But solemn sound, or sober thoughtThe Fairies cannot bear;They sing, inspired with love and joy,Like skylarks in the air.Of solid sense, or thought that’s grave,You find no traces there.Young Tamlane.
When old Lady Fordham’s long decay ended in death, Mrs. Evelyn would not recall her sons to the funeral, but meant to go out herself to join them, and offered to escort Mrs. Brownlow’s daughters to the meeting-place. This was to be Engelberg, for Dr. Medlicott had decided that after the month at Leukerbad all his patients would be much the better for a breath of the pine-woods on the Alpine height, and undertook to see them conveyed thither in time to meet the ladies.
This proposal set Miss Ogilvie free to join her brother, who had a curacy in a seaside place where the season began just when the London season ended. Her holiday was then to begin, and Janet was to write to Mrs. Evelyn and declare herself ready to meet her in London at the time appointed.
The arrangement was not to Janet’s taste. She thought herself perfectly capable of escorting the younger ones, especially as they were to take their maid, a capable person named Delrio, daughter of an Englishwoman and a German waiter, and widow of an Italian courier, who was equal to all land emergencies, and could speak any language. She belonged to the young ladies. Their mother, not liking strangers about her, had, on old nurse’s death, caused Emma to learn enough of the lady’s maid’s art for her own needs at home, and took care of herself abroad.
Babie was enraptured to be going to Mother Carey and Armine, and Elvira was enchanted to leave the schoolroom behind her, being fully aware that she always had more notice and indulgence from outsiders than at home, or indeed from anyone who had been disappointed at her want of all real affection.
“You are just like a dragon fly,” said Babie to her; “all brightness outside and nothing within.”
This unusually severe remark came from Babie’s indignation at Elvira’s rebellion against going to River Hollow to take leave. It would be a melancholy visit, for her grandfather had become nearly imbecile since he had had a paralytic stroke, in the course of the winter, and good sensible Mrs. Gould had died of fever in the previous autumn.
Elvira, who had never liked the place, now loathed it, and did not seem capable of understanding Babie’s outburst.
“Not like to go and see them when they are ill and unhappy! Elfie, how can you?”
“Of course I don’t! Grandpapa kisses me and makes me half sick.”
“But he is so fond of you.”
“I wish he wasn’t then. Why, Babie, are you going to cry? What’s the matter?”
“It is very silly,” said Babie, winking hard to get rid of her tears; “but it does hurt me so to think of the good old gentleman caring more for you than anybody, and you not liking to go near him.”
“I can’t see what it matters to you,” said Elvira; “I wish you would go instead of me, if you are so fond of him.”
“He wouldn’t care for me,” said Babie; “I’m not his ain lassie.”
“Hislassie! I’m a lady,” exclaimed the senorita, with the haughty Spanish turn of the neck peculiar to herself.
“That’s not what I mean by a lady,” said Babie.
“What do you mean by it?” said Elvira, with a superior air.
“One who never looks down on anybody,” said Babie, thoughtfully.
“What nonsense!” rejoined the Elf; “as if any lady could like to hear grandpapa maunder, and Mary scold and scream at the farm people, just like the old peahen.”
“Miss Ogilvie said poor Mary was overstrained with having more to attend to than she could properly manage, and that made her shrill.”
“I know it makes her very disagreeable; and so they all are. I hate the place, and I don’t see why I should go,” grumbled Elvira.
“You will when you are older, and know what proper feeling is,” said Miss Ogilvie, who had come within earshot of the last words. “Go and put on your hat; I have ordered the pony carriage.”
“Shall I go, Miss Ogilvie?” asked Babie, as Elfie marched off sullenly, since her governess never allowed herself to be disobeyed.
“I think I had better go, my dear; Elfie may be under more restraint with me.”
“Please give old Mr. Gould and Mary and Kate my love, and I will run and ask for some fruit for you to take to them,” said Babie, her tender heart longing to make compensation.
Miss Ogilvie and her pouting companion were received by a fashionable—nay, extra fashionable—looking person, whom Mary and Kate Gould called Cousin Lisette, and the old farmer, Eliza Gould. While the old man in his chair in the sun in the hot little parlour caressed, and asked feeble repetitions of questions of his impatient granddaughter, the lady explained that she had thrown up an excellent situation as instructress in a very high family to act in the same capacity to her motherless little cousins. She professed to be enchanted to meet Miss Ogilvie, and almost patronised.
“I know what the life is, Miss Ogilvie, and how one needs companionship to keep up one’s spirits. Whenever you are left alone, and would drop me a line, I should be quite delighted to come and enliven you; or whenever you would like to come over here, there’s no interruption by uncle; and he, poor old gentleman, is quite—quite passe. The children I can always dismiss. Regularity is my motto, of course, but I consider that an exception in favour of my own friends does no harm, and indeed it is no more than I have a right to expect, considering the sacrifices that I have made for them. Mary, child, don’t cross your ankles; you don’t see your cousin do that. Kate, you go and see what makes Betsy so long in bringing the tea. I rang long ago.”
“I will go and fetch it,” said Mary, an honest, but harassed-looking girl.
“Always in haste,” said Miss Gould, with an effort at good humour, which Miss Ogilvie direfully mistrusted. “No, Mary, you must remain to entertain your cousin. What are servants for but to wait on us? She thinks nothing can be done without her, Miss Ogilvie, and I am forced to act repression sometimes.”
“Indeed we do not wish for any tea,” said Miss Ogilvie, seeing Elvira look as black as thunder; “we have only just dined.”
“But Elfie will have some sweet-cake; Elfie likes auntie’s sweet-cake, eh?” said the old man.
“No, thank you,” said Elfie, glumly, though in fact she did care considerably for sweets, and was always buying bonbons.
“No cake! Or some strawberries—strawberries and cream,” said her grandfather. “Mr. Allen always liked them. And where is Mr. Allen now, my dear?”
“Gone to Norway. It’s the fifth time I’ve told him so,” muttered Elvira.
“And where is Mr. Robert? And Mr. Lucas?” he went on. “Fine young gentlemen all of them; but Mr. Allen is the pleasant-spoken one. Ain’t he coming down soon? He always looks in and says, ‘I don’t forget your good cider, Mr. Gould,’” and there was a feeble chuckling laugh and old man’s cough.
“Do let me go into the garden; I’m quite faint,” cried Elvira, jumping up.
It was true that the room was very close, rather medicinal, and not improved by Miss Gould’s perfumes; but there was an alacrity about Elfie’s movements, and a vehemence in the manner of her rejection of the said essences, which made her governess not think her case alarming, and she left her to the care of the young cousins, while trying to make up for her incivility by courteously listening to and answering her grandfather, and consuming the tea and sweet-cake.
When she went out to fetch her pupil to say goodbye, Miss Gould detained her on the way to obtain condolence on the “dreadful trial that old uncle was,” and speak of her own great devotion to him and the children, and the sacrifices she had made. She said she had been at school with Elvira’s poor mamma, “a sweetly pretty girl, poor dear, but so indulged.”
And then she tried to extract confidences as to Mrs. Brownlow’s intentions towards the child, in which of course she was baffled.
Elvira was found ranging among the strawberries, with Mary and Kate looking on somewhat dissatisfied.
Both the poor girls looked constrained and unhappy, and Miss Ogilvie wondered whether “Cousin Lisette’s” evident intentions of becoming a fixture would be for their good or the reverse.
“Are you better, my dear?” asked she, affectionately.
“Yes, it was only the room,” said Elvira.
“You are a good deal there, are not you?” said Miss Ogilvie to Mary, who had the white flabby look of being kept in an unwholesome atmosphere.
“Yes,” said Mary, wistfully, “but grandpapa does not like having me half so much as Elvira. He is always talking about her.”
“You had better come back to him now, Elfie,” said Miss Ogilvie.
“It makes me ill,” said Elvira, with her crossest look.
Her governess laid her hand on her shoulder, and told her in a few decided words, in the lowest possible voice, that she was not going away till she had taken a properly respectful and affectionate leave of her grandfather. Whereupon she knew further resistance was of no use, and going hastily to the door of the room, called out—
“Good-bye, then, grandpapa.”
“Ah! my little beauty, are you there?” he asked, in a tone of bewildered pleasure, holding out the one hand he could use.
Elvira was forced to let herself be held by it. She hoped to kiss his brow, and escape; but the poor knotted fingers which had once been so strong, would not let her go, and she had to endure many more kisses and caresses and blessings than her proud thoughtless nature could endure before she made her escape. And then “Cousin Lisette” insisted on a kiss for the sake of her dear mamma; and Elfie could only exhale her exasperation by rushing to the pony-carriage, avoiding all kisses to her young cousins, taking the driving seat, and whipping up the ponies more than their tender-hearted mistress would by any means have approved.
Miss Ogilvie abstained from either blame or argument, knowing that it would only make her worse; and recollecting the old Undine theory, wondered whether the Elf would ever find her soul, and think with tender regret of the affection she was spurning.
The next day the travellers started, sleeping a couple of nights in Hyde Corner, for convenience of purchases and preparations.
They were to meet Mrs. Evelyn at the station; but Janet, who foretold that she would be another Serene Highness, soured by having missed the family title, retarded their start till so late that there could be no introduction on the platform; but seats had to be rushed for, while a servant took the tickets.
However, a tall, elderly, military-looking gentleman with a great white moustache, was standing by the open door of a carriage.
“Miss Brownlow,” said he, handing them in—Babie first, next Janet, and then Elvira.
He then bowed to Miss Ogilvie, took his seat, handed in the appurtenances, received, showed, and pocketed the tickets, negotiated Janet’s purchase of newspapers, and constituted himself altogether cavalier to the party.
Sir James Evelyn! Janet had no turn for soldiers, and was not gratified; but Elvira saw that her blue eyes and golden hair were producing the effect she knew how to trace; so she was graciously pleased to accept Punch, and to smile a bewitching acceptance of the seat assigned to her opposite to the old general.
Barbara was opposite to Mrs. Evelyn, and next to Sydney, a girl a few months older than herself, but considerably taller and larger. Mother and daughter were a good deal alike, save that the girl was fresh plump, and rosy, and the mother worn, with the red colouring burnt as it were into her thin cheeks. Yet both looked as if smiles were no strangers to their lips, though there were lines of anxiety and sorrow traced round Mrs. Evelyn’s temples. Their voices were sweet and full, and the elder lady spoke with a tender intonation that inspired Babie with trustful content and affection, but caused Janet to pass a mental verdict of “Sugared milk and water.”
She immersed herself in her Pall Mall, and left Babie to exchange scraps of intelligence from the brother’s letters, and compare notes on the journey.
By-and-by Mrs. Evelyn retired into her book, and the two little girls put their heads together over a newly-arrived acrostic, calling on Elfie to assist them.
“Do you like acrostics?” she said, peeping up through her long eyelashes at the old general.
“Oh, don’t tease Uncle James,” hastily interposed Sydney, as yet inexperienced in the difference between the importunities of a merely nice-looking niece, and the blandishments of a brilliant stranger. Sir James said kindly—
“What, my dear?”
And when Elvira replied—
“Do help us to guess this. What does man love most below?” he put on a droll face, and answered—
“His pipe.”
“O Uncle James, that’s too bad,” cried Sydney.
“If Jock had made this acrostic, it might be pipe,” said Babie; “but this is Armine’s.”
It was thereupon handed to the elders, who read, in a boyish handwriting—
Twins, parted from their rocky nest,We run our wondrous race,And now in tumult, now at rest,Flash back heaven’s radiant face.1. While both alikethisname we bear,And both like life we flow,2. And near us nestle sweet and fairWhat man most loves below.Alike it is our boasted claimTo nurse the precious juice3. That maddened erst the Theban dame,With streaming tresses loose.4. The evening land is sought by one,One rushes towards midday,One to a vigil song has run,One heard Red Freedom’s lay.Tall castles, glorious battlefieldsGraced this in ages past,But now its mighty power that yields5. To work my busy last.
“Is that your brother Armine’s own?” asked Sir James, surprised.
“O yes,” said Janet with impressive carelessness, “all my brothers have a facility in stringing rhymes.”
“Not Bobus,” said Elvira.
“He does not think it worth while,” said Janet, again absorbing herself in her paper, while the public united in guessing the acrostic; and the only objection was raised by the exact General, who would not allow that the “Marseillaise” was sung at the mouth of the Rhone, and defended Ino’s sobriety.
Barbara and Sydney lived upon those acrostics in their travelling bags till they reached Folkestone, and had grown intimate over them. Sir James looked after the luggage, putting gently aside Janet’s strong-minded attempt to watch over it, and she only retained her own leathern travelling case, where she carried her personals, and which, heavy as it was, she never let out of her immediate charge.
They all sat on deck, for there was a fine smooth summer sea, and no one was deranged except the two maids, whom every one knew to be always disabled on a voyage.
Janet had not long been seated, and was only just getting immersed in her Contemporary, when she received a greeting which gratified her. It was from somewhat of a lion, the author of some startling poems and more startling essays much admired by Bobus, who had brought him to some evening parties of his mother’s, not much to her delectation, since there were ugly stories as to his private character. These were ascribed by Bobus to pious malevolence, and Janet had accepted the explanation, and cultivated a bowing acquaintance.
Hyde Corner was too agreeable a haunt to be despised, and Janet owed her social successes more to her mother’s attractions than her own. Conversation began by an inquiry after her brothers, whose adventures had figured in the papers, and it went on to Janet’s own journey and prospects. Her companion was able to tell her much that she wanted to know about the university of Zurich, and its facilities for female study. He was a well-known advocate of woman’s rights, and she scrupled not to tell him that she was inquiring on her own account. Many men would have been bored, and have only sought to free themselves from this learned lady, but the present lion was of the species that prefer roaring to an intelligent female audience, without the rough male argumentative interruption, and Janet thus made the voyage with the utmost satisfaction to herself.
Mrs. Evelyn asked Babie who her sister’s friend was. The answer was, “Do you know, Elfie? You know so many more gentlemen than I do.”
“No,” replied Elvira, “I don’t. He looks like the stupid sort of man.”
“What is the stupid sort of man?” asked the General, as she intended.
“Oh! that talks to Janet.”
“Is everyone that talks to Janet stupid?”
“Of course,” said Elvira. “They only go on about stupid things no better than lessons.”
Sir James laughed at her arch look, and shook his head at her, but then made a tour among the other passengers, leaving her pouting a little at his desertion. On his return, he sat down by his sister-in-law and mentioned a name, which made her start and glance an inquiry whether she heard aright. Then as he bent his head in affirmation, she asked, “Is there anything to be done?”
“It is only for the crossing, and she is quite old enough to take care of herself.”
“And it is evidently an established acquaintance, for which I am not responsible,” murmured Mrs. Evelyn to herself.
She was in perplexity about these friends of her son’s. Ever since Cecil had been at Eton, his beloved Brownlow had seemed to be his evil genius, whose influence none of his resolutions or promises could for a moment withstand. If she had acted on her own judgment, Cecil would never have returned to Eton, but his uncle disapproved of his removal, especially with the disgrace of the champagne supper unretrieved; and his penitent letter had moved her greatly. Trusting much to her elder son and to Dr. Medlicott, she had permitted the party to continue together, feeling that it might be life or death to that other fatherless boy in whom Duke was so much interested; and now she was going out to judge for herself, and Sir James had undertaken to escort her, that they might together come to a decision whether the two friends were likely to be doing one another good or harm.
Mrs. Evelyn had lived chiefly in the country since her husband’s death, and knew nothing of Mrs. Joseph Brownlow. So she looked with anxiety for indications of the tone of the family who had captivated not only Cecil, but Fordham, and seemed in a fair way of doing the same by Sydney. The two hats, brown and black, were almost locked together all the voyage, and indeed the feather of one once became entangled with the crape of the other, so that they had to be extricated from above. There was perhaps a little maternal anxiety at this absorption; but as Sydney was sure to pour out everything at night, her mother could let things take their course, and watch her delight in expanding, after being long shut up in a melancholy house without young companions.
Elvira had a tone of arch simplicity which, in such a pretty creature, was most engaging, and she was in high spirits with the pleasure of being with new people, away from her schoolroom and from England, neither of which she loved, so she chattered amiably and amusingly, entertained Mrs. Evelyn, and fascinated Sir James.
Janet and her companion were less complacently regarded. Certainly the girl (though less ancient-looking at twenty-one than at fourteen) had the air of one well used to independence, so that she was no great subject for responsibility; but she gave no favourable impression, and was at no pains to do so. When she rejoined the party, Mrs. Evelyn asked whether she had known that gentleman long.
“He is a friend of my brother Robert,” she answered. “Shall I introduce you?”
Mrs. Evelyn declined in a quiet civil tone, that provoked a mental denunciation of her as strait-laced and uncharitable, and as soon as the gentleman returned to the neighbourhood, Janet again sought his company, let him escort her ashore, and only came back to the others in the refreshment-room, whither she brought a copy of a German periodical which he had lent her. With much satisfaction Mrs. Evelyn filled the railway carriage with her own party, so that there was no room for any addition to their number. Nor indeed did they see any more of their unwelcome fellow-traveller, since he was bound for the Hotel du Louvre, and, to Janet’s undisguised chagrin, rooms were already engaged at the Hotel Castiglione.
They came too late for the table d’hote, and partook of an extemporised meal in their sitting-room immediately on their arrival, as the start was to be early. Then it was that Janet missed her bag, her precious bag! Delrio was sent all over the house to make inquiries whether it had been taken to any other person’s room, but in vain. Mrs. Evelyn said she had last seen it when they took their seats on board the steamer.
“Yes,” added Elvira, “you left it there when you went to walk up and down with that gentleman.”
“Then why did not you take care of it? I don’t mean Elfie—nobody expects her to be of any use; but you, Babie?”
“You never told me!” gasped Babie, aghast.
“You ought to have seen; but you never think of anything but your own chatter.”
“It is a very inconvenient loss,” said Mrs. Evelyn, kindly. “Have you sent to the station?”
“I shall, as soon as I am satisfied that it is not here. I can send out for the things I want for use; but there are books and papers of importance, and my keys.”
“The key of mother’s davenport?” cried Babie. “Was it there? O Janet, Janet!”
“You should have attended to it, then,” said Janet sharply.
Delrio knocked at the door with an account of her unsuccessful mission, and Sir James, little as the young lady deserved it, concerned himself about sending to the station, and if the bag were not forthcoming there, telegraphing to Boulogne the first thing in the morning.
While Janet was writing particulars and volubly instructing the commissionaire, Mrs. Evelyn saw Babie’s eyes full of tears, and her throat swelling with suppressed sobs. She held out an arm and drew the child to her, saying kindly, “I am sure you would have taken care of the bag if you had been asked, my dear.”
“It’s not that, thank you,” said Babie, laying her head on the kind shoulder, “for I don’t think it was my fault; but mother will be so sorry for her key. It is the key of her davenport, and father’s picture is there, and grandmamma’s, and the card with all our hairs, and she will be so sorry.”
And Babie cried the natural tears of a tired child, whom anything would overcome after her long absence from her mother. Mrs. Evelyn saw how it was, and, as Delrio was entirely occupied with the hue and cry, she herself took the little girl away, and helped her to bed, tenderly soothing and comforting her, and finding her various needments. Among them were her “little books,” but they could not be found, and her eyes looked much too tired to use them, especially as the loss again brought the ready moisture. “My head feels so funny, I can’t think of anything,” she said.
“Shall I do as I used when Sydney was little?” and Mrs. Evelyn knelt down with her, and said one or two short prayers.
Babie murmured her thanks, nestled up to her and kissed her, but added imploringly, “My Psalm. Armie and I always say our Psalm at bed-time, and think of each other. He did it out on the moraine.”
“Will it do if you lie down and I say it to you?”
There was another fond, grateful nestling kiss, and some of the Psalms were gone through in the soft, full cadences of a voice that had gained unconscious pathos by having many times used them as a trustful lullaby to a weary sufferer.
If Babie heard the end, it was in the sweetness of sleep, and when Mrs. Evelyn left her, it was with far less judicial desire to inquire into the subject of that endless conversation which had lasted, with slight intermission, from London to Paris. She was not long left in ignorance, for no sooner had Sydney been assured that nothing ailed Barbara but fatigue, than she burst out, “Mamma, she is the nicest girl I ever saw.”
“Do you like her better than Elvira?”
“Of course I do,” most emphatically. “Mamma, she loves Sir Kenneth of the Leopard as much as I do.”
Mrs. Evelyn was satisfied. While Sir Kenneth of the Leopard remained the object of the young ladies’ passion, there was not much fear of any nonsense that was not innocent and happy.
No news of the bag. Janet was disposed to go back herself or send Delrio, but Sir James declared this impossible; nor would the Evelyns consent to disturb the plan of the journey, and disappoint those who expected them at Engelberg on Saturday by waiting at Paris for tidings. Janet in vain told herself that she was not under their control, and tried to remain behind by herself with her maid. They had a quiet, high-bred decisive way of taking things for granted, and arranging for her and she found herself unable to resist; but whenever, in after times, she was unpleasantly reminded of her loss, she always charged it upon them.
Otherwise the journey was prosperous. Elfie was on the terms of a saucy pet with the General, and Babie’s bright, gentle courtesy and unselfishness won Mrs. Evelyn’s heart, while she and Sydney were as inseparable as ever.
In fact Sydney had been made free of Jotapata. That celebrated romance had been going on all these years with the elision of several generations; because though few members of the family were allowed to see their twenty-fifth year, it was impossible to squeeze them all into the crusading times; and besides the reigning favourites must be treated to an adventure with Coeur de Lion.
Even thus abridged, it bade fair to last throughout the journey, both the little maidens being sufficiently experienced travellers to care little for the sights from the French railway, and being only stimulated to talk and listen the more eagerly when interrupted by such trifles as meals, companions, and calls to look at objects far less interesting.
“Look, my dears; we are coming to the mountains. There is the first snowy head.”
“Yes, mamma,” but the hats were together again in the corner.
“Come, Sydney, don’t lose this wonderful winding valley.”
“I see, Uncle James. Beautiful!” popping back instantly with, “Go on, Babie, dear. How did Sir Gilbert get them out of that horrid defile full of Turks? It is true, you said.”
“True that Louis VII. and Queen Eleanor got into that dreadful mess. Armine found it in Sismondi, but nobody knew who Sir Gilbert was except ourselves; and we are quite sure he was Sir Gilbert of the Ermine, the son of the brother who thought it his duty to stay at home.”
“Sir Philibert? Oh, yes! I know.”
“There are some verses about the Iconium Pass, written out in our spotted book, but I can say some of them.”
“Oh, do!”
“‘The rock is steep, the gorge is deep,Mount Joye St. Denys;But King Louis bold his way doth hold,Mount Joye St. Denys.Ho ho, the ravine is ‘narrow I ween,Lah billah el billah, hurrah.The hills near and far the Frank’s way do bar,Lah billah el billah, hurrah.”
“It ought to be ‘Allah el Allah,’ but you know that really does mean a holy name, and Armine thought we ought not to have it. It was delightful making the ballad, for all the Christian verses have ‘Mount Joye St. Denys’ in the different lines, and all the Turkish ones ‘Lah billah,’ till Sir Gilbert comes in, and then his war-cry goes instead—
“‘On, on, ye Franks, hew down their ranks,Up, merry men, for the Ermine!For Christian right ‘gainst Pagan might,Up, merry men, for the Ermine!’
but one day Jock got hold of it, and wrote a parody on it.”
“Oh what a shame! Weren’t you very angry?”
“It was so funny, one could not help laughing.
“‘Come on, old Turk, you’ll find hot work—Pop goes the weasel!They cut and run; my eyes, what fun!—Pop goes the weasel!’”
“How could you bear it? I won’t hear a bit more. It is dreadful.”
“Miss Ogilvie says if one likes a thing very much, parodies don’t hurt one’s love,” said Babie.
“But what did Sir Gilbert do?”
“He rode up to where Louis was standing with his back against a rock, and dismounted saying ‘My liege—‘”
“I thought he was an Englishman?”
“Oh, but you always called a king ‘my liege,’ whoever you were. ‘My liege,’ he said—”
“Look at that charming little church tower.”
“I see, thank you.”
“I see, Uncle James. No, thank you, I don’t want to look out any more. I saw it. Well, Babie, ‘My liege—‘”
“Never mind, James,” said Mrs. Evelyn, “one can’t be more than in Elysium.”
There were fewer conveniences for the siege on the last day of the journey, when railroads were no more; but something could be done on board the steamer in spite of importunities from those who thought it a duty to look at the shores of the Lake of Lucerne, and when arrival became imminent, happy anticipation inclined Barbara to a blissful silence. Mrs. Evelyn saw her great hazel eyes shining like stars, and began to prefer the transparent mask of that ardent little soul to the external beauty which made Elvira a continual study for an artist.
To your eager prayer, the VoiceMakes awful answer, “Come to Me.”Once for all now seal your choiceWith Christ to tread the boisterous sea.Keble.
The Leukerbad section of the party had only three days’ start of the others, for Jock was not released till after a whole month’s course of the baths, and Armine’s state fluctuated so much that the journey would not have been sooner possible.
It had been a trying time. While Dr. Medlicott thought he could not rouse Mrs. Brownlow to the sense of the little fellow’s precarious condition, deadly alarm lay couched in the bottom of her heart, only kept at bay by defiantly cheerful plans and sanguine talk.
Then Jock was depressed, and at his age (and, alas! at many others) being depressed means being cross, and very cross he was to his mother and his friend, and occasionally to his brother, who, in some moods, seemed to him merely a rival invalid and candidate for attention, and whom he now and then threatened with becoming as frightful a muff as Fordham. He missed Johnny, too, and perhaps longed after Eton. He was more savage to Cecil than to any one else, treating his best attentions with growls, railings, and occasionally showers of slippers, books, and cushions, but, strange as it sounds, the friendship only seemed cemented by this treatment, and this devoted slave evidently preferred being abused by Jock to being made much of by any one else.
The regimen was very disagreeable to his English habits, and the tedium of the place was great. His mother thought it quite enough to account for his captiousness, and the doctor said it was recovery, but no one guessed how much was due to the good resolutions he had made on the moraine and ratified with Cecil. To no one else had he spoken, but all the more for his reserve did he feel himself bound by the sense of the shame and dishonour of falling back from vows made in the time of danger. No one else was aware of it, but John Lucas Brownlow was not of a character to treat a promise or a resolution lightly. If he could have got out of his head the continual echo of the two lines about the monastic intentions of a certain personage when sick, he would have been infinitely better tempered.
For to poor Jock steadiness appeared renunciation of all “jest and youthful jollity,” and religion seemed tedious endurance of what might be important, but, like everything important, was to him very wearisome and uninteresting. To him all zest and pleasure in life seemed extinguished, and he would have preferred leaving Eton, where he must change his habits and amaze his associates. Indeed, he was between hoping and fearing that all this would there seem folly. But then he would break his word, the one thing that poor half-heathen Jock truly cared about.
Meantime he was keeping it as best he knew how under the circumstances, by minding his prayers more than he had ever done before, trying to attend when part of the service was read on Sundays, and endeavouring to follow the Evelyn sabbatical code, but only succeeding in making himself more dreary and savage on Sunday than on any other day.
By easy journeys they arrived at Engelberg early on a Friday afternoon, and found pleasant rooms in the large hotel, looking out in front on the grand old monastery, once the lord of half the Canton, and in the rear upon pine-woods, leading up to a snow-crowned summit. The delicious scent seemed to bring invigoration in at the windows.
However, Jock and Armine were both tired enough to be sent to bed, if not to sleep, immediately after the—as yet, scantily filled table d’hote. The former was lying dreamily listening to the evening bells of the monastery, when Cecil came in, looking diffident and hesitating.
“I say, Jock,” he began, “did you see that old clergyman at the table d’hote?”
“Was there one?”
“Yes; and there is to be a Celebration on Sunday.”
“O! Then Armine can have his wish.”
“Fordham has been getting the old cleric to talk to your mother about it.”
Armine was unconfirmed. The other two had been confirmed just before Easter, but on the great Sunday Jock had followed his brother Robert’s example and turned away. He had recollected the omission on that terrible night, and when after a pause Cecil said, “Do you mean to stay?” he answered rather snappishly, “I suppose so.”
“I fancied,” said Cecil, with wistful hesitation, “that if we were together it would be a kind of seal to—”
Jock actually forced back the words, “Don’t humbug,” which were not his own, but his ill-temper’s, and managed to reply—
“Well, what?”
“Being brothers in arms,” replied Cecil, with shy earnestness that touched the better part of Jock, and he made a sound of full assent, letting Cecil, who had a turn for sentiment, squeeze his hand.
He lay with a thoughtful eye, trying to recall some of the good seed his tutor had tried to sow on a much-trodden way-side, very ready for the birds of the air. The outcome was—
“I say, Evelyn, have you any book of preparation? Mine is—I don’t know where.”
Neither his mother, nor Reeves, nor, to do him justice, Cecil himself, would have made such an omission in his packing, and he was heartily glad to fetch his manual, feeling Jock’s reformation his own security in the ways which he really preferred.
Poor Jock, who, whatever he was, was real in all his ways, and could not lead a double life, as his friend too often did, read and tried to fulfil the injunctions of the book, but only became more confused and unhappy than ever. Yet still he held on, in a blind sort of way, to his resolution. He had undertaken to be good, he meant therefore to communicate, and he believed he repented, and would lead a new life—if—if he could bear it.
His next confidence was—
“I say, Cecil, can you get me some writing things? We—at least I—ought to write and tell my tutor that I am sorry about that supper.”
“Well, he was rather a beast.”
“I think,” said Jock, who had the most capacity for seeing things from other people’s point of view, “we did enough to put him in a wax. It was more through me than any one else, and I shall write at once, and get it off my mind before to-morrow.”
“Very well. If you’ll write, I’ll sign,” said Cecil. “Mother said I ought when I saw her in London, but she didn’t order me. She said she left it to my proper feeling.”
“And you hadn’t any?”
“I was going to stick by you,” said Cecil, rather sulkily; on which Jock rewarded him with something sounding like—
“What a donkey you can be!”
However, with many writhings and gruntings the letter was indited, and Jock was as much wearied out as if he had taken a long walk, so that his mother feared that Engelberg was going to disagree with him. He had not energy enough to go out in the evening of Saturday to meet the new arrivals, but stayed with Armine, who was in a state of restless joy and excitement, marvelling at him, and provoking him by this surprise as if it were censure.
With his forehead against the window, Armine watched and did his utmost to repress the eagerness that seemed to irritate his brother, and at last gave vent to an irrepressible hurrah.
“There they are! Cecil has got his sister! Oh! and there she is! Babie—holding on to mother, and that must be Mrs. Evelyn with Fordham—and there’s Elf making up already to the Doctor! Aren’t you coming down, Jock?”
“Not I! I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself before everybody!—I say—you’ll have to come up stairs again, you know! Shut the door I say!”—shouted Jock, as he found Armine deaf to all his expostulations, and then getting up, he banged it himself, and then shuffling back to the sofa, put his hands over his face and exclaimed, “There! What an eternal brute I am!”
A few moments more and the door was open again, and Cecil, with his arm round his sister, thrust her forwards, exclaiming—“Here he is, Syd.”
Jock had recovered his gentlemanly manners enough to shake hands courteously, as well as to receive and return Babie’s kiss, when she and Armine staggered in together, reeling under their weight of delight. Janet kissed him too, and then, scanning both brothers, observed to her mother—
“I think Lucas is the more altered of the two.” In which sentiment Elvira seemed to agree, for she put her hands behind her and exclaimed—
“O Jock, you do look such a fright; I never knew how like Janet you were!”
“You are letting every one know what a spiteful little Elf you can be,” returned Janet, indignantly. “Can’t you give poor Jock a kinder greeting?”
Whereupon the Elf put on a cunning look of innocence and said—
“I didn’t know it was unkind to say he was like you, Janet.”
The Evelyn pair had gone—after this introduction of Jock and Sydney—to their own sitting-room, which opened out of that of the Brownlows, and the door was soon unclosed, for the two families meant to make up only one party. The two mothers seemed as if they had been friends of old standing, and Mrs. Evelyn was looking with delighted wonder at her eldest son, who had gained much in flesh and in vigour ever since Dr. Medlicott’s last and most successful prescription of a more pressing subject of interest than his own cough.
She had an influence about her that repressed all discords in her presence, and the evening was a cheerful and happy one, leaving a soothing sense upon all.
Then came the awakening to the sounds of the monastery bells, and in due time the small English congregation assembled, and one at least was trying to force an attention that had freely wandered ever before.
The preacher was the chance visitor, an elderly clergyman with silvery hair. He spoke extempore from Job xxviii.