“Oh Helen fair beyond compare,I’ll make a garland of thy hair,Shall bind my heart for ever mair.”
“Oh Helen fair beyond compare,I’ll make a garland of thy hair,Shall bind my heart for ever mair.”
“Oh Helen fair beyond compare,I’ll make a garland of thy hair,Shall bind my heart for ever mair.”
“How delightful! the rural muse, the very genius of the country. Effie, you shall recite it to us standing by the stone with a shepherd’s maud thrown over you, and that sweet Scotch accent which is simply delicious.”
“And the blush, dear, just as it is,” said Phyllis, clapping her hands softly; “you will have the most enormous success.”
“Indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Effie, her soft colour of shyness andresentment turning into the hot red of shame. “I wish you would not try to make a fool of me, as well as of the place.”
“To make a fool of you! Don’t be angry, Effie, the phrase is enchanting. Make a fool of—that is Scotch too. You know I am beginning to make a collection of Scoticisms; they are one nicer than another. I only wish I had the accent and the voice.”
“And the blush, Dor; it would not be half so effective without that. Could you pick up those little particulars which Effie doesn’t appreciate, with your dramatic instinct into the bargain——”
“Should I be able to recite Fair Helen as well as Effie? Oh no,” said Doris, and she began, “Oh Helen fair beyond compare,” with an imitation of that accent which Effie fondly hoped she was free of, which entirely overcame the girl’s self-control. Her blush grew hotter and hotter till she felt herself fiery red with anger, and unable to bear any more.
“If I spoke like that,” she cried, “I should be ashamed ever to open my mouth!” then she added with a wave of her hand, “Goodbye, I am going home,” for she could not trust herself further.
“Oh, Effie, Effie! Why goodness, the child’s offended,” cried Phyllis.
“And I had just caught her tone!” said the other.
Then they both turned upon Fred. “Why don’t you go after her? Why don’t you catch her up? Why do you stand there staring?”
“Why are you both so—disagreeable?” cried Fred, who had hurried on while they spoke, and turned back to fling at them this very innocent missile as he ran; nothing stronger occurred to him to say. He had not the vocabulary of his sisters. Theywatched him while he rushed along and saw him overtake the little fugitive. It was a sight which interested these two young ladies. They became contemplative spectators once more.
“I wonder if he will know what to say?” Doris inquired of herself. “It should be a capital opportunity for Fred if he knows how to take advantage of it. He ought to throw us both overboard at once, and say we were a couple of idiots, who did not know what we were talking about. I should, in Fred’s place.”
“Yes, I suppose that would be the right way; but a man does naturally throw over his sisters,” said Phyllis. “You need not be afraid. It was fine to see her blaze up. Fury is not pretty generally—in papa, for instance.”
“Ah, that’s beyond a sentiment. But in Effie it will only be a flare and all over. She will be penitent. After a little while she will be awfully sweet to Fred.”
“And do you really want him to—propose to her, Dor?”
“That is a strong step,” said the young lady, “because if he did he would have to stick to it. I don’t see that I am called upon to consider contingencies. In the meantime it’s very amusing to see Fred in love.”
“In the absence,” said Phyllis, “of more exciting preoccupations.”
“Ah! that’s true; you’re a marrying woman yourself,” was the remark her sister made.
Meanwhile Fred had overtaken Effie, who was already beginning to feel ashamed and remorseful, and to say in her own ear that it was she who was making a fool of herself. How could she have been so silly? People always make themselves ridiculous when they take offence, and, of course, they would only laugh at her for being so touchy, so absurd. But nobody likes to be mocked, orto be mimicked, which comes to the same thing, Effie said to herself.
A hot tear had gathered into each eye, but the flush was softening down, and compunction was more and more getting possession of her bosom, when Fred, anxious, devoted, panting, came up to her. It was a moment or two before he could get breath to speak.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Miss Ogilvie. That is just my difficulty with the girls,” said Fred, promptly throwing his sisters over as they had divined. “They have so little perception. Not a bad sort in themselves, and devoted to you: but without tact—without your delicacy of feeling—without——”
“Oh,” cried Effie, “you must not compare them with me; they are far, far cleverer—far more instructed—far—— It was so silly of me to be vexed——”
“Not silly at all; just what you wouldnaturally be with your refined taste. I can’t tell you how I felt it,” said Fred, giving himself credit for the perception that was wanting in his sisters. “But you will forgive them, Miss Ogilvie? they will be so unhappy.”
“Oh no,” cried Effie, with once more a sense of the ludicrous in this assertion. But Fred was as grave as an owl, and meant every word he said.
“Yes, indeed, and they deserve to be so; but if I may tell them that you forgive them——”
“It is not worth speaking about, Mr. Dirom; I was foolish too. And are you really going to have Americans here? I never saw any Americans. What interest would they take in our old churchyard, and Adam Fleming’s broken old gravestone?”
“They take more interest in that sort of thing than we do whom it belongs to; that is to say, it doesn’t belong to us. I am asmuch a new man as any Yankee, and have as little right. We are mere interlopers, you know.”
Fred said this with a charming smile he had, a smile full of frank candour and openness, which forestalled criticism. Effie had heard the same sentiment expressed by others with a very different effect. When Fred said it, it seemed a delightful absurdity. He laughed a little, and so, carried away by sympathetic feeling, did she, shame-faced and feeling guilty in her heart at the remembrance of the many times in which, without any sense of absurdity, she had heard the same words said.
“We are a queer family,” he continued in his pleasant explanatory way. “My father is the money-maker, and he thinks a great deal of it; but we make no money, and I think we are really as indifferent about it as if we had been born in the backwoods. If anything happened at theoffice I should take to my studio, and I hope I should not enjoy myself too much, but there would be the danger. ‘Ah, freedom is a noble thing,’ as old Barbour says.”
Effie did not know who old Barbour was, and she was uncertain how to reply. She said at last timidly, “But you could not do without a great deal of money, Mr. Dirom. You have everything you want, and you don’t know how it comes. It is like a fairy tale.”
Fred smiled again with an acquiescence which had pleasure in it. Though he made so little of his advantages, he liked to hear them recognized.
“You are right,” he said, “as you always are, Miss Ogilvie. You seem to know things by instinct. But all the same we don’t stand on these things; we are a little Bohemian, all of us young ones. I suppose you would think it something dreadful if you had to turn out of Gilston. But weshould rather like any such twist of the whirligig of fortune. The girls would think it fun.”
To this Effie did not make any reply. To be turned out of Gilston was an impossibility, for the family at least, whatever it might be for individuals. And she did not understand about Bohemians. She made no answer at all. When one is in doubt it is the safest way. But Fred walked with her all the way home, and his conversation was certainly more amusing than that with which she was generally entertained. There ran through it a little vein of flattery. There was in his eyes a light of admiration, a gleam from time to time of something which dazzled her, which she could not meet, yet furtively caught under her drooping eyelashes, and which roused a curious pleasure mixed with amusement, and a comical sense of guilt and wickedness on her own part.
She was flattered and dazzled, and yetsomething of the same laughter with which she listened to Phyllis and Doris was in her eyes. Did he mean it all? or what did he mean? Was he making conversation like his sisters, saying things that he meant to be pretty? Effie, though she was so simple, so inexperienced, in comparison with those clever young people, wondered, yet kept her balance, steadied by that native instinct of humour, and not carried away by any of these fine things.
“Wewere seeing young Mr. Dirom a little bit on his way. He is so kind walking home with Effie that it was the least we could do. I never met with a more civil young man.”
“It appears to me that young Dirom is never out of your house. You’ll have to be thinking what will come of it.”
“What should come of it,” said Mrs. Ogilvie with a laugh, and a look of too conscious innocence, “but civility, as I say? though they are new people, they have kind, neighbour-like ways.”
“I’ve no confidence,” said Miss Dempster, “in that kind of neighbours. If he were to walk home with Beenie or me, that are aboutthe oldest friends they have in the district—Oh yes, their oldest friends: for I sent my card and a request to know if a call would be agreeable as soon as they came: it may be old-fashioned, but it’s my way; and I find it to answer. And as I’m saying, if he had made an offer to walk home with me or my sister, that would have been neighbour-like; but Effie is just quite a different question. I hope if you let it go on, that you’re facing the position, and not letting yourself be taken unawares.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “that’s a thing that seldom happens, though I say it myself. I can generally see as far as most folk. But whatever you do, say nothing of this to Effie. We must just respect her innocence. Experienced people see a great deal that should never be spoken of before the young. I will leave her in your charge and Miss Beenie’s, for I am going to Summerlaw, and she has had a long walk.”
“Your stepmother is a very grand general,Effie,” said Miss Dempster, as they watched Mrs. Ogilvie’s figure disappearing between the high laurel hedges.
It was a warm afternoon, though September had begun. Miss Beenie was seated on the garden seat in front of the drawing-room window, which afforded so commanding a prospect of the doctor’s sitting-room, with her work-basket beside her, and her spectacles upon her nose. But Miss Dempster, who thought it was never safe, except perhaps for a day or two in July, to sit out, kept walking about, now nipping off a withered leaf, now gathering a sprig of heliotrope, or the scented verbena, promenading up and down with a shawl upon her shoulders. She had taken Effie’s arm with an instant perception of the advantages of an animated walking-staff.
The little platform of fine gravel before the door was edged by the green of the sloping lawn in front, but on either side ended in deep borders filled with every kind of old-fashionedand sweet-smelling flower. The sloping drive had well-clipped hedges of shining laurel which surrounded the entrance; but nothing interrupted the view from this little height, which commanded not only the doctor’s mansion but all the village. No scene could have been more peaceful in the sunny afternoon. There were few people stirring below, there was nobody to be seen at the doctor’s windows.
The manse, which was visible at a distance, stood in the broad sunshine with all its doors and windows open, taking in the warmth to its very bosom. Mrs. Ogilvie disappeared for a short time between the hedges, and then came out again, moving along the white road till she was lost in the distance, Glen slowly following, divided in his mind between the advantages of a walk which was good for his health, and the pleasure of lying in the sun and waiting for Effie, which he preferred as a matter of taste. But the large mat at the door, which Glen was aware was the comfortable spot at Rosebank,was already occupied by the nasty little terrier to which the Miss Dempsters, much to Glen’s contempt, were devoted, and the gravel was unpleasant. So he walked, but rather by way of deference to the necessities of the situation than from any lively personal impulse, and went along meditatively with only an occasional slow switch of his tail, keeping well behind the trim and active figure of his mistress. In the absence of other incidents these two moving specks upon the road kept the attention of the small party of spectators on the soft heights of Rosebank.
“Your stepmother’s a grand general,” said Miss Dempster again; “but she must not think that she deceives everybody, Effie. It’s a very legitimate effort; but perhaps if she let things take their own course she would just do as well at the end.”
“What is she trying to do?” said Effie with indifference. “It is a pity Mrs. Ogilvie has only Rory; for she is so active and so busy,she could manage a dozen, Uncle John always says.”
“She has you, my dear—and a great deal more interesting than Rory: who is a nice enough bairn, if he were not spoilt, just beyond conception—as, poor thing, some day, she’ll find out.”
Effie did not pay any attention to the latter part of this speech. She cried “Me!” in the midst of it, with little regard to Miss Dempster, and less (had she been an English girl) to propriety in her pronouns. But she was Scotch, and above reproof.
“No,” she cried, “she has not me, Miss Dempster; you are making a mistake. She says I am old enough to guide myself.”
“A bonnie guide you would be for yourself. But, no doubt, ye think that too; there is no end to the confidence of young folk in this generation. And you are nineteen, which is a wise age.”
“No,” said Effie, “don’t think it is awise age. And then I have Uncle John; and then, what is perhaps the best of all, I have nothing to do that calls for any guiding, so I am quite safe.”
“Oh, yes, that’s a grand thing,” said the old lady; “to be just peaceable and quiet, like Beenie and me, and no cross roads to perplex ye, nor the need of choosing one way or another. But that’s a blessing that generally comes on later in life: and we’re seldom thankful for it when it does come.”
“No,” said Effie, “I have nothing to choose. What should I have to choose? unless it was whether I would have a tweed or a velveteen for my winter frock; or, perhaps——” here she stopped, with a soft little smile dimpling about her mouth.
“Ay,” said the old lady; “or perhaps——? The perhaps is just what I would like to know.”
“Sarah,” said Miss Beenie from behind,“what are you doing putting things in the girlie’s head?”
“Just darn your stockings and hold your tongue,” said the elder sister. She leaned her weight more heavily on Effie’s arm by way of securing her attention.
“Now and then,” she said, “the road takes a crook before it divides. There’s that marshy bit where the Laggan burn runs before you come to Windyha’. If you are not thinking, it just depends on which side of the road you take whether you go straight on the good highway to Dumfries, or down the lane that’s always deep in dust, or else a very slough of despond. You’re there before you know.”
“But what has that to do with me?” said Effie; “and then,” she added, with a little elevation of her head, “if I’m in any difficulty, there is Uncle John.”
“Oh, ay: he’s often very fine in the pulpit. I would not ask for a better guide in the Gospel, which is his vocation. But in theways of this world, Effie Ogilvie, your Uncle John is just an innocent like yourself.”
“That is all you know!” said Effie, indignantly. “Me an innocent!” She was accustomed to hear the word applied to the idiot of the parish, the piteous figure which scarcely any parish is without. Then she laughed, and added, with a sudden change of tone, “They think me very sensible at Allonby. They think I am the one that is always serious. They say I am fact: and they are poetry, I suppose,” she said, after a second pause, with another laugh.
“Poetry!” said Miss Dempster, “you’re meaning silly nonsense. They are just two haverels these two daft-like girls with their dark rooms, and all their affected ways; and as for the brother——”
“What about the brother?” said Effie, with an almost imperceptible change of tone.
“Aha!” said the old lady, “now we see where the interest lies.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” cried the girl, “it is just your imagination. You take a pleasure in twisting every word, and making me think shame. It is just to hear what you have got to say.”
“I have not very much to say,” said Miss Dempster; “we’re great students of human nature, both Beenie and me; but I cannot just give my opinion off-hand. There’s one thing I will tell you, and that is just that he is not our Ronald, which makes all the difference to me.”
“Ronald!” cried the girl, wondering. “Well, no! but did anybody ever say he was like Ronald?”
She paused a little, and a soft suffusion of colour once more came over her face. “What has Ronald to do with it? He is no more like Ronald than he is like—me.”
“And I don’t think him like you at all,” cried Miss Dempster quickly, “which is just the whole question. He is not of your kind,Effie. We’re all human creatures, no doubt, but there’s different species. Beenie, what do you think? Would you say that young Fred Dirom—that is the son of a merchant prince, and so grand and so rich—would you say he was of our own kind? would you say he was like Effie, or like Ronald? Ronald’s a young man about the same age; would you say he was of Ronald’s kind.”
“Bless me, what a very strange question!” Miss Beenie looked up with every evidence of alarm. Her spectacles fell from her nose; the stocking in which her hand and arm were enveloped fell limp upon her lap.
“I’ve no time to answer conundrums; they’re just things for winter evenings, not for daylight. And when you know how I’ve been against it from the very first,” she added, after a pause, with some warmth. “It might be a grand thing from a worldly point of view; but what do we know about him or his connections? And as for business, it isjust a delusion; it’s up to-day and down to-morrow. I’ve lived in Glasgow, and I know what it means. Ye may be very grand, and who but you for a while; and then the next moment nothing. No; if there was not another man in the world, not the like of that man,” cried Miss Beenie, warming more and more, gesticulating unconsciously with the muffled hand which was all wrapped up in stocking; “and to compare him with our poor Ronald——” She dropped suddenly from her excitement, as if this name had brought her to herself. “You are making me say what I ought not to say—and before Effie! I will never be able to look one of them in the face again.”
Effie stood upon the gravel opposite to the speaker, notwithstanding the impulse of Miss Dempster’s arm to lead her away. “I wish you would tell me what you mean. I wish I knew what Ronald had to do with me,” she said.
“He’s just an old friend, poor laddie—just an old friend. Never you mind what Beenie says. She’s a little touched in that direction, we all know. Never you mind. It’s my own conviction that young Dirom, having no connections, would be but a very precarious—— But no doubt your parents know best. Ronald is just the contrary—plenty of connections, but no money. The one is perhaps as bad as the other. And it’s not for us to interfere. Your own people must know best.”
“What is there to interfere about? and what has Ronald to do with it? and, oh, what are you all talking about?” cried Effie, bewildered. What with the conversation which meant nothing, and that which meant too much, her little brain was all in a ferment. She withdrew herself suddenly from Miss Dempster’s arm.
“I will get you your stick out of the hall which will do just as well as me: for I’m going away.”
“Why should you go away? Your father is in Dumfries, your mother will be getting her tea at Summerlaw. There is nobody wanting you at home; and Beenie has ordered our honey scones that you are so fond of.”
“I want no honey scones!” cried Effie. “You mean something, and you will not tell me what you mean. I am going to Uncle John.”
“She is a hot-headed little thing. She must just take her own gait and guide herself. Poor innocent! as if it were not all settled and planned beforehand what she was to do.”
“Oh, Sarah, stop woman, for goodness’ sake! You are putting things in the girlie’s head, and that is just what we promised not to do.”
“What things are you putting in my head? You are just driving me wild!” cried Effie, stamping her foot on the gravel.
It was not the first time by a great manythat she had departed from Rosebank in this way. The criticisms of old ladies are sadly apt to irritate young ones, and this pretence of knowing so much more about her than she knew about herself, has always the most exasperating effect.
She turned her back upon them, and went away between the laurel hedges with a conviction that they were saying, “What a little fury!” and “What an ill brought-up girl!”—which did not mend matters. These were the sort of things the Miss Dempsters said—not without a cackle of laughter—of the rage and impatience of the young creature they had been baiting. Her mind was in high commotion, instinctive rebellion flaming up amid the curiosity and anxiety with which she asked herself what was it that was settled and planned?
Whatever it was, Effie would not do it, that was one thing of which she felt sure. If it had been her own mother, indeed! but whowas Mrs. Ogilvie, to settle for her what she ought to do? She would be her own guide, whatever any one might settle. If she took counsel with any one, it should be Uncle John, who was her nearest friend—when there was anything to take counsel about.
But at present there was nothing, not a question of any sort that she knew, except whether the new tennis court that was making at Gilston could possibly be ready for this season, which, of course, it could not;—no question whatever; and what had Ronald to do with it? Ronald had been gone for three years. There had been no news of him lately. If there were a hundred questions, what could Ronald have to do with them?
She went down very quickly between the laurel hedges and paused at the gate, where she could not be seen from the terrace, to smooth down her ruffled plumes a little and take breath. But as she turned into the road her heart began to thump again, with no morereason for it than the sudden appearance of Uncle John coming quietly along at his usual leisurely pace. She had said she was going to him; but she did not really wish to meet Uncle John, whose kind eyes had a way of seeing through and through you, at this present excited moment, for she knew that he would find her out.
Whether he did so or not, he came up in his sober way, smiling that smile which he kept for Effie. He was prone to smile at the world in general, being very friendly and kind, and generally thinking well of his neighbours. But he had a smile which was for Effie alone. He caught in a moment the gleam in her eyes, the moisture, and the blaze of angry feeling.
“What, Effie,” he said, “you have been in the wars. What have the old ladies been saying now?”
“Oh, Uncle John,” she began eagerly; but then stopped all at once: for the vague talk in which a young man’s name is involved,which does not tell for very much among women, becomes uncomfortable and suspect when a man is admitted within hearing. She changed her mind and her tone, but could not change her colour, which rose high under her troubled eyes.
“Oh, I suppose it was nothing,” she said, “it was not about me; it was about Ronald—something about Ronald and Mr. Fred Dirom: though they could not even know each other—could they know each other?”
“I can’t tell you, Effie: most likely not; they certainly have not been together here; but they may have met as young men meet—somewhere else.”
“Perhaps that was what it was. But yet I don’t see what Ronald could have to do with it.”
Here Effie stopped again, and grew redder than ever, expecting that Mr. Moubray would ask her, “To do with—what?” and bring back all the confusion again.
But the minister was more wise. He began to perceive vaguely what the character of the suggestion, which had made Effie angry, must have been. It was much clearer to him indeed than it was to her, through these two names, which as yet to Effie suggested no connection.
“Unless it is that Fred Dirom is here and Ronald away,” he said, “I know no link. And what sort of a fellow is Fred Dirom, Effie? for I scarcely know him at all.”
“What sort of a fellow?” Mr. Moubray was so easy, and banished so carefully all meaning from his looks, that Effie was relieved. She began to laugh.
“I don’t know what to say. He is like the girls, but not quite like the girls.”
“That does not give me much information, my dear.”
“Oh, Uncle John, they are all so funny! What can I say? They talk and they talk,and it is all made up. It is about nothing, about fancies they take in their heads, about what they think—but not real thinking, only fancies, thinking what to say.”
“That’s the art of conversation, Effie,” the minister said.
“Conversation? Oh no, oh, surely not!—conversation would mean something. At Allonby it is all very pretty, but it means nothing at all. They just make stories out of nothing, and talk for the sake of talking. I laugh—I cannot help it, though I could not quite tell you why.”
“And the brother, does he do the same?”
“Oh, the brother! No, he is not so funny, he does not talk so much. He says little, really, on the whole, except”—here Effie stopped and coloured and laughed softly, but in a different tone.
“Except?” repeated Uncle John.
“Well, when he is walking home with me. Then he is obliged to speak, becausethere is no one else to say anything. When we are all together it is they who speak. But how can he help it? He has to talk when there is only me.”
“And is his talk about fancies too? or does he say things that are more to the purpose, Effie?”
Effie paused a little before she replied, “I have to think,” she said; “I don’t remember anything he said—except—Oh yes!—but—it was not to the purpose. It was only—nothing in particular,” she continued with a little wavering colour, and a small sudden laugh in which there was some confusing recollection.
“Ah!” said Uncle John, nodding his head. “I think I see what you mean.”
Theyoung ladies at Allonby, though Effie thought they meant nothing except to make conversation, had really more purpose in their extravagances than that severe little critic thought. To young ladies who have nothing to do a new idea in the way of entertainment is a fine thing.
And though a garden party, or any kind of a party, is not an affair of much importance, yet it holds really a large place in unoccupied lives. Even going to it may mean much to the unconcerned and uninterested: the most philosophical of men, the most passive of women, may thus find their fate. They may drift up against apartner at tennis, or hand a cup of tea to the predestined individual who is to make or mar their happiness for life.
So that no human assembly is without its importance to some one, notwithstanding that to the majority they may be collectively and separately “a bore.” But to those who get them up they are still more important, and furnish a much needed occupation and excitement, with the most beneficial effect both upon health and temper.
The Miss Diroms were beginning to feel a little low; the country was more humdrum than they had expected. They had not been quite sure when they came to Scotland that there were not deer-forests on the Border. They had a lingering belief that the peasants wore the tartan. They had hoped for something feudal, some remnant of the Middle Ages.
But they found nothing of this sortthey found a population which was not at all feudal, people who were friendly but not over respectful, unaccustomed to curtsy and disinclined to be patronized. They were thrown back upon themselves. As for the aspect of the great people, the Diroms were acquainted with much greater people, and thought little of the county magnates.
It was a providential suggestion which put that idea about the music under the cliff into the head of Doris. And as a garden party in September, in Scotland, even in the south, is a ticklish performance, and wants every kind of organization, the sisters were immediately plunged into business. There was this in its favour, that they had the power of tempering the calm of the Dumfriesshire aristocracy by visitors from the greater world at that time scattered over all Scotland, and open to variety wherever they could find it. Even of the Americans, for whom the youngladies had sighed, there were three or four easily attainable. And what with the story of Fair Helen and the little churchyard and the ballad, these visitors would be fully entertained.
Everything was in train, the invitations sent out and accepted, the house in full bustle of preparation, every one occupied and amused, when, to the astonishment of his family, Mr. Dirom arrived upon a visit.
“I thought I’d come and look you up,” he said. He was, as he himself described it, “in great force,” his white waistcoat ampler, his watch-chain heavier, himself more beaming than ever.
His arrival always made a difference in the house, and it was not perhaps an enjoyable difference. It introduced a certain anxiety—a new element. The kind and docile mother who on ordinary occasions was at everybody’s command, and with little resistance did what was told her, became all at once, in the shadow of her husband, a sort of silent authority. She was housekeeper no longer; she had to be consulted, and to give, or pretend to give, orders, which was a trouble to her, as well as to the usual rulers of the house. Nobody disliked it more than Mrs. Dirom herself, who had to pretend that the party was her own idea, and that she had superintended the invitations, in a way which was very painful to the poor lady’s rectitude and love of truth.
“You should have confined yourself to giving dinners,” her husband said—“as many dinners as you like. You’ve got a good cellar, or I’m mistaken, and plenty of handsome plate, and all that sort of thing. The dinners are the thing; men like ’em, and take my word for it, it’s the men’s opinions that tell. Females may think they have it their own way in society, but it’s the men’s opinion that tells.”
“You mean the males, I suppose,” said Doris. “Keep to one kind of word, papa.”
“Yes, Miss D., I mean the males—your superiors,” said Mr. Dirom, with first a stare at his critic and then a laugh. “I thought you might consider the word offensive; but if you don’t mind, neither do I.”
“Oh, what is the use of quarrelling about a word?” said the mother hastily. “We have had dinners. We have returned all that have been given us. That is all any one can expect us to do, George. Then the girls thought—for a little variety, to fill the house and amuse everybody——”
“With tea and toast—and hot-water bottles, I hope to put under their feet. I’ll tell you, Phyllis, what you ought to do. Get out all the keepers and gardeners with warm towels to wipe off the rain off the trees; and have the laundresses out to iron the grass—by Jove, that’s the thing to do;reduce rheumatic fevers to a minimum, and save as many bad colds as possible. I shall say you did it when I get back to my club.”
Phyllis and Doris looked at each other.
“It might be really a good thing to do. And it would be Fun. Don’t you think the electric light put on night and day for forty-eight hours would do some good? What an excellent thing it is to have papa here! He is so practical. He sees in a moment the right thing.”
This applause had the effect rarely attained, of confusing for a moment the man of money.
“It appears I am having a success,” he said. “Or perhaps instead of taking all this trouble you would like me to send a consignment of fur cloaks from town for the use of your guests. The Scotch ladies would like that best, for it would be something,” he said with his big laugh, “to carry away.”
“And I believe,” said Mrs. Dirom, veryanxious to be conciliatory, “you could afford it, George.”
“Oh, afford it!” he said with again that laugh, in which there was such a sound of money, of plenty, of a confidence inexhaustible, that nobody could have heard it, and remained unimpressed. But all the same it was an offensive laugh, which the more finely strung nerves of his children could scarcely bear.
“After all,” said Fred, “we don’t want to insult our neighbours with our money. If they are willing to run the risk, we may let them; and there will always be the house to retire into, if it should be wet.”
“Oh, of course there would always be the house. It is a very fine thing to have a good house to retire into, whatever happens. I should like you to realize that, all of you, and make your hay while the sun shines.”
The room in which the family were sitting was not dark, as when they were alone. The blinds were all drawn up, the sunshades, sooften drawn when there was no sun, elevated, though a ruddy westerly sky, in all the force of approaching sunset, blazed down upon the front of the house. The young people exchanged looks, in which there was a question.
What did he mean? He meant nothing, it appeared, since he followed up his remarks by opening a parcel which he had brought down stairs in his hand, and from which he took several little morocco boxes, of shape and appearance calculated to make the hearts of women—or at least such hearts of women as Mr. Dirom understood—beat high. They were some “little presents” which he had brought to his family. He had a way of doing it—and “for choice,” as he said, he preferred diamonds.
“They always fetch their price, and they are very portable. Even in a woman’s useless pocket, or in her bag or reticule, or whatever you call it, she might carry a little fortune, and no one ever be the wiser,” Mr. Dirom said.
“When one has diamonds,” said Phyllis, “one wishes everybody to be the wiser, papa; we don’t get them to conceal them, do we, Dor? Do you think it will be too much to wear that pendant to-morrow—in daylight? Well, it is a little ostentatious.”
“And you are rather too young for diamonds, Phyll—if your papa was not so good to you,” said Mrs. Dirom in her uncertain voice.
“She’s jealous, girls,” said her husband, “though hers are the best. Young! nobody is ever too young; take the good of everything while you have it, and as long as you have it, that’s my philosophy. And look here, there’s the sun shining—I shouldn’t be surprised if, after all, to-morrow you were to have a fine day.”
They had a fine day, and the party was very successful. Doris had carried out her idea about the music on the opposite bank, and it was very effective. The guests took up thisphrase from the sisters, who asked, “Was it not very effective?” with ingenuous delight in their own success.
It was no common band from the neighbourhood, nor even a party of wandering Germans, but a carefully selected company of minstrels brought from London at an enormous cost: and while half the county walked about upon the tolerably dry lawn, or inspected the house and all the new and elegant articles of art-furniture which the Diroms had brought, the trembling melody of the violins quivered through the air, and the wind instruments sighed and shouted through all the echoes of the Dene. The whole scene was highly effective, and all the actors in it looking and smiling their best.
The Marquis kindly paid Mr. Dirom a compliment on his “splendid hospitality,” and the eloquent Americans who made pilgrimages to Adam Fleming’s grave, and repeated tenderlyhis adjuration to “Helen fair, beyond compare,” regarded everything, except Mr. Dirom in his white waistcoat, with that mixture of veneration and condescension which inspires the transatlantic bosom amid the immemorial scenery of old England.
“Don’t you feel the spell coming over you, don’t you feel the mosses growing?” they cried. “See, this is English dust and damp—the ethereal mould which comes over your very hands, as dear John Burroughs says. Presently, if you don’t wash ’em, little plants will begin to grow all along your line of life. Wonderful English country—mother of the ages!”
This was what the American guests said to each other. It was the Miss Dempsters, to whom Americans were as the South Sea Islanders, and who were anxious to observe the customs and manners of the unknown race, before whom these poetical exclamations were made.
“The English country may be wonderful, though I know very little about it; but you are forgetting it is not here,” Miss Dempster said. “This is Scotland; maybe you may never have heard the name before.”
It is needless to say that the ladies and gentlemen from across the Atlantic smiled at the old native woman’s mistake.
“Oh yes, we know Scotland very well,—almost best of all,—for has not everybody read the Waverleys?—at least all our fathers and mothers read them, though they may be a little out of date in our day.”
“You must be clever indeed if Walter Scott is not clever enough for you,” said the old lady grimly. “But here’s just one thing that a foolish person like me, it seems, can correct you in, and that’s that this countryside is not England. No, nor ever was; and Adam Fleeming in his grave yonder could have told you that.”
“Was he a Border chief? was he one ofthe knights in Branksome Hall? We know all about that. And to think you should be of the same race, and have lived here always, and known the story, and sung the song all your life!”
“I never was much addicted to singing songs, for my part. He must have been a feckless kind of creature to let her get between him and the man that wanted his blood. But he was very natural after that I will say. ‘I hackit him in pieces sma’.’”said Miss Dempster; “that is the real Border spirit: and I make little doubt he was English—the man with the gun.”
The pretty young ladies in their pretty toilettes gathered about the old lady.
“It is most interesting,” they said; “just what one wished to find in the old country—the real accent—the true hereditary feeling.”
“You are just behaving like an old haverel,” said Miss Beenie to her sister inan undertone. It seldom occurred to her to take the command of affairs, but she saw her opportunity and seized it.
“For our part,” she said, “it is just as interesting to us to see real people from America. I have heard a great deal about them, but I never saw them before. It will be a great change to find yourselves in the midst of ceevilization? And what was that about mosses growing on your poor bit little hands? Bless me! I have heard of hair and fur, but never of green growth. Will that be common on your side of the water?”
She spoke with the air of one who was seeking information. Mr. John Burroughs himself, that charming naturalist, might have been disconcerted by so serious a question. And the two old ladies remained in possession of the field.
“I just answered a fool according to his folly,” Miss Beenie remarked, with modestenjoyment of a triumph that seldom fell to her share, “for you were carried away, Sarah, and let them go on with their impidence. A set of young idiots out of a sauvage country that were too grand for Walter Scott!”
It was on the whole a great day for the Miss Dempsters. They saw everybody, they explored the whole house, and identified every piece of furniture that was not Lady Allonby’s. They made a private inspection of the dining-room, where there was a buffet—erected not only for light refreshments, but covered with luxuries and delicacies of a more serious description.
“Bless me, I knew there was tea and ices,” they said; “it’s like a ball supper, and a grand one. Oh, those millionaires! they just cannot spend money enough. But I like our own candlesticks,” said Miss Dempster, “far better than these branchy things, like the dulse on the shore, thecandelawbra, or whatever they call it, on yon table.”
“They’re bigger,” said Miss Beenie; “but my opinion is that the branches are all hollow, not solid like ours.”
“There’s not many like ours,” said Miss Dempster; “indeed I am disposed to think they are just unique. Lord bless us, is that the doctor at the side-table? He is eating up everything. The capacity that man has is just extraordinary—both for dribblets of drink and for solid food.”
“Is that you, ladies?” said the doctor. “I looked for you among the first, and now you’re here, let me offer you some of this raised pie. It’s just particularly good, with truffles as big as my thumb. I take credit for suggesting a game pie. I said they would send the whole parish into my hands with their cauld ices that are not adapted to our climate.”
“We were just saying ices are but a wershprovision, and make you shiver to think of them at this time of the year; but many thanks to you, doctor. We are not in the habit either of eating or drinking between meals. Perhaps a gentleman may want it, and you have science to help you down with it. But two women like us, we are just very well content with a cup of tea.”
“Which is a far greater debauch,” said the doctor hotly, “for you are always at it.” But he put down his plate. “The auld cats,” he said to himself; “there’s not a drop passes my lips but they see it, and it will be over all the parish that I was standing guzzlin’ here at this hour of the day.”
But there were others beside the doctor who took advantage of the raised pie and appreciated the truffles. People who have been whetted by music and vague conversation and nothing to do or think of for a weary afternoon, eat with enthusiasm whenthe chance occurs; they eat even cake and bread and butter, how much more the luxuriousmayonnaiseand lobsters andfoie gras. After the shiver of an ice it was grateful to turn to better fare. And Mr. Dirom was in his glory in the dining-room, which was soon filled by a crowd more animated and genial than that which had strolled about the lawn.
“You will spoil your dinner,” the ladies said to their husbands, but with small effect.
“Never mind the dinner,” said the master of the house. “Have a little of this Château Yquem. It is not a wine you can get every day. I call it melted gold; but I never ask the price of a wine so long as it’s good; and there’s plenty more where that came from.”
His wealth was rampant, and sounded in his voice and in his laugh, till you seemed to hear the money tinkle. Phyllis and Dorisand Fred cast piteous glances at each other when they met.
“Oh, will nobody take him away!” they cried under their breath. “Fred, can’t you pretend there is a telegram and dreadful news? Can’t you say the Bank of England is broke, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has run away?”
He wounded his children’s nerves and their delicacy beyond description, but still it had to be allowed that he was the master of the house. And so the party came to an end, and the guests, many of them with indigestions, but with the most cordial smiles and applause and hand-shakings, were gradually cleared away.
Mr. Ogilviewas one of those who carried away an incipient indigestion. He was not accustomed to truffles nor to Château Yquem. But he did not spoil his dinner—for as they were in the habit of dining rather early, and it was now nearly seven o’clock, his wife promptly decided that a cup of tea when he got home would be much the best thing for him, and that no dinner need be served in Gilston House that day. She said, “You must just look a little lively, Robert, till we get away. Don’t let strangers think that you’ve been taking more than is good for you, either of meat or drink.”
“Drink!” said the good man. “Yon’s nectar: but I might have done without the salad. Salad is a cold thing upon the stomach. I’m lively enough if you would let me alone. And he’s a grand fellow the father of them. He grudges nothing. I have not seen such a supper since my dancing days.”
“It was no supper; it was just a tea party. I wish you would wake up, and understand. Here is Mr. Dirom with Effie coming to put me into the carriage. Rouse up, man, and say a civil word.”
“I’ll do that,” said Mr. Ogilvie. “We’ve had a most enjoyable evening, Mr. Dirom, a good supper and a capital band, and—— But I cannot get it out of my head that it’s been a ball—which is impossible now I see all these young ladies with hats and bonnets upon their heads.”
“I wish it had been a ball,” said the overwhelming host. “We ought to have kept it up half through the night, and enjoyed anothersupper, eh? at midnight, and a little more of that Clicquot. I hope there’s enough for half-a-dozen balls. Why hadn’t you the sense to keep the young people for the evening, Fred? Perhaps you thought the provisions wouldn’t last, or that I would object to pay the band for a few hours longer. My children make me look stingy, Mrs. Ogilvie. They have got a number of small economical ways.”
“And that’s an excellent thing,” said the lady, “for perhaps they may not have husbands that will be so liberal as their father—or so well able to afford it—and then what would they do?”
“I hope to put them beyond the risk of all that,” said the man of money, jingling his coins. He did not offer to put Mrs. Ogilvie into the carriage as she had supposed, but looked on with his hands in his pockets, and saw her get in. The Ogilvies were almost the last to leave, and the last object that impressed itself upon them as they turned round thecorner of the house was Mr. Dirom’s white waistcoat, which looked half as big as Allonby itself. When every one had disappeared, he took Fred, who was not very willing, by the arm, and led him along the river bank.
“Is that the family,” he said, “my fine fellow, that they tell me you want to marry into, Fred?”
“I have never thought of the family. Since you bring it in so suddenly—though I was scarcely prepared to speak on the subject—yes: that’s the young lady whom in all the world, sir, I should choose for my wife.”
“Much you know about the world,” said Mr. Dirom. “I can’t imagine what you are thinking of; a bit of a bread-and-butter girl, red and white, not a fortune, no style about her, or anything out of the common. Why, at your age, without a tithe of your advantages, I shouldn’t have looked at her, Mr. Fred.”
If there was in Fred’s mind the involuntary instinctive flash of a comparison between his good homely mother and pretty Effie, may it be forgiven him! He could do nothing more than mutter a half sulky word upon difference of taste.
“That’s true,” said his father; “one man’s meat is another man’s poison. My Lady Alicia’s not much to look at, but she is Lady Alicia; that’s always a point in her favour. But this little girl has nothing to show. Bread and butter, that’s all that can be said.”
To this Fred, with gathering curves upon his forehead, made no reply at all.
“And her people are barely presentable,” said the father. “I say this with no personal feeling, only for your good; very Scotch, but nothing else about them to remember them by. A sodden stagnant old Scotch squire, and a flippant middle-class mother, and I suppose a few pounds of her own that will make her think herself somebody. My dear fellow,there you have everything that is most objectionable. A milkmaid would not be half so bad, for she would ask no questions and understand that she got everything from you——”
“There is no question of any milkmaid,” said Fred in high offence.
“Middle class is social destruction,” said Mr. Dirom. “Annihilation, that’s what it is. High or low has some chance, but there’s no good in yourmilieu. Whatever happens, you’ll never be able to make anything out of her. They have no go in that position; they’re too respectable to go out of the beaten way. That little thing, sir, will think it’s unbecoming to do this or that. She’ll never put out a step beyond what she knows. She’ll be no help to you if anything happens. She’ll set up her principles; she’ll preach your duty to you. A pretty kind of wife for the son of a man who has made his way to the top of the tree, byJove! and that may tumble down again some fine day.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said Fred. “You might add she will most likely neither look nor listen to me, and all this sermon of yours will go for nought.”
“I didn’t mean it for a sermon. I give it you in friendship to warn you what’s before you. You think perhaps after this I’m going to forbid the banns: though there’s no banns wanted in this free country, I believe. No, Fred, that’s not it; I’m not going to interfere. If you like insipidity, it’s your own concern: if you choose a wife in order to carry her on your shoulders—and be well kicked while you do it: mind that.”
“I think, sir,” said Fred, who had grown very red, “that we had better drop the subject. If you mean to oppose, why, of course, you can oppose—but if not, thissort of thing does little good. It can never alter my mind, and I don’t see even how it can relieve yours.”
“Oh yes, it relieves mine,” said his father. “It shows you my opinion. After that, if you choose to take your own way, why, you must do it. I should have advised you to look out for a nice little fortune which might have been a stand-by in case of anything happening. No, nothing’s going to happen. Still you know—— Or I’d have married rank (you might if you had liked), and secured a little family interest. Things might change in a day, at any moment. Jack might tire of his blue china and come and offer himself for the office. If he did, you have married against my advice, and Jack being the eldest son—— Well, I don’t need to say any more.”
“I quite understand, sir,” Fred said.
“Well, that’s a good thing; but you need not go too far on the other side, and thinkI’m going to disinherit you, or any of that rubbish. Did I disinherit Jack? I bring you up in the best way, spend no end of money on you, teach you to think yourselves twice the man I am, and then you take your own way.”
“Indeed, sir,” cried Fred anxiously, “you are mistaken. I——” But though he did not think he was twice the man his father was, yet he did think he was a very different man from his father, and this consciousness made him stammer and fall into confusion, not knowing what to say.
“Don’t trouble yourself to contradict me,” said Mr. Dirom. “Idon’t think so. I think your father’s twice the man you are. Let each of us keep his opinion. We shan’t convince each other. And if you insist on marrying your insipidity, do. Tell the stupid old father to communicate with my lawyers about the settlements, and get it over as soon as you please.”
“You are going a great deal too fast, sir,” said Fred. He was pale with the hurry and rapid discussion. “I can’t calculate like this upon what is going to happen. Nothing has happened as yet.”
“You mean she mayn’t have you? Never fear; young fellows with a father behind them ain’t so common. Most men in my position would put a stop to it altogether. I don’t; what does it matter to me? Dirom and Co. don’t depend upon daughters-in-law. A woman’s fortune is as nothing to what’s going through my hands every day. I say, let every man please himself. And you’ve got quiet tastes and all that sort of thing, Fred. Thinking of coming up to town to look after business a little? Well, don’t; there’s no need of you just now. I’ve got some ticklish operations on, but they’re things I keep in my own hands.”
“I don’t pretend to be the business man you are,” said Fred with a fervour whichwas a little forced, “but if I could be of use——”
“No, I don’t think you could be of use. Go on with your love-making. By the way, I’m going back to-night. When is the train? I’ll just go in and mention it to your mother. I wanted to see what sort of a set you had about. Poor lot!” said Mr. Dirom, shaking his heavy chain as he looked at his watch. “Not a shilling to spare among ’em—and thinking all the world of themselves. So do I? Yes: but then I’ve got something to stand upon. Money, my boy, that’s the only real power.”
Phyllis and Doris met their brother anxiously on his way back. “What is he going to do?” they both said; “what has he been talking to you about? Have you got to give her up, you poor old Fred?”
“I shouldn’t have given her up for a dozen governors; but he’s very goodabout it. Really to hear him you would think—— He’s perhaps better about it than I deserve. He’s going back to town by the fast train to-night.”
“To-night!” There was both relief and grievance in the tone of the girls.
“He might just as well have gone this morning, and much more comfortable for him,” said Phyllis.
“For us too,” said her sister, and the three stood together and indulged in a little guilty laugh which expressed the relief of their souls. “It is horrid of us, when he’s always so kind: but papa does not really enjoy the country, nor perhaps our society. He is always much happier when he’s in town and within reach of the club.”
“And in the meantime we have got our diamonds.”
“And I my freedom,” said Fred; then he added with a look of compunction, “I say, though, look here. He’s as good to us ashe knows how, and we’re not just what you would call——”
“Grateful,” said both the sisters in a breath. Then they began to make excuses, each in her own way.
“We did not bring up ourselves. We ought to have got the sort of education that would have kept us in papa’s sphere. He should have seen to that; but he didn’t, Fred, as you know, and how can we help it? I am always as civil to him as it’s possible to be. If he were ill, or anything happened—By-the-bye, we are always saying now, ‘If anything happened:’ as if there was some trouble in the air.”
“It’s all right; you needn’t be superstitious. He is in the best of spirits, and says I am not wanted, and that he’s got some tremendous operation in hand.”
“I do not suppose you would make much difference, dear Fred, even if you were wanted,” said Miss Phyllis sweetly. “Ofcourse if he were ill we should go to him wherever he was. If he should have an accident now, I could bind up his arteries, or foment his foot if he strained it. I have not got my ambulance certificate for nothing. But keeping very well and quite rampant, and richer than anybody, what could we do for him?”
“It’s the sentiment of the thing,” said Fred.
“As if he ever thought of the sentiment; or minded anything about us.”
They returned to the house in the course of this conversation—where already the servants had cleared the dining-room and replaced it in its ordinary condition. Here Doris paused to tell the butler that dinner must be served early on account of her father’s departure: but her interference was received by that functionary with a bland smile, which rebuked the intrusion.
“We have known it, miss, since master came,” a little speech which brought backthe young people to their original state of exasperated satisfaction.
“You see!” the girls said, while even Fred while he laughed felt a prick of irritation. Williams the butler had a great respect for his master, a respect by no means general in such cases. He had served a duke in his day, but he had never met with any one who was so indifferent to every one else, so masterful and easy in his egotism, as his present gentleman. And that he himself should have known what Mr. Dirom’s arrangements were, while the children did not know, was a thing that pleased this regent of the household. It was putting things in their proper place.
All the arrangements were made in the same unalterable imperious way. There was no hurry with Mr. Dirom. He dined and indulged in a great many remarks upon county people, whom he thought very small beer, he who was used to the best society.He would not in London have condescended to notice such people.
But in the country, if the girls liked, and as there was nothing better to be had—“From time to time give them a good spread,” he said; “don’t mind what’s the occasion—a good spread, all the delicacies of the season; that’s the sort of thing to do. Hang economy, that’s the virtue of the poor-proud. You’re not poor, thanks to me, and you have no call to be humble, chicks. Give it ’em grand, regardless of expense. As long as I’m there to pay, I like you to cut a figure. I like to feed ’em up and laugh in their faces. They’ll call me vulgar, you bet. Never mind; what I like is to let them say it, and then make them knuckle under. Let ’em see you’re rich,—that’s what the beggars feel,—and you’ll have every one of them, the best of them, on their knees. Pity is,” he added after a while, “that there’s nobody here that is any good. Nothing marriageable, eh,Phyll? Ah, well, for that fellow there, who might have picked up something better any day of his life; but nothing for you girls. Not so much as a bit of a young baronet, or even a Scotch squire. Nothing but the doctor; the doctor won’t do. I’m very indulgent, but there I draw the line. Do you hear, mother? No doctor. I’ll not stand the doctor—not till they’re forty at the least, and have got no other hope.”
The girls sat pale, and made no reply. Their mother gave a feeble laugh, as in duty bound, and said, “That’s your fun, George.” Thus the propriety of Doris’s statement that they ought to have been brought up in papa’s sphere was made apparent: for in that case they would have laughed too: whereas now they sat silent and pale, and looked at each other, with sentiments unutterable: fortunately the servants had gone away, but he was quite capable of having spoken before the servants.
After dinner they waited with ill-restrained impatience the hour of the train.Hehad rarely made himself so offensive; he went on about the doctor, who would probably be their fate as they got near forty, with inexhaustible enjoyment, and elicited from their mother that little remonstrating laugh, which they forgave her for pity, saying to each other, “Poor mamma!” Decidedly it is much better when daughters, and sons too, for that matter, are brought up in their father’s sphere. He went away in great good humour, refusing Fred’s offer to drive him to the station.
“None of your dog-carts for me,” he said: “I’ve ordered the brougham. Good-bye girls; take care of yourselves, and try to rummage out something superior to that doctor. And, Fred, you’d better think better of it, my fine fellow, or, if you won’t be warned, do as you like, and be hanged to you. Good-bye, old lady; I expect to hearyou’ve got screwed up with rheumatism in this damp old den here.”
“And when will you come back, George? They say the weather is fine up to November. I hope you’ll soon come back.”
“Not for some time—unless I should have worse luck,” said the rich man. He was at the door when he said this, his wife accompanying him, while Fred stood outside with his hair blown about his eyes, at the door of the brougham. The girls, standing behind, saw it all like a picture. Their father, still with his white waistcoat showing under his overcoat, his heavy chain glittering, and the beam and the roll of triumphant money in his eye and his gait—“Not soon, unless I have worse luck,” and he paused a moment and gave a comprehensive look around him with sudden gravity, as he spoke.
Then there was a laugh, a good-bye—and the carriage rolled away, and they all stoodfor a moment looking out into the blackness of the night.
“What does he mean by worse luck?” they said to their mother as she came in from the door.
“He means nothing; it is just his fun. He’s got the grandest operations in hand he has ever had. What a father you have got, girls! and to think he lets you do whatever you please, and keeps you rolling in wealth all the same!”