“Man...... Glas of beare. 1d.Creme........... 3d.”
For had not the Colonel’s wife warned against the endless hospitality of glasses of beer to all messengers; and had not unlimited cream with strawberries and apple-tarts been treated as a kind of spontaneous luxury produced at the Belforest farm agent’s? To these, and many other small matters, Caroline was quite relieved to plead guilty, and to promise to do her best by personal supervision; and Ellen set herself to devise further ways of reduction, not realising how hopeless it is to prescribe for another person’s household difficulties. It is not in the nature of things that such advice should be palatable, and the proverb about the pinching of the shoe is sure to be realised.
“Too many servants,” said prudence. “If old nurse must be provided for—and she ought to have saved enough to do without—it would be much better to pension her off, or get her into an almshouse.”
Caroline tried to endure, as she made known that she viewed nurse as a sacred charge, about whom there must be no question.
Ellen quietly said—
“Then it is no use to argue, but she must be allowed no more discretion in the housekeeping.”
“No, I shall do that myself,” said Caroline.
“An extravagant cook.”
“That may be my fault. I will try to judge of that.”
“Irregular hours.”
“They shall end with the holidays.”
There was still another maid, whom Ellen said was only kept to wait on nurse, but who, Caroline said, did all their needlework, both making and mending.
“That,” said Ellen, “I should have thought you and Janet could do. I do nearly all our work with the girls’ help; I am happy to say that Jessie is an excellent needlewoman, and Essie and Ellie can do something. I only direct the nursery maid; I never trust anything to servants.”
“I could never bear not to trust people,” said Caroline.
Ellen sighed, believing that she would soon be cured of that; and Carey added—
“On true principles of economy, surely it is better that Emma, who knows how, should mend the clothes, than that I should botch them up in any way, when I can earn more than she costs me!”
“Earn!”
“Yes; I can model, and I can teach. Was I not brought up to it?”
“Yes, but now it is impossible! It is not a larger income that you want, but proper attention to details in the spending of it, as I will show you.”
Whereupon Mrs. Brownlow, in her neat figures, built up a pretty little economical scheme, based on a thorough knowledge of the subject. Caroline tried to follow her calculations, but a dreaminess came over her; she found herself saying “Yes,” without knowing what she was assenting to; and while Ellen was discoursing on coals and coke, she was trying to decide which of her casts she could bear to offer for sale, and going off into the dear old associations connected with each, so that she was obliged at the end, instead of giving an unqualified assent, to say she would think it over; and Ellen, who had marked her wandering eye, left off with a conviction that she had wasted her breath.
Certainly she was not prepared for the proposal with which Mother Carey almost rushed into the room the next day, just as she was locking up her wine, and the Colonel lingering over his first glance at the day’s Times.
“I know what to do! Miss James is not coming back? And you have not heard of any one? Then, if you would only let me teach your girls with mine! You know that is what I really can do. Yes, indeed, I would be regular. I always was. You know I was, Robert, till I came here, and didn’t quite know what I was about; and I have been regular ever since the end of the holidays, and I really can teach.”
“My dear sister,” edged in the Colonel, as she paused for breath, “no one questions your ability, only the fitness of—”
“I had thought over two things,” broke in Caroline again. “If you don’t like me to have Jessie, and Essie, and Ellie, I would offer to prepare little boys. I’ve been more used to them than to girls, and I know Mr. Ogilvie would be glad. I could have the little Wrights, and Walter Leslie, and three or four more directly, but I thought you might like the other way better.”
“I can see no occasion for either,” said Ellen. “You need no increase in income, only to attend to details.”
“And I had rather do what I can—than what I can’t,” said Caroline.
“Every lady should understand how to superintend her own household,” said her Serene Highness.
“Granted; oh, granted, Ellen! I’m going to superintend with all my might and main, but I don’t want to be my own upper servant, and I know I should make no hand of it, and I had much rather earn something by my wits. I can do it best in the way I was trained; and you know it is what I have been used to ever since my own children were born.”
Ellen heaved a sigh at this obtuseness towards what she viewed as the dignified and ladylike mission of the well-born woman, not to be the bread-winner, but the preserver and steward, of the household. Here was poor little Caroline so ignorant as actually to glory in having been educated for a governess!
The Colonel, wanting to finish his Times in peace, looked up and said, with the gracious tone he always used to his brother’s wife—
“My good little sister, it is very praiseworthy in you to wish to exert yourself, and very kind and proper to desire to begin at home, but you must allow us a little time to consider.”
She took this as a hint to retreat; and her Serene Highness likewise feeling it a dismissal, tried at once to obviate all ungraciousness by saying, “We are preserving our magnum bonums, Caroline dear; I will send you some.”
“Magnum bonum!” gasped Caroline, hearing nothing but the name. “Do you know—?”
“I know the recipe of course, and can give you an excellent one. I will come over by-and-by and explain it to you.”
Caroline stood confounded. Had Joe revealed all to his brother? Was it to be treated as a domestic nostrum? “Then you know what the magnum bonum is?” she faltered.
“Are you asking as a philosopher,” said the Colonel, amused by her tone
“I don’t know what you mean, Colonel,” said his wife. “I offered Caroline a basket of magnum bonums for preserving, and one would think I had said something very extraordinary.”
“Perhaps it is my cockney ignorance,” said Caroline, beginning to breathe freely, and thinking it would have been less oppressive if Sua Serenita would have either laughed or scolded, instead of gravely leading her past the red-baize door which shut out the lower regions to the room where white armies of jam-pots stood marshalled, and in the midst two or three baskets of big yellow plums, which awoke in her a remembrance of their name, and set her laughing, thanking, and preparing to carry home the basket.
This, however, as she was instantly reminded, was not country-town manners. The gardener was to be sent with them, and Ellen herself would copy out the recipe, and by-and-by bring it, with full directions.
Each lady felt herself magnanimously forbearing, as Caroline went home to the lessons, and Ellen repaired to her husband on his morning inspection of his hens and chickens.
“Poor thing,” she said, “there are great allowances to be made for her. I believe she wishes to do right.”
“She knows how to teach,” rejoined the Colonel. “Bobus is nearly at the head of the school, and Johnny has improved greatly since he has been so much with her.”
“Johnny was always clever,” said his mother. “For my part, I had rather see them playing at good honest games than messing about with that museum nonsense. The boys did not do half so much mischief, nor destroy so many clothes, before they were always running down to the Pagoda. And as to this setting up a school, you would never consent to have Joe’s wife doing that!”
“There is no real need.”
“None at all, if she only would—if she only knew how to attend to her proper duties.”
“At the same time, I should be very glad of an excuse for making her an advance, enough to meet the weekly bills, till her rent comes in, so that she may not begin a debt. Could you not send the girls to her for a few hours every day?”
“That’s not so bad as her taking pupils, for nobody need know that she was paid for it,” said his wife, considering. “I don’t believe it will answer, or that she will ever keep to it steadily; but it can hardly hurt the children to try, if Jessie has an eye on Essie and Ellie. I will not have them brought on too fast, nor taught Latin, and all that poor little Babie is learning. I am sure it is dreadful to hear that child talk. I am always expecting that she will have water on the brain.”
The decision, which really involved a sacrifice and a certain sense of risk on the part of these good people, was conveyed in a note, together with a recipe for the preservation of magnum bonums, and a very liberal cheque in advance for the first quarter of her three pupils, stipulating that no others should be admitted, that the terms should be kept secret, that the hours should be regular, and above all, that the pupils should not be forced.
Caroline was touched and grateful, but could hardly keep a little satire out of her promise that Essie and Ellie should not be too precocious. She wrote her note of thanks, despatched it, and then, in the interest of some arithmetical problems which she was working with Janet, forgot everything else, till a sort of gigantic buzz was heard near at hand. A sudden thought struck her, and out she darted into the hall. There stood the basket in the middle of the table, just where the boys were wont to look for refections of fruit or cake when they tumbled in from school. Six boys and Babie hovered round, each in the act of devouring a golden-green, egg-like plum, and only two or three remained in the leaves at the bottom!
“Oh, the magnum bonums!” she cried; and Janet came rushing out in dismay at the sound, standing aghast, but not exclaiming.
“Weren’t they for us?” asked Bobus, the first to get the stone out of his mouth.
“No; oh, no!” answered his mother, as well as laughter would permit; “they are your aunt’s precious plums, which she gave us as a great favour, and I was going to be so good and learn to preserve and pickle them! Oh, dear!”
“Never mind, Mother Carey,” mumbled her nephew Johnny, with his stone swelling out his cheek, where it was tucked for convenience of speech; “I’ll go and get you another jolly lot more.”
“You can’t,” grunted Robin; “they are all gathered.”
“Then we’ll get them off the old tree at the bottom of the orchard, where they are just as big and yellow, and mamma will never know the difference.”
“But they taste like soap!”
“That doesn’t matter. She’d no more taste a magnum bonum, before it is all titivated up with sugar, than—than—than—”
“Babie’s head with brain sauce,” gravely put in Bobus, as his cousin paused for a comparison. “It’s a wasting of good gifts to make jam of these, for jam is nothing but a vehicle for sugar.”
“Then the grocer’s cart is jam,” promptly retorted Armine, “for I saw a sugarloaf come in one yesterday.”
“Come on, then,” cried Jock, ripe for the mischief; “I know the tree! They are just like long apricots. Aunt Ellen will think her plums have been all a-growing!”
“No, no, boys!” cried his mother, “I can’t have it done. To steal your aunt’s own plums to deceive her with!”
“We always may do as we like with that tree,” said Johnny, “because they are so nasty, and won’t keep.”
“How nice for the preserves!” observed Bobus.
“They would do just as well to hinder Mother Carey from catching it.”
“No, no, boys; I ought to ‘catch it!’ It was all my fault for not putting the plums away.”
“You won’t tell of us,” growled Robin, between lips that he opened wide enough the next moment to admit one of three surviving plums.
“If I tell her I left them about in the boys’ way, she will arrive at the natural conclusion.”
“Do they call those things magnum bonum?” asked Janet, as the boys drifted away.
“Yes,” said her mother, looking at her rather wonderingly; and adding, as Janet coloured up to the eyes, “My dear, have you any other association with the name?”
Many a time Janet had longed to tell all she knew; now, when so good an opportunity had come, all was choked back by the strange leaden weight of reserve, and shame in that long reserve.
She opened her eyes and stared as stupidly at her mother as Robin could have done, feeling an utter incapacity of making any reply; and Caroline, who had for a moment thought she understood, was baffled, and durst not pursue the subject for fear of betraying her own secret, deciding within herself that Janet might have caught up the word without understanding.
They were interrupted the next minute, and Janet ran away, feeling that she had had an escape, yet wishing she had not.
Caroline did effectually shelter her nephews under her general term “the boys,” and if their mother was not conciliated, their fellow-feeling with her was strengthened, as well as their sense of honour. Nay, Johnny actually spent the next half-holiday in walking three miles and back to his old nurse, whom he beguiled out of a basket of plums—hard, little blue things, as unlike magnum bonums as could well be, but which his aunt received as they were meant, as full compensation; nay, she took the pains to hunt up a recipe, and have them well preserved, in hopes of amazing his mother.
It was indeed one difficulty that the two sisters-in-law had such different notions of the aim and end of economy. The income at Kencroft had not increased with the family, which numbered eight, for there were two little boys in the nursery, and it was only by diligent housewifery that Mrs. Brownlow kept up the somewhat handsome establishment she had started with at her marriage. Caroline felt that she neither could nor would have made herself such a slave to domestic details; yet this was life and duty and interest to Ellen. Where one sister would be unheeding of shabby externals, so that all her children might be free and on an equality, if they did not go beyond her, in all enjoyments, physical, artistic, or intellectual; the other toiled to keep up appearances, kept her children under restraint and in the background, and made all sorts of unseen sacrifices to the supposed duty of always having a handsome dinner for whomsoever the Colonel might bring in, and keeping the horses, carriages, and servants that she thought his due.
But then Ellen had a husband, and, as Caroline sighed to herself, that made all the difference! and she was no Serene Highness, and had no dignity.
The three girls from Kencroft did actually become pupils at the Folly, but the beginnings were not propitious, for, in her new teacher’s eyes, Jessie knew nothing accurately, but needed to have her foundations looked to—to practise scales, draw square boxes, and work the four first rules of arithmetic.
“Simple things,” complained Jessie to her mother, “that I used to do when I was no bigger than Essie, and yet she is always teasing one about how and why! She wanted me to tell why I carried one.”
“Have a little patience for the present, my dear, your papa wants to help her just at present, and after this autumn we will manage for you to have some real good music lessons.”
“But I don’t like wasting time over old easy things made difficult,” sighed Jessie.
“It is very tiresome, my dear; but your papa wishes it, and you see, poor thing, she can’t teach you more than she knows herself; and while you are there, I am sure it is all right with Essie and Ellie.”
“She does not teach them a bit like Miss James,” said Jessie. “She makes their sums into a story, and their spelling lessons too. It is like a game.”
Indeed, Essie and Ellie were so willing to go off to their lessons every morning, that their mother often thought it could not be all right, and that the progress, which they undoubtedly made, must be by some superficial trick; but as their father had so willed it, she submitted to the present arrangement, deciding that “poor Caroline was just able to teach little children.”
The presence of Essie and Ellie much assisted in bringing Babie back to methodical habits; nor was she, in spite of her precocious intelligence, too forward in the actual drill of education to be able to work with her little cousins.
The incongruous elements were the two elder girls, who could by no means study together, since they were at the two opposite ends of the scale; but as Jessie was by no means aggressive, being in fact as sweet and docile a shallow girl as ever lived, things went on peaceably, except when Janet could not conceal her displeasure that Bobus would not share her contempt for Jessie’s intellect.
If she told him that Jessie thought that the Odyssey was about a voyage to Odessa, and was written by Alfred Tennyson, he only declared that anything was better than being a spiteful cat; and when he came in from school, and found his cousin in wild despair over the conversion of 2,861 florins into half-crowns, he stood by, telling her every operation, and leaving her nothing to do but to write down the figures. He was reckless of Janet, who tried to wither them both by her scorn; but Jessie looked up with her honest eyes, saying—
“I wish you hadn’t put it into my head, Janet, for now I must rub it out and do it again, and it won’t be so hard now Bobus has shown me how.”
“No, no, Jessie,” said Bobus; “I wouldn’t be bullied.”
“For shame, Bobus,” said his sister; “how is she to learn anything in that way?”
“And if she doesn’t?” said Bobus.
“That’s a disgrace.”
“A grace,” said provoking Bobus. “She is much nicer as she is, than you will ever be.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense,” said Janet, with an elder sisterly air. “It is not kind to encourage Jessie to think anyone can care for an empty-headed doll.”
“Empty-headed dolls are all the go,” said Bobus. “Never mind, Jessie, a girl’s business is to be pretty and good-humoured, not to stuff herself with Latin and Greek. You should leave that to us poor beggars!”
“Yes, I know, that’s all your envy and jealousy,” retorted Janet.
All the time Jessie stood by, plump, gentle, and pretty, though with a certain cloud of perplexity on her white open brow, and as her aunt returned into the room, she said—
“I think my sum is right now, Aunt Caroline; but Bobus helped me. Must I do it over again?”
“You shall begin with it to-morrow, my dear,” said her aunt; “then I daresay it will go off easily.”
Jessie thanked with an effusion of gratitude which made her prettier than ever, and then was claimed by Bobus to help him in the making of some paper bags that he needed for some of his curiosities.
Janet liked to fancy that it was beauty versus genius that made Jessie the greater favourite. She had not taken into account that she was always too much engrossed with her own concerns to be helpful, while Jessie’s pretty dexterous hands were always at everyone’s service, and without in the least entering into the cause of science, she was invaluable in the museum, whenever her ideas of neatness and symmetry were not in too absolute opposition to the requirements of system.
The two little ones, Essie and Ellie, were equally graceful, or indeed still more so, as being still in their kittenhood, and their attitudes were so charming as to revive their aunt’s artistic instincts.
All the earlier part of the year, when her time was her own, it had been mere wretchedness and heart-sickness to think of the art which had given her husband so much pleasure, and, but for Allen, the studio would never have been arranged. But no sooner was her time engrossed, than the artist fever awoke in her, and all the time she could steal by early rising, or on wet afternoons, and birthday holidays, was devoted to her clay.
Before the end of the autumn she had sent up to Mr. Acton some lovely little groups of children, illustrating Wordsworth’s poems. She had been taught anatomy enough to make her work superior to that of most women, and Mr. Acton found no difficulty in disposing of them to a porcelain manufactory, to be copied in Parian, bringing in a sum that made her feel rich.
Vistas opened before her sanguine eyes of that clay educating her son for the Magnum Bonum, her great thought. Her boys must be brought up to be worthy of the quest, high-minded, disinterested, and devoted, as well as intellectual and religious. So said their father; and thus the Magnum Bonum had become very nearly a religion to her, giving her a definite aim and principle.
Unfortunately there was not much in her present surroundings to lead her higher. The vicar, Mr. Rigby, was a dull, weak man, of a wornout type, a careful visitor of the sick and poor, but taking little heed to the educated, except as subscribers and Sunday-school teachers. Carey had done little in the first capacity, Janet had refused to act in the latter.
His sermons were very sleepy performances, except for a tendency to jumble up metaphors, that kept the audience from the Folly just awake enough to watch for them. The hearer was proud who could repeat by heart such phrases as “let us not, beloved brethren, as gaudy insects, flutter out life’s little day, bound to the chariot wheels of vanity, whirling in the vortex of dissipation, until at length we lie moaning over the bitter dregs of the intoxicating draught.” Some of these became household proverbs at “the Folly,” under the title of “Rigdum Funnidoses,” and might well be an extreme distress to the good, reverent, and dutiful Jessie.
Mrs. Rigby was an inferior woman, a sworn member of the Coffinkey clique, admiring and looking up to her Serene Highness as the great lady of the place, and wearing an almost abject manner when receiving good counsels from her. Neither of them commanded respect, nor were they likely to change the belief, which prevailed at the Folly, that all ability resided among the London clergy.
Lithest, gaudiest harlequin,Prettiest tumbler ever seen,Light of heart and light of limb.Wordsworth.
Long walks continued to be almost a necessity to Mrs. Joseph Brownlow, even when comparatively sobered down, and there were few days on which she was not to be met a mile or two from Kenminster, attended by a train of boys larger or smaller, according to the demands of the school for work or play.
The winter was of the description least favourable to collective boyish sports, as there was no snow and very little frost. The Christmas holidays led to more walking than ever. The gravelled roads of Belforest were never impassable, even in moist weather; and even the penetralia of the place had been laid open to the Brownlows, in consequence of a friendship which the two Johns had established with Alfred Richards, the agent’s son. They had brought him in to see the museum, and he had proved so nice and intelligent a lad, that Mother Carey, to the great scandal of her Serene Highness, allowed Jock to ask him to partake of a birthday feast.
When Allen came home at Christmas, he introduced stilt walking, and the Coffinkey world had the pleasure of communicating to one another that “Mrs. Folly Brownlow” had been seen with all her boys walking on stilts; and of course in the next stage, Mrs. “Folly” Brownlow herself was said to have been walking on stilts with all her boys, a libel, which caused Mrs. Robert Brownlow much pain and trouble in the contradiction.
“Poor Caroline! walking seemed to be necessary to her health, and she was out a great deal, but always walking along in the lanes on foot with her little girls—yes, I assure you, always on foot!”
It was thus that Caroline, with Babie and Armine, was descending a hill on the other side of Belforest Park, fully employed in picking the way through the mud from stone to stone, when a cry of dismay came to them from a distance, and whilst they were still struggling towards a gate, which broke the line of the high hedge, the two Johns came back at speed, crying—“Mother, Mother Carey! come quick, here’s Allen had a spill—came down on his shoulder—his stilt went into a hole, and he went right over; they think he must have broken something, he howls so when they touch him.”
Feeling her limbs and breath inadequate to bear her on as fast as her spirit flew forward, Caroline dashed through the slippery mud far too swiftly for poor little Babie to keep up with her, leaving one boy to take care of the little ones, while the other acted as her guide down the long steep lane. She was unable to see over the hedges till she came through a gate into a meadow, where Jock looked about, rubbed his eyes, and exclaimed—“Hallo, where are they?” pointing to the place where Allen had fallen, but whence he seemed to have been spirited away like Sir Piercie Shafton. However, Rob and Joe came running out of a farmyard at a little distance, with tidings that Allen had been taken in there, and replying to her breathless question, that they could not tell how much he was hurt.
A fine looking white-haired farmer met her next, saying—“Your young gentleman is not very seriously hurt, ma’am. I think a dislocation of the shoulder is the extent of the injury. He is feeling rather faint, but you must not be alarmed.”
It was spoken with a kind courtesy that gave her confidence, and the old man led her to the parlour, where his daughter-in-law, a gentle looking person, was most kindly attending on Allen, who lay on the sofa, exceedingly white, and in much pain, but able to smile at his mother, and assure her that he should soon be all right.
“Had they sent for a surgeon?”
“No, but they had sent for a bone-setter, who would be there in a minute.”
The old farmer explained that it would be two hours at the least before a surgeon could be fetched from Kenminster, while Higg, the blacksmith, who lived close at hand, was better for man and beast than any surgeon he had known, and his son had instantly set out to fetch him. As the mother doubtfully asked of his fitness, instances were quoted of his success. The family had a “gift,” inherited and kept up from time immemorial, and the farmer’s wife declared that he was as tender as possible; she had seen him operate on a neighbour’s child, and should not be afraid to trust him with one of her own.
The man’s voice was heard; they went out to speak to him, and Caroline was left with her boy.
“What do you think, Ali, my dear,” she said, kneeling by him, “I have often heard dear papa speak of the wonderful instinct of those bone-setting families.”
“I’d have nothing to do with a humbugging quack,” put in Bobus.
“He may humbug as much as he likes, if he’ll only get me out of this pain,” said poor Allen.
“He will only make it ever so much worse, and then you’ll have to have it done over again,” croaked Bobus.
“That is not the way to talk of it, Bobus,” said his mother. “I know a dislocated shoulder does not require any great skill, and that promptness is of greater use than knowledge in such a case.”
“Well, if you like to encourage abominable humbug and have Allen lamed for life, I don’t,” said Bobus. “I shan’t stay in the house with the blackguard.”
He stalked out of the room with great loftiness of demeanour, just as the operator was being introduced—a tall, sinewy man, with one of those strong yet meek faces often to be found among the peasantry. He came in after the old farmer, pulling his forelock to the lady, and waiting for orders as if he had been sent for to mend the grate; but Caroline saw in a moment that he was a man to trust in, and that his hands were not only clean, but were well-formed, and powerful, with a great air of dexterity.
“I am afraid my boy’s arm is put out,” she said, trembling a good deal.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And—and,” said she, feeling sick, and more desolate and left to her own judgment than ever before. “Can you undertake to push it in again.”
“Please God, ma’am,” Higg said, gravely, coming nearer for examination.
Allen shrank and shuddered.
“Won’t it hurt awfully?” he asked.
“Well, sir, it won’t just be a bed of roses, but it won’t last, not long, if you sets your will to it.”
He asked for various needments, and while he was inspecting them, Allen’s courage began to fail, and he breathed out whispers that the man was rougher and more ignorant than he expected, and they had better wait and send to Kenminster for a doctor; but those who thought Caroline helpless and childish would have been amazed at the gentle resolution with which she refused to listen to his falterings, and braced him to endure, knowing well that her husband had said that skill was hardly needed in such a case, only resolution. She would not let herself be taken out of the room, and indeed never thought of herself, only of Allen, whose other hand she held, and to whom she seemed to give patience and courage. When all was well over, there was a hospitable invitation to the patient to remain till he was fit to return, and an extension of the invitation to his mother, but with promises of every care if she must leave him, and this she was forced to decide on doing, as such a household as hers could not well spare her, especially on a Saturday evening; and she also saw that the inconvenience to her hosts would have been great.
Allen was so much relieved, that she had no fear of leaving him to these kind people, to whom she had taken a great fancy.
“I shall learn the habits of the genuine species, British farmer,” said he, as his mother kissed him, and declared him the best and most conformable of boys.
Old Mr. Gould would not be denied driving her home in his gig, and when she thought about it, she found she had a strange relaxed aching of the knees, which made her glad of kindness for herself and the little ones. In the fine old kitchen she found that Armine had had an overpowering fit of crying, which had been kindly soothed by motherly Mrs. Gould, and the whole party were partaking of a luxurious tea, enlivened by mince pies and rosy-cheeked apples, which had diverted his attention to the problem why the next year’s prosperity should depend on the number of mince pies consumed before Christmas.
Bobus was not among them, having marched off in his contempt of the bone-setter, and his mother was not without fears that he might bring a real surgeon down on her at any moment, so she quickly drank off her cup of tea, and took her seat in Farmer Gould’s gig with Babie as bodkin in front, and Joe and Armine in the little seat behind. Robin and the two Johns were to stilt themselves home, while she was taken so long and rugged a way, that at every jolt she was ready to renew her thanks for sparing it to her son’s shoulder; and they were at home before her.
The whole family came pouring out to meet her, and the Colonel made warm acknowledgments of the farmer’s kindness, speaking of him when he was gone as one of the most estimable men in the neighbourhood, staunch in his politics, and very ill-used by old Barnes of Belforest.
Caroline looked anxiously for Bobus; and Janet, who had stayed at home to finish some papers for her essay society, said that he had only hurried in to tell her and take off his stilts, and had then gone down to Dr. Leslie’s.
“Then has Dr. Leslie gone? We did not meet him, but he may have gone through Belforest,” exclaimed Caroline.
“O no, he has not gone; he would not when he heard about that Higg,” said Janet, with uneasy and much disgusted face. “He couldn’t do any good after his meddling.”
“Do you mean that he said so?” asked Carey, much alarmed.
“Never mind,” said the Colonel, “you did quite right, Caroline, whatever the doctor says. Any man of sense, with good strong hands, can manage a shoulder like that, and I should have thought Leslie had sense to see it; but those professional men can’t stand outsiders.”
“Where is Bobus?” asked Caroline; “I should like to distinguish between what Dr. Leslie said to him and what he told Janet. He might be more zealous for Dr. Leslie than Dr. Leslie for himself.”
Bobus was unearthed, and by much pumping was made to allow that Dr. Leslie had told him that there was nothing more to be done, and that his brother was quite safe in Higg’s hands; but Bobus evidently did not believe it. He kept silence while his uncle remained, but he had hunted up his father’s surgical books, and went on about humeral clavicles and ligatures all the evening, till his mother felt sick, in the nervous contemplation of possibilities, though her better sense was secure that she had done right, while Janet was moodily silent and angered with her, in the belief that she had weakly let Allen be injured for life; and Bobus seemed as if he had rather it should be so than that he should be wrong, and Higg’s native endowments turn out a reality.
Caroline abstained from looking at the book herself, partly because she thought she might only alarm herself the more without confuting Bobus, and partly because she knew that the old law which forbade Janet to meddle with the medical books, would be considered as abrogated if she touched them herself.
Both she and Janet were much more anxious than they confessed, except by the looks which betrayed their broken rest the next morning. Each was bent on walking to River Hollow, and they would fain have done so immediately after breakfast, but to take the whole tribe was impossible; and to let them go to Church without her, would infallibly lead to Jock’s getting into a scrape with his relatives, if not with the whole congregation. Was it not all her eyes could do to hinder palpable smiles in the sermon, and her monkey from playing tricks on his bear, who, by some fatality, always sat in front, with his irresistible broad back, down which, in spite of all her vigilance, Jock had once thrust a large bluebottle fly. She also knew that both her husband and his mother would have thought she ought to go to Church, and that if matters went amiss with her boy, she should reproach herself with the omission. Her children, too, influenced her, though very oppositely, for Janet was found preparing to start for River Hollow, and on being told that she must wait, to go with her mother, till after Church, declared defiantly that “she saw no sense in staying at home to hear Rigdum when she did not know how ill Allen might be.”
“You would not have said that to grandmamma,” said Carey.
“Well, if you like to go to Church, you can. I can go alone.”
“No, I will not have you take that long walk alone.”
“Then I will take one of the boys.”
“No, Janet, I mean to be obeyed. Go and put on your other hat, and do not make us late for Church.”
Janet was forced to submit, for she never came to the point of actual disobedience to her mother. Caroline’s ruffled feelings were soothed by little Armine, who ran in from feeding his rabbits to ask to have the place in his Prayer-book shown to him where he should pray for poor Allen. She marked the Litany sentence for him, and meant to have thrown her own heart into it, but when the moment came, her mind was far astray, building vague castles about her boys.
Still she felt as if her church going had its reward, for Dr. Leslie met her a little way outside the porch, and, after asking after her boy, said—
“I hope his brother explained to you that Higg is quite to be trusted. He always knows what he can do, and when a case is beyond him. If I had come there would have been nothing for me to do.”
“There!” said Jock, triumphantly to his brother and sister.
“Much you know about it,” grunted Bobus.
“Mother Carey was right. She always is,” persisted Jock.
“It would have been just the same if the man had known nothing about it,” said Janet. “I hate your irregular practitioners, and it was very weak in mother to encourage them.” Then, as Bobus snarled at the censure of his mother—“You said so yourself yesterday.”
“I didn’t say any such beastly thing of mother. She could tell whether it was just a simple dislocation, and she was right, having ever so much more sense thanyou, Janet.”
“You didn’t say so yesterday,” repeated Janet.
“I don’t like irregular practitioners a bit better than you do, Janet,” said Bobus with dignity; “and I thought it right to call in a qualified surgeon, but I never said mother couldn’t judge.”
However, Bobus would not countenance the irregular practitioner by escorting his mother to River Hollow; and as he was in one of the surly moods in which he was dangerous to any one who meddled with him, especially Janet, his mother was glad not to have to keep the peace between them.
Janet, though not in the most amiable mood, chose to go with her, and they set forth by the shorter way, across Belforest park, skirting the gardens where the statues stood up, looking shivery and forlorn, as if they were not suited to English winters, and the huge house looked down on them like a London terrace that had lost its way, with a dreary uninhabited air about it. Even by this private way they had two miles and a half of park to traverse, before they reached a heavy miry lane, where the beds of mud, alternated with rugged masses of stone, intended to choke them. It led up between high hedges to the brow of one of the many hills of the county, whence they could look down into the hollow, a perfect cup, scooped out as it were between the hills that closed it in, except at the outlet of the river that intersected it, making the meadow on either side emerald green, even in the winter. Corn lands of rich red soil, pasture fields dotted with cattle, and broad belts of copse wood between clothed the slopes; and a picturesque wooden bridge, with a double handrail, crossed the river. The farm-house, built of creamy stone, stood on the opposite side of the river, some way above the bank, and the mother and daughter agreed that it deserved to be sketched next summer.
They had to pick their way down a lane that was almost a torrent, and emerging at the foot of the bridge, they stood still in amazement, for in the very centre was something vibrating rapidly, surrounded by a perfect halo of gold and scarlet. It was like a gigantic humming-bird moth at first, but it presently resolved itself into a little girl, clad in something dark purple below, and above with a bright scarlet cloaklet, which flew out and streamed back, beneath the floating locks of glistening gold that glinted in the sun, as with a hand on each rail of the bridge she swung herself backwards and forwards with the most bewildering rapidity. Suddenly becoming aware of the approach of strangers, she stood for one moment gazing in astonishment, then fled so swiftly that she almost seemed to fly, and vanished in the farm buildings!
They stood laughing and declaring that Babie would be convinced that fairies came out on Sunday, then crossed the river and were beginning to ascend the path when a volley of sounds broke on them, a shrill yap giving the alarm, louder notes joining in, and the bass being supplied by a formidable deep-mouthed bark, as out of the farmyard-gate dashed little terrier, curly spaniel, slim greyhounds, surly sheep-dog of the old tailless sort, and big and mighty Newfoundland, and there they stood in a row, shouting forth defiance in all gradations of note, so that, though frightened, Carey and Janet could not help laughing, as the former said—
“This comes of gadding about on Sunday.”
“If we went on boldly they would see we are not tramps,” said Janet.
“Depend on it they will let no one pass in Church time.”
So it proved, for Janet’s attempt to move forward elicited a growl from the sheep-dog, and a leap forward of the “little dogs and all,” which daunted even her stout heart.
However, calls were heard, and the bright vision of the bridge came darting among the dogs, scolding and driving them in, and Allen himself came out to the gate, all bandaged up on one side, but waving his arm as a signal to his mother and sister to advance. They did so nervously but safely, while the growls of the sheep-dog sounded like distant thunder, and the terrier uttered his protest from the door. Allen declared himself much better, and said he should be quite able to go home to-morrow, only this was such a jolly place; and then he brought them into the beautiful old kitchen with a magnificent open hearth, inclosed by two fine dark walnut-wood settles, making a little carpeted chamber between them. Here Allen had the farmer’s armchair and a footstool, and with “Foxe’s Martyrs” open at a flaming illustration on the little round table before him, appeared to be spending his Sunday as luxuriously as the big tabby cat who shared the hearth with him.
“They have only one service at Woodbridge, morning and afternoon by turns,” he explained, “and so they are all gone to it.”
“Who is that girl?” asked Janet.
“Undine,” he coolly replied.
“She certainly appeared on the bridge,” said his mother, “but I should think Undine’s colouring had been less radiant—more of the blue and white.”
“She had not a whiter skin nor bluer eyes,” said Allen, “nor made herself more ridiculous either. Did you ever see such hair, mother? Hullo, Elfie. There she is, peeping in at the window, just as Undine did; Come in!” he cried at the door. “No, not she,” as he returned baffled; “she is off again!”
“But, Allen, who is she? Not Farmer Gould’s daughter.”
“Of course not. Don’t you know she was fished up in a net, and belonged to a palace under the ocean full of pearls and diamonds. She took such a fancy to me that no power on earth would make her go to Church with the rest. She ran away, and hid, and when they were all gone she came out and curled herself up at my feet and chattered, till I happened to offend her majesty, and off she went like a shot. I’m only thankful that she did not make her pearly teeth meet in my finger in true Undine fashion.”
“But who is she, really?”
“I can’t quite make out. They call her Elfie, and she calls them grandpapa, and uncle and aunt, but she has been sitting here complaining of everything being cold and dull, and talking about seas and islands, palm-trees, and coral caves, and humming birds, yes, and black slaves, and strings of pearls, so that if she is romancing, like Armine and Babie, she does it uncommonly naturally.”
They saw no more of this mysterious little being, and the family soon returned from Church. The father was a fine, old-fashioned yeoman, the son had the style of a modern farmer, and the wife was so quiet, sensible, and matronly as to be almost ladylike. Her two little girls were dressed as well as Essie and Ellie, but all were essentially commonplace. They were very kind and friendly, anxious that Allen should stay as long as was good for him, as well as pressing in their hospitality to the two ladies. Mr. Gould was very anxious to drive them home in his gig, though he allowed that the road was very rough unless you went through Belforest Park, and that he never did.
This was surprising, for Belforest had always seemed as free as the turnpike-road, and River Hollow was apparently part of the estate, but there was an air of discouraging questions, so Carey suspected quarrels and asked none.
She was enlightened the next day when Colonel Brownlow brought his phaeton to fetch Allen home over the smooth park road. He told her that the Goulds were freeholders who had owned River Hollow from time immemorial, though each successive lord of Belforest tried to buy them out. The alienation between them and Mr. Barnes, the present master, had however much stronger grounds than these. His nephew and intended heir has stolen a match with the old man’s pretty daughter, and this had never been forgiven. The young couple had gone out to the West Indian isles, where the early home of her husband had been, and where he held some government office, and there fell a victim to the climate. Old Mr. Gould had gone home to fetch his daughter and her child, but the former had died before he reached her, and he had only brought back the little girl about two years ago.
Mr. Barnes ignored her entirely, and the Goulds, who had a good deal of pride, did not choose to apply to him. It was very unfortunate, for unless he had any other relations the child must be heiress to his immense wealth, though it was as likely as not that he would leave it all to hospitals out of pure vindictiveness.
They found Allen out of doors attended by the three little girls, all eagerly watching the removal of a sheep-fold. He was a pleasant-mannered boy, ready to adapt himself to all circumstances and to throw ready intelligent interest into everything, and he had won the hearts of the whole River Hollow establishment, from old Mr. Gould down to the smallest puppy.
Elfie, as he called her, stood her ground, and as she looked up under her brown mushroom hat Caroline was struck with her beauty, fair, but with a southern richness of bloom and glow—the carnation cheek of a depth of tint more often found in brunette complexions. The eyes were not merely blue by courtesy, but of a wonderful deep azure, shaded by very long lashes, dark except when the sun glinted them with gold, and round her shoulders hung masses of hair of that exquisite light auburn which cannot be accused of being red.
She let herself be greeted by the strangers with much more ease and grace than the other two children, but the slow walk of her grandfather and Colonel Brownlow seemed more than she could brook, and she went off, flying and spinning round like a little dog.
While all the acknowledgments and farewells were being made, and Colonel Brownlow was taking directions for finding Higg’s house and forge so as to remunerate him for his services, Elfie came hurrying up to Allen, holding out a great, gorgeous pink-lined shell, and laid within it two heads of scarlet geranium on a green leaf.
“O Elfie, Elfie! how could you?” exclaimed he, knowing them to be the only flowers in bloom.
“You must have them. There’s nothing else pretty to give you, and I love you,” said the child, holding up her face to kiss him.
“Elvira!” said her aunt in warning, “how can you! What will this lady think of you?”
Elvira’s gesture would in any other child have seemed a sulky thrust of the elbow, but in her it was more like the flutter of the wing of a brilliant bird.
“You must,” she repeated; and when he hesitated with “If Mrs. Gould,” she broke away, dashed the flowers, shell and all, into the middle of a clump of rosemary, and rushed out of sight like a little fury.
“You will excuse her, Mrs. Brownlow,” said Mrs. Gould, much annoyed. “She has been sadly spoilt, living among negro servants and having her own way, so that she is sometimes quite ungovernable.”
“Nay, nay, she is a warm-hearted little thing if you don’t cross her,” said the old farmer; “and the young gentleman has been very kind to her.”
Mrs. Gould looked as if she thought she knew her niece better than grandpapa did, but she was too wise to speak; and the little girls, having assisted Allen in the recovery of the shell and the flowers, he tendered them again to her.
“You had better keep them, Mr. Brownlow,” she said. “The shell is her own, and if you did not take it she is sotenaciousthat she would be sure to smash it to atoms.”
Allen accepted perforce and proceeded with his farewells, but as he was stooping down to kiss little five-year-old Kate Gould, something wet, cold, and sloppy came with great force on them both, almost knocking them down and bespattering them both with black drops. The missile proved to be a dripping sod pulled up from the duck-pond in the next field, and a glimpse might be caught of Elvira’s scarlet legs disappearing over the low wall between.
Over poor Mrs. Gould’s apologies a veil had best be drawn. Mother Carey pitied her heartily, but it was impossible not to make fun at home over the black tokens on Allen’s shirt-collar. His brothers and sisters laughed excessively, and Janet twitted him with his Undine, till he, contrary to his wont, grew so cross as to make his mother recollect that he was still a suffering patient, and insist on his lying quiet on the sofa, while she banished every one, and read Tennyson to him. Poetry, read aloud by her, was Allen’s greatest delight, but not often enjoyed, as Bobus and Jock scouted it, and Janet was getting too strong-minded and used to break in with inopportune, criticisms.
So to have Mother Carey to read “Elaine” undisturbed was as great an indulgence as Allen could well have, but she had not gone far before he broke out—
“Mother, please, I wish you could do something for that girl. She really is a lady.”
“So it appears,” said Carey, much disposed to laugh.
“Now, mother, don’t be tiresome. You have more sense than Janet. Her father was Vice-consul at Sant Ildefonso, one of the Antilles.”
“But, my dear, I am afraid that is not quite so grand as it sounds—”
“Hush, mother. He was nephew to Mr. Barnes, and they lived out of the town in a perfect paradise of a place, looking out into the bay. Mr. Gould says he can hardly believe he ever saw anything so gorgeously beautiful, and there this poor little Elvira de Menella lived like a princess with a court of black slaves. Just fancy what it must be to her to come to that farm, an orphan too, with an aunt who can’t understand a creature like that.”
“Poor child.”
“Then she can’t get any education. Old Gould is a sensible man, who says any school he could afford would only turn her out a sham, and he means, when Mary and Kate are a little older, to get some sort of governess for the three. But, mother, couldn’t you just let him bring her in on market days and teach her a little?”
“My dear boy, what would your aunt do? We can’t have sods of mud flying about the house.”
“Now, mother, you know better! You could make anything of her, you know you could! And what a model she would make! Think what a poor little desolate thing she is. You always have a fellow feeling for orphans, and we do owe those people a great deal of gratitude.”
“Allen, you special pleader, it really will not do! If I had not undertaken Essie and Ellie, I might think about it, but I promised your aunt not to have any other pupils.”
Allen bothered Essie and Ellie, but was forced to acquiesce, which was fortunate, for when on the last day of the holidays it was found that he had walked to River Hollow to take leave of the Goulds, his aunt administered to his mother a serious warning on the dangers of allowing him to become intimate there.
Caroline tingled all over during the discourse, and at last jumped up, exclaiming—
“My dear Ellen, half the harm in the world is done by making a fuss. Things don’t die half so hard when they die a natural death.”
Ellen knew Carey thought she had said something very clever, but was all the more unconvinced.