will have to stay at home. The Duncans?—well, he’s cousin to the Marquis, and that is always something; but he’s a foolish creature, and his wife is not much better. Mrs. Heron and Sir John—Oh, yes; she is just a credit to see at your table, with her diamonds; and though he is rather doited, poor man, he is a great person in the county. Well, and what do you say to the Smiths? They’re nobody in particular, so far as birth goes; but the country is getting so dreadfully democratic that what does that matter? And they’re monied people like the Diroms themselves, and Lady Smith has a great deal to say for herself. We will put down the Smiths. But, Effie, there is one thing that just drives me to despair——”
“Yes?” said Effie, looking up from the list; “and what is that?”
“The Miss Dempsters!” cried her stepmother in a tone which might have touched the hardest heart. That was a question indeed. The Miss Dempsters would have to be asked for the loan of their forks and spoons, and their large lamp, andboththe silver candlesticks. How after that would it be possible to leave them out? And how put them in? And how provide two other men to balance the old ladies? Such questions as these are enough to turn any woman’s hair gray, as Mrs. Ogilvie said.
Then when that was settled there came the bill of fare. The entire village knew days before what there was to be for dinner, and about the fish that was sent for from Dumfries, and did not turn out all that could have been wished, so that at the last moment a mere common salmon from Solway, a thing made no account of, had to be put in the pot.
Mrs. Moffatt at the shop had a sight of the pastry, which was “just remarkable” she said. And a dozen little groups were admitted on the afternoon of the great day to see the table set out, all covered with flowers, with the napkins like snowy turrets round the edge, and the silver and crystal shining. The Ogilvies possessed an epergne won at some racing meeting long before, which was a great work of art, all in frosted silver,—a huntsman standing between a leash of dogs; and this, with the Dempster candlesticks on each side, made a brilliant centre. And the schoolmaster recorded afterwards amid his notes of the rainfall and other interesting pieces of information, that the fine smell of the cooking came as far as the school, and distracted the bairns at their lessons, causing that melting sensation in the jaws which is described by the country folk as watering of the mouth.
Effie was busy all the morning with the flowers, with writing out little cards for theguests’ names, and other such ornamental arrangements.
Glen, confused in his mind and full of curiosity, followed her about everywhere, softly waving his great tail like a fan, sweeping off a light article here and there from the crowded tables, and asking in his superior doggish way, what all this fuss and excitement (which he rather enjoyed on the whole) was about? till somebody sent him away with a kick and an adjuration as being “in everybody’s gait”—which was a sad end to his impartial and interested spectatorship.
Little Rory toddled at his sister’s heels on the same errand, but could not be kicked like Glen—and altogether there was a great deal of confusion. But you never would have divined this when Mrs. Ogilvie came sweeping down stairs in her pink silk, as if the dinner had all been arranged by her major-domo, and she had never argued with the cook in her life.
It may easily be supposed that the membersof the family had little time to compare notes while their guests remained. And it was not till the last carriage had rolled away and the lady of the house had made her last smiling protestation that it was still just ridiculously early, that this meritorious woman threw herself into her favourite corner of the sofa, with a profound sigh of pleasure and relief.
“Well!” she said, and repeated that long-drawn breath of satisfaction. “Well!—it’s been a terrible trouble; but I cannot say but I’m thoroughly content and pleased now that it’s past.”
To this her husband, standing in front of the expiring fire (for even in August a little fire in the evening is not inappropriate on the Border), replied with a suppressed growl.
“You’re easy pleased,” he said, “but why ye should take all this trouble to fill people with good things, as the Scripture says, that are not hungry and don’t want them—”
“Oh, Robert, just you hold your peace!You’re always very well pleased to go out to your dinner. And as for the Allonby family, it was a clear duty. When you speak of Scripture you surely forget that we’re bidden to entertain strangers unawares. No, that’s not just right, it’s angels we entertain unawares.”
“There’s no angels in that house, or I am mistaken,” said Mr. Ogilvie.
“Well, there’s two very well-dressed girls, which is the nearest to it: and there’s another person, that may turn out even more important.”
“And who may that be?”
“Whist,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, holding up a finger of admonition as the others approached. “Well, Uncle John! And Effie, come you here and rest. Poor thing, you’re done out. Now I would like to have your frank opinion. Mine is that though it took a great deal of trouble, it’s been a great success.”
“The salmon was excellent,” said Mr. Moubray.
“And the table looked very pretty.”
“And yon grouse were not bad at all.”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, throwing up her hands, “ye tiresome people! Am I thinking of the salmon or the grouse; was there any chance they would be bad inmyhouse? I am meaning the party: and my opinion is that everybody was just very well pleased, and that everything went off to a wish.”
“That woman Lady Smith has a tongue that would deave a miller,” said the master of the house. “I request you will put her at a distance from me, Janet, if she ever dines here again.”
“And what will you do when she asks us?” cried his wife. “If she gives you anything but her right hand—my word! but you will be ill pleased.”
To this argument her husband had no reply handy, and after a moment she resumed—
“I am very glad to see you are going to be such friends with the Diroms, Effie; they’re fine girls. Miss Doris, as they callher, might have had her dress a little higher, but no doubt that’s the fault of those grand dressmakers that will have their own way. But the one I like is Mr. Fred. He is a very fine lad; he takes nothing upon him.”
“What should he take upon him? He’s nothing or nobody, but only a rich man’s son.”
“Robert, you are just the most bigoted, inconsiderate person! Well, I think it’s very difficult when you are just a rich person to be modest and young like yon. If you are a young duke that’s different; but to have nothing but money to stand upon—and not to stand upon that—”
“It is very well said,” said Uncle John, making her a bow. “There’s both charity and observation in what Mrs. Ogilvie says.”
“Is there not?” cried the lady in a flush of pleasure. “Oh no, I’m not meaning it is clever of me; but when a young man has nothing else, and is just pleasant, and neverseems to mind, but singles out a bit little thing of a girl in a white frock—”
This made them all look at Effie, who as yet said nothing. She was leaning back in the other corner, tired yet flushed with the pleasure and novelty of finding herself so important a person. Her white frock was very simple, but yet it was the best she had ever had; and never before had Effie been “singled out,” as her stepmother said. The dinner party was a great event to her. Nothing so important had occurred before, nothing in which she herself had been so prominent. A pretty flush of colour came over her face.
There had been a great deal in Fred Dirom’s eyes which was quite new, mysterious, and even, in its novelty, delightful to Effie. She could scarcely help laughing at the recollection, and yet it made a warmth about her heart. To be flattered in that silent way—not by any mere compliment, but bythe homage of a pair of eloquent eyes—is startling, strange, never unsweet to a girl. It is a more subtle coming of age than any birthday can bring. It shows that she has passed out of the band of little girls into that of those young princesses whom all the poets have combined to praise. This first sensation of the awakening consciousness has something exquisite in it not to be put into words.
Her blush grew deeper as she saw the group round all looking at her—her stepmother with a laugh of satisfaction, her father with a glance in which the usual drawing together of his shaggy eyebrows was a very poor simulation of a frown, and Uncle John with a liquid look of tender sympathy not unmingled with tender ridicule and full of love withal.
“Why do you all look at me like that?” Effie cried, to throw off the growing embarrassment. “I am not the only one that had a white frock.”
“Well, I would not call yon a white frock that was drooping off Doris Dirom’s shoulders,” said Mrs. Ogilvie; “but we’ll say no more about that. So far as I could see, everybody was pleased: and they stayed a most unconscionable time. Bless me! it’s past eleven o’clock. A little license may always be given on a great occasion; but though it’s a pleasure to talk it all over, and everything has been just a great success, I think, Effie, you should go to your bed. It’s later than your ordinary, and you have been about the most of the day. Good-night, my dear. You looked very nice, and your flowers were just beautiful: everybody was speaking of them, and I gave the credit where it was due.”
“It is time for me to go too,” said Uncle John.
“Oh, wait a moment.” Mrs. Ogilvie waited till Effie had gone out of the room with her candle, very tired, very happy,and glad to get away from so much embarrassing observation. The stepmother waited a little until all was safe, and then she gave vent to the suppressed triumph.
“You will just mark my words, you two gentlemen,” she cried. “They have met but three times—once when we called, once when they were playing their tennis, or whatever they call it—and to-night; but if Effie is not Mrs. Fred Dirom before six months are out it will be her own fault.”
“Fred Fiddlestick!” cried Mr. Ogilvie. “You’re just a silly woman, thinking of nothing but love and marriages. I’ll have no more of that.”
“If I’m a silly woman, there’s not far off from here a sillier man,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “You’ll have to hear a great deal more of it. And if you do not see all the advantages, and the grand thing it would be for Effie to have such a settlement so young—”
“There was one at your hand if youhad wanted to get rid of her, much younger.”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, clasping her hands together, “that men, who are always said to be the cleverest and the wisest, should be so slow at the uptake! Any woman would understand—but you, that are her father! The one that was at my hand, as you say, what was it? A long-leggit lad in a marching regiment! with not enough to keep him a horse, let alone a wife. That would have been a bonnie business!—that would have been taking a mother’s care of Effie! I am thankful her mother cannot hear ye. But Fred Dirom is very different—the only son of a very rich man. And no doubt the father, who perhaps is not exactly made for society, would give them Allonby, and set them up. That is what my heart is set on for Effie, I have always said, I will never perhaps have a grown-up daughter of my own.”
“I am sure,” said Mr. Moubray, “you have nothing but kindness in your heart.”
“You mean I am nothing but a well-intentioned haverel,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, with a laugh. “But you’ll see that I’m more than that. Effie! bless me, what a start you gave me! I thought by this time that you were in your bed.”
Effie had come back to the drawing-room upon some trifling errand. She stood there for a moment, her candle in her hand, her fair head still decked with the rose which had been its only ornament. The light threw a little flickering illumination upon her face, for her stepmother, always thrifty, had already extinguished one of the lamps. Mr. Moubray looked with eyes full of tender pity upon the young figure in the doorway, standing, hesitating, upon the verge of a world unknown. He had no mind for any further discussion. He followed her out when she had carried off the gloves andlittle ornaments which she had left behind, and stood with her a moment in the hall to say good-night.
“My little Effie,” he said, “an evening like this is little to us, but there is no saying what it may be to you. I think it has brought new thoughts already, to judge by your face.”
She looked up at him startled, with her colour rising. “No, Uncle John,” she answered, with the natural self-defence of youth: then paused to inquire after her denial. “What kind of new thoughts?”
He stooped over her to kiss her, with his hand upon her shoulder.
“We’ll not inquire too far,” he said. “Nothing but novelty, my dear, and the rising of the tide.”
Effie opened the door for him, letting in the fresh sweep of the night-wind, which came so clear and keen over the moors, and the twinkle of the stars looking down fromthe great vault of dark blue sky. The world seemed to widen out round them, with the opening of that door, which let in all the silence and hush of the deep-breathing night. She put her candle upon the table and came out with him, her delicate being thrilling to the influence of the sweet full air which embraced her round and round.
“Oh, Uncle John, what a night! to think we should shut ourselves up in little dull rooms with all this shining outside the door!”
“We are but frail human creatures, Effie, though we have big souls; the dull rooms are best for us at this hour of the night.”
“I would like to walk with you down among the trees. I would like to go down the Dene and hear the water rushing, but not to Allonby churchyard.”
“No, nor to Allonby at all, Effie. Take time, my bonnie dear, let no one hastenyour thoughts. Come, I cannot have you out here in the night in your white frock. You look like a little ghost; and what would Mrs. Ogilvie say to me if you caught cold just at this crisis of affairs?”
He stopped to laugh softly, but put his arm round her, and led her back within the door.
“The night is bonnie and the air is fresh, but home and shelter are the best. Good-night, and God bless my little Effie,” he said.
The people in the village, whose minds were now relieved from the strain of counting all the carriages, and were going to sleep calmly in the certainty that everybody was gone, heard his firm slow step going past, and knew it was the minister, who would naturally be the last to go home. They took a pleasure in hearing him pass, and the children, who were still awake, felt a protection in the fact that he was there,going leisurely along the road, sure to keep away any ghost or robber that might be lurking in the stillness of the night. His very step was full of thought.
It was pleasant to him, without any sad work in hand, to walk through the little street between the sleeping houses, saying a blessing upon the sleepers as he passed. Usually when he was out so late, it was on his way to some sickbed to minister to the troubled or the dying. He enjoyed to-night the exemption and the leisure, and with a smile in his eyes looked from the light in Dr. Jardine’s window, within which the Dr. was no doubt smoking a comfortable pipe before he went to bed, to the little inquisitive glimmer higher up in Rosebank, where the old ladies were laying aside their old finery and talking over the party. He passed between them with a humorous consciousness of their antagonism which did not disturb the general peace.
The stars shone with a little frost in their brightness, though it was but August; the night-air blew fresh in his face; the village, with all its windows and eyelids closed, slept deep in the silence of the night. “God bless them all—but above all Effie,” he repeated, smiling to himself.
TheDiroms belonged to a class now very common in England, the class of very rich people without any antecedents or responsibilities, which it is so difficult to classify or lay hold of, and which neither the authorities of society nor the moralist have yet fully comprehended. They had a great deal of money, which is popularly recognized to be power, and they owed it to nobody but themselves.
They owed nothing to anybody. They had no estates to keep up; no poor people depended upon them; the clerks and porters at the office were not to call dependents, though probably—out of good nature, whenthey were ill or trouble arose in their families, if it happened to come under the notice of the head of the firm, he would fling them a little money, perhaps with an admonition, perhaps with a joke. But this was pure liberality, generosity as his friends called it. He had nothing to “keep up.”
Even the sick gamekeeper who had been hurt by a fall, though he was in the new tenant’s service, was Lady Allonby’s servant, and it was she who had to support his family while he was ill. The rich people were responsible for nobody. If they were kind—and they were not unkind—it was all to their credit, for they had no duty to any one.
This was how the head of the house considered his position. “I don’t know anything about your land burdens, your feudal burdens,” he would say; “money is what has made me. I pay taxes enough, I hope; but I’ve got no sentimental taxesto pay, and I won’t have anything to say to such rubbish. I am a working man myself, just like the rest. If these fellows will take care of their own business as I did, they will get on themselves as I have done, and want nothing from anybody. I’ve no call even to ‘keep up’ my family; they ought to be working for themselves, as I was at their age. If I do, it’s because the girls and their mother are too many for me, and I have to yield to their prejudices.”
These were Mr. Dirom’s principles: but he threw about his money very liberally all the same, giving large subscriptions, with a determination to stand at the head of the list when he was on it at all, and an inclination to twit the others who did not give so liberally with their stinginess; “What is the use of making bones of it?” he said, with a flourish to Sir John, who was well known to be in straightenedcircumstances; “I just draw a cheque for five hundred and the thing’s done.”
Sir John could no more have drawn a cheque for five hundred than he could have flown, and Mr. Dirom knew it; and the knowledge gave an edge to his pleasure. Sir John’s twenty-five pounds was in reality a much larger contribution than Mr. Dirom’s five hundred, but the public did not think of this. The public said that Sir John gave the twenty-five because he could not help it, because his position demanded it; but Mr. Dirom’s five hundred took away the breath of the spectators. It was more than liberal; it was magnificent.
Mr. Dirom was a man who wore white waistcoats and large well-blown roses in his coat. He swaggered, without knowing it, in his walk, and in his speech, wherever he was visible. The young people were better bred, and were very conscious of those imperfections. They preferred, indeed, that heshould not “trouble,” as they said, to come home, especially to come to the country when business prevented. There was no occasion for papa to “trouble.” Fred could take his place if he was detained in town.
In this way they showed a great deal of tender consideration for their father’s engagements. Perhaps he was deceived by it, perhaps not; no one could tell. He took his own way absolutely, appearing when it suited him, and when it did not suit him leaving them to their own devices. Allonby was too far off for him, too distant from town: though he was quite willing to be known as the occupier of so handsome a “place.” He came down for the first of the shooting, which is the right thing in the city, but afterwards did not trouble his family much with his presence, which was satisfactory to everybody concerned. It was not known exactly what Mr. Dirom had risen from, but it was low enough to makehis present elevation wonderful, and to give that double zest to wealth which makes the self-made man happy.
Mrs. Dirom was of a different order. She was two generations at least from the beginning of her family, and she too, though in a less degree than her children, felt that her husband’s manners left something to be desired. He had helped himself up by her means, she having been, as in the primitive legend, of the class of the master’s daughters: at least her father was the head of the firm under which Dirom had begun to “make his way.” But neither was she quite up to the mark.
“Mamma is dreadfully middle-class,” the girls said. In some respects that is worse than the lower class. It made her a little timid and doubtful of her position, which her husband never was. None of these things affected the young people; they had received “every advantage.”
Their father’s wealth was supposed to be immense; and when wealth is immense it penetrates everywhere. A moderate fortune is worth very little in a social point of view, but a great fortune opens every door.
The elder brother, who never came to Allonby, who never went near the business, who had been portioned off contemptuously by his father, as if he had been a girl (and scorn could not go farther), had married an earl’s daughter, and, more than that, had got her off the very steps of the throne, for she had been a Maid of Honour. He was the most refined and cultivated individual in the world, with one of the most lovely houses in London, and everything about him artistic to the last degree. It was with difficulty that he put up with his father at all. Still, for the sake of his little boy, he acknowledged the relationship from time to time.
As for Fred and his sisters, they havealready been made known to the reader. Fred was by way of being “in the business,” and went down to the office three or four times in the week when he was in town. But what he wished to be was an artist. He painted more or less, he modelled, he had a studio of his own in the midst of one of the special artistic quarters, and retired there to work, as he said, whenever the light was good.
For his part Fred aspired to be a Bohemian, and did everything he could in a virtuous way to carry out his intention. He scorned money, or thought he did while enjoying every luxury it could procure. If he could have found a beautiful milkmaid or farm girl with anything like the Rossetti type of countenance he would have married her off-hand; but then beauties of that description are rare. The country lasses on the Border were all of too cheerful a type. But he had fully made up his mindthat when the right woman appeared no question of money or ambition should be allowed to interfere between him and his inclinations.
“You may say what you will,” he said to his sisters, “and I allow my principles would not answer with girls. You have nothing else to look to, to get on in the world. But a man can take that sort of thing in his own hands, and if one gets beauty that’s enough. It is more distinction than anything else. I shall insist upon beauty, but nothing more.”
“It all depends on what you call beauty,” said Miss Phyllis. “You can make anything beauty if you stand by it and swear to it. Marrying a painter isn’t at all a bad way. He paints you over and over again till you get recognized as a Type, and then it doesn’t matter what other people say.”
“You can’t call Effie a Type,” said theyoung lady who called herself Doris—her name in fact was a more humble one: but then not even the Herald’s College has anything to do with Christian names.
“She may not be a Type—but if you had seen her as I did in the half light, coming out gradually as one’s eyes got used to it like something developing in a camera—Jove! She was like a Burne-Jones—not strong enough for the blessed Damozel or that sort of thing, but sad and sweet like—like—” Fred paused for a simile, “like a hopeless maiden in a procession winding down endless stairs, or—standing about in the wet, or—If she had not been dressed in nineteenth-century costume.”
“He calls that nineteenth-century costume!” said Phyllis with a mixture of sympathy and scorn.
“Poor Effie is not dressed at all,” said the other sister. “She has clothes on, thatis all: but I could make her look very nice if she were in my hands. She has a pretty little figure, not spoiled at all—not too solid like most country girls but just enough to drape a pretty flowing stuff or soft muslin upon. I should turn her out that you would not know her if she trusted herself to me.”
“For goodness’ sake let her alone,” cried Fred; “don’t make a trollop of my little maiden. Her little stiffness suits her. I like her just so, in her white frock.”
“You should have been born a milliner, Dor.”
“Perhaps I was—and papa’s money has thwarted nature. If he should ever lose it all, which I suppose is on the cards——”
“Oh, very much on the cards,” said Fred.
“There is always a smash some time or other in a great commercial concern.”
“What fun!” said Miss Phyllis.
“Then I should set up directly. Thesisters Dirom, milliners and dressmakers. It would be exceedingly amusing, and we should make a great fortune—allgooddressmakers do.”
“It would be very amiable of you, Dor, to call your firm the sisters Dirom—for I should be of no use. I shall spend the fortune if you please, but I couldn’t help in any other way.”
“Oh, yes, you could. You will marry, and have all your things from me. I should dress you beautifully, and you would be the most delightful advertisement. Of course you would not have any false pride. You would say to your duchesses, I got this from my sister. She is the only possible dressmaker nowadays.”
“False pride—oh, I hope not! It would be quite a distinction—everybody would go. You could set up afternoon teas, and let them try on all your things. It would be delightful. But papa will not come to grief,he is too well backed up,” said Phyllis with a sigh.
“If I do not marry next season, I shall not wait for the catastrophe,” said Doris. “Perhaps if the Opposition comes in we might coax Lord Pantry to get me appointed milliner to the Queen. If Her Majesty had once a dress from me, she would never look at Worth more.”
“Worth!” said Phyllis, throwing up her hands in mild but indignant amazement.
“Well, then, Waley, or whatever you call him. Worth is a mere symbol,” said Doris with philosophical calm. “How I should like it! but if one marries, one’s husband’s family and all kinds of impossible people interfere.”
“You had better marry, you girls,” said Fred; “it is much your best chance. Wipe out the governor with a title. That’s what I should do if I could. But unfortunately I can’t—the finest of heiresses does not communicate her family honours, more’s the pity. I shall always be Fred Dirom, if I were to marry a duchess. But an artist’s antecedents don’t matter. Fortunately he makes his own way.”
“Fred,” said his mother, coming in, “I wish you would not talk of yourself as an artist, dear. Papa does not like it. He indulges you all a great deal, but there are some things that don’t please him at all.”
“Quite unreasonably, mother dear,” said Fred, who was a good son, and very kind to her on the whole. “Most of the fellows I know in that line are much better born than I am. Gentlemen’s sons, most of them.”
“Oh, Fred!” said Mrs. Dirom, with eyes of deep reproach. She added in a tremulous voice, “My grandfather had a great deal of property in the country. He had indeed, I assure you, although you think we have nothing but money. And if that does not make a gentleman, what does?”
“What indeed?” said her son: but he made no further reply. And the sisters interposed.
“We were talking of what we shall all do in case the firm should come to grief, and all the money be lost.”
“Oh, girls!” Mrs. Dirom started violently and put her hand to her heart. “Fred! you don’t mean to say that there are rumours in the city, or a word whispered—”
“Not when I heard last—but then I have not been in the city for a month. That reminds me,” said Fred, “that really I ought to put in an appearance—just once in a way.”
“You mean you want to have a run to town?”
“Yes, dear,” said his mother, “go if you think you could be of any use. Oh, you don’t know what it is you are talking of solightly. I could tell you things—Oh, Fred, if you think there is anything going on, any danger—”
“Nothing of the sort,” he said, with a laugh. “We were only wondering what we should be good for mother—not much, I believe. I might perhaps draw for theGraphicfancy pictures of battles and that sort of thing; or, if the worst came to the worst, there is thePolice News.”
“You have both got Vocations,” said Phyllis. “It is fine for you. You know what to do, you two. But I can do nothing; I should have to Marry.” She spoke with a languid emphasis as of capitals, in her speech.
“Oh, children!” cried Mrs. Dirom, “what are you thinking of? You think all that is clever, but it does not seem clever to me. It is just the dreadful thing in business that one day you may be up at the top of the tree, and next morning—”
“Nowhere!” said Fred, with a burlesquegroan. And then they all laughed. The anxious middle-class mother looked at them as the hen of the proverb looks at her ducklings. Silly children! what did they know about it? She could have cried in vexation and distress.
“You laugh,” she said, “but you would not laugh if you knew as much as I do. The very name of such a thing is unlucky. I wouldn’t let myself think of it lest it should bring harm. Things may be quite right, and I hope and believe they are quite right: but if there was so much as a whisper on the Exchange that his children—his own children—had been joking on the subject. Oh, a whisper, that’s enough!”
The young people were not in the least impressed by what she said—they had not been brought up in her sphere. That alarm for exposure, that dread of a catastrophe which was strong in her bosom, had no response in theirs. They had no more understanding of poverty than of Paradise—and to the girls in particular, the idea of a great event, a matter of much noise and commotion, to be followed by new enchanting freedom and the possibilities of adventure, was really “fun!” as they said. They were not afraid of being dropped by their friends.
Society has undergone a change in this respect. A young lady turned into a fashionable dressmaker would be the most delightful of lions; all her acquaintances would crowd round her. She would be celebrated as “a noble girl” by the serious, and aschicby the fast.
Doris looked forward to the possibility with a delightful perception of all the advantages that were in it. It was more exciting than the other expedient of marrying, which was all that, in the poverty of her invention, occurred to Phyllis. They made very merry, while their mother trembled with an alarm for which there was no apparent foundation. She was nervous, which is always a ready explanation of a woman’s troubles and fears.
There was, in fact, no foundation whatever for any alarm. Never had the credit of Dirom, Dirom and Company stood higher. There was no cloud, even so big as a finger, upon the sky.
Mr. Dirom himself, though his children were ashamed of him, was not without acceptance in society. In his faithfulness to business, staying in town in September, he had a choice of fine houses in which to make those little visits from Saturday to Monday which are so pleasant; and great ladies who had daughters inquired tenderly about Fred, and learned with the profoundest interest that it was he who was the Prince of Wales, the heir-apparent of the house, he, and not Jack the married son, who would have nothing to say to the business.
When Fred paid a flying visit to town to“look up the governor,” as he said, and see what was going on, he too was overwhelmed with invitations from Saturday to Monday. And though he was modest enough he was very well aware that he would not be refused, as a son-in-law, by some of the finest people in England.
That he was not a little dazzled by the perception it would be wrong to say—and the young Lady Marys in English country houses are very fair and sweet. But now there would glide before him wherever he went the apparition of Effie in her white frock.
Why should he have thought of Effie, a mere country girl, yet still a country gentlewoman without the piquancy of a milkmaid or a nursery governess? But who can fathom these mysteries? No blooming beauty of the fields had come in Fred’s way, though he had piously invoked all the gods to send him such a one: but Effie, who was scarcely a type at all—Effie, who was only a humble representative of fair maidenhood, not so perfect, perhaps, not so well dressed, not so beautiful as many of her kind.
Effie had come across his path, and henceforward went with him in spirit wherever he went. Curious accident of human fate! To think that Mr. Dirom’s money, and Fred’s accomplishments, and their position in society and in the city, all things which might have made happy a duke’s daughter, were to be laid at the careless feet of little Effie Ogilvie!
If she had been a milkmaid the wonder would have been less great.
Andfor all these things Effie cared nothing. This forms always a tragic element in the most ordinary love-making, where one gives what the other does not appreciate, or will not accept, yet the giver cannot be persuaded to withdraw the gift, or to follow the impulse of that natural resentment which comes from kindness disdained.
There was nothing tragical, however, in the present circumstances, which were largely composed of lawn tennis at Allonby, afternoon tea in the dimness of an unnecessarily shaded room, or walks along the side of the little stream. When Effie came for the favourite afternoon game, the sisters and their brotherwould escort her home, sometimes all the way, sometimes only as far as the little churchyard where the path struck off and climbed the high river bank.
Nothing could be more pleasant than this walk. The days were often gray and dim; but the walkers were young, and not too thinly clad; the damp in the air did not affect them, and the breezes stirred their veins. The stream was small but lively, brown, full of golden lights. So far as the park went the bank was low on the Allonby side, though on the other picturesque, with rising cliffs and a screen of trees. In the lower hollows of these cliffs the red of the rowan berries and the graceful bunches of the barberry anticipated the autumnal tints, and waving bracken below, and a host of tiny ferns in every crevice, gave an air of luxuriance. The grass was doubly green with that emerald brightness which comes from damp, and when the sun shone everything lighted up with almost an artificial glow of excessive colour, greenness, and growth. The little party would stroll along filling the quiet with their young voices, putting even the birds to silence.
But it was not Effie who talked. She was the audience, sometimes a little shocked, sometimes bewildered, but always amused more or less; wondering at them, at their cleverness, at their simplicity, at what the country girl thought their ignorance, and at what she knew to be their superior wisdom.
Fred too was remarkable on these points, but not so remarkable as his sisters; and he did not talk so much. He walked when he could by Effie’s side, and made little remarks to her, which Effie accounted for by the conviction that he was very polite, and thought it right to show her those regards which were due to a young lady. She lent but a dull ear to what he said, and gave her chief attention to Phyllis and Doris, whose talk was more wonderful than anything else that Effie knew.
“It is curious,” Miss Phyllis said, “that there never are two picturesque banks to a river. Nature provides herself a theatre, don’t you know. Here are we in the auditorium.”
“Only there is nothing to hear,” said Doris, “except the birds—well, that’s something. But music over there would have a fine effect. It would be rather nice to try it, if it ever was warm enough here for an open air party. You could have the orchestra hidden: the strings there, the wind instruments here, don’t you see, violas in the foreground, and the big ’cello booming out of that juniper.”
“By Jove!” cried Fred from where he strolled behind with Effie, “how astounded the blackbirds would be.”
“It would be interesting to know what they thought. Now, what do you suppose they would do? Stop and listen? or else be struck by the force of the circumstances and set up an opposition?”
“Burst their little throats against the strings.”
“Or be deafened with your vulgar trombones. Fancy a brass band on the side of the wan water!”
“It would be very nice, though,” said Doris. “I said nothing about trombones. It would be quite eighteenth century. And here on the lawn we could sit and drink syllabubs. What are syllabubs? Probably most people would prefer tea. Effie, what do you think? you never say a word. Shall we have a garden party, and music over there under the cliff?”
Effie had walked on softly, taking in everything with a mingled sense of admiration and ridicule. She was quite apart, a spectator, listening to the artificial talk about nothing at all, the conversation made up with a distinct idea of being brilliant and interesting, which yet was natural enough to these young people, themselves artificial, who made up their talk as they made up their life, outof nothing. Effie laughed within herself with involuntary criticism, yet was half impressed at the same time, feeling that it was like something out of a book.
“Oh, me?” she said in surprise at being consulted. “I have not any opinion, indeed. I never thought of it at all.”
“Then think now, and let us hear; for you should know best how the people here would like it.”
“Don’t you see, Dor, that she thinks us very silly, and would not talk such nonsense as we are talking for the world? There is no sense in it, and Effie is full of sense.”
“Miss Ogilvie has both sense and sympathy,” said Fred.
This discussion over her alarmed Effie. She grew red and pale; half affronted, half pleased, wholly shy and uncomfortable.
“No,” she said, “I couldn’t talk like you. I never talk except when—except when—I have got something to say; that is, of course,I mean something that is—something—not merely out of my head, like you. I am not clever enough for that.”
“Is she making fun of us, Phyll?”
“I think so, Dor. She is fact, and we are—well, what are we?—not fiction altogether, because we’re real enough in flesh and blood.”
Effie was moved to defend herself.
“You are like two young ladies in a book,” she said, “and I am just a girl like anybody else. I say How-do-you-do? and Do you think it will be a fine day? or I can tell you if anything has happened in the village, and that Dr. Jardine was called away this morning to Fairyknowe, so that somebody there must be ill. But you make up what is very nice to listen to, and yet it makes one laugh, because it is about nothing at all.”
“That is quite true,” said Doris; “that is our way. We don’t go in for fact. Webelong to the speculative side. We have nothing real to do, so we have to imagine things to talk about.”
“And I hope you think we do it well,” said Phyllis with a laugh.
Effie was encouraged to laugh too; but her feelings were very complicated; she was respectful and yet she was a little contemptuous. It was all new to her, and out of her experience; yet the great house, the darkened rooms, the luxury and ease, the way in which life went on, apparently without any effort on the part of this cluster of people, who had everything they wanted without even the trouble of asking for it, as in a fairy tale, harmonized with the artificial talk, the speculations, the studies which were entirely voluntary, without any use as Effie thought, without any call for them.
She herself was not indeed compelled to work as poor girls were, as governesseswere, even as the daughters of people within her own range, who made their own dresses, and taught their little brothers and sisters, had to do. But still there were certain needs which she supplied, and cases in which she had a necessary office to fulfil. There were the flowers for instance. Old Pirie always brought her in a basketful whenever she wanted them; but if Pirie had to be trusted to arrange the flowers!
In Allonby, however, even that was done; the vases refilled themselves somehow, as if by help of the fairies; the table was always magnificent, but nobody knew when it was done or who did it—nobody, that is, of the family. Phyllis and Doris decided, it was to be supposed, what they should wear, but that was all the trouble they took even about their dress. Numbers of men and women worked in the background to provide for all their wants, but they themselves had nothing to do with it. And they talked as they lived.
Effie did not put all this into words, but she perceived it, by means of a little humorous perception which was in her eyes though she did not know it. And though they were so much finer than she was, knew so much more, and possessed so much more, yet these young ladies were as the comedians of life to little Effie, performing their drawing-room drama for her amusement. They talked over the little churchyard which lay at the opening of the glen in the same way.
“The Americans have not found out Allonby yet,” they said to each other. “We must ask Miss Greenwood up here—or, oh! let us have Henry Holland. But no, he will not go into any raptures. He has gone through everything in that way. He is moreblaséthan the mostblaséof Englishmen; let us have some one fresh.How they will hang over theHic jacet! And we must have some one who knows the ballad. Do you know the ballad, Effie? but perhaps you never heard of it, as you were born here.”
“Do you mean about Helen?” said Effie. And in her shyness she grew red, up to her hair.