But still the lady shook her head,And swore by yea and nayMy whole was all that he had said,And all that he could say.W. M. Praed.
Mrs. Brownlow had intended to go at once to London on her return to England, but the joint entreaties of Armine and Barbara prevailed on her to give them one week at Belforest, now in that early spring beauty in which they had first seen it.
How delightful the arrival was! Easter had been very late, so it was the last week of the vacation, and dear old Friar John’s handsome face was the first thing they saw at the station, and then his father’s portly form, with a tall pretty creature on each side of him, causing Babie to fall back with a cry of glad amazement, “Oh! Essie and Ellie! Such women!”
Then the train stopped, and there was a tumult of embracings and welcomes, in the midst of which Jock appeared, having just come by the down train.
“You’ll all come to dinner this evening?” entreated Caroline. “My love to Ellen. Tell her you must all of you come.”
It was a most delightsome barouche full that drove from the station. Jock took the reins, and turned over coachman and footman to the break, and in defiance of dignity, his mother herself sprang up beside him. The sky was blue, the hedges were budding with pure light-green above, and resplendent with rosy campion and white spangles of stitchwort below. Stars of anemone, smiling bunches of primrose, and azure clouds of bluebell made the young hearts leap as at that first memorable sight. Armine said he was ready to hurrah and throw up his hat, and though Elvira declared that she saw nothing to be so delighted about, they only laughed at her.
Gorgeous rhododendrons and gay azaleas rose in brilliant masses nearer the house, beds of hyacinths and jonquils perfumed the air, judiciously arranged parterres of gay little Van Thol tulips and white daisies flashed on the eyes of the arriving party, while the exquisite fresh green provoked comparisons with parched Africa.
Bobus was standing on the steps to receive them, and when they had crossed the hall, with due respect to its Roman mosaic pavement, they found the Popinjay bowing, dancing, and chattering for joy, and tea and coffee for parched throats in the favourite Dresden set in the morning room, the prettiest and cosiest in the house.
“How nice it is! We are all together except Janet,’ exclaimed Babie.
“And Janet is coming to us in London,” said her mother. “Did you see her on her way to Edinburgh boys?”
“No,” said Jock. “She never let us know she was there.”
“But I’ll tell you an odd thing I have just found out,” said Bobus. “It seems she came down here on her way, unknown to anyone, got out at the Woodside station, and walked across here. She told Brock that she wanted something out of the drawers of her library-table, of which the key had been lost, and desired him to send for Higg to break it open; but Brock wouldn’t hear of it. He said his Missus had left him in charge, and he could not be answerable to her for having locks picked without her authority—or leastways the Colonel’s. He said Miss Brownlow was in a way about it, and said as how it was her own private drawer that no one had a right to keep her out of, but he stood to his colours; he said the house was Mrs. Brownlow’s, and under his care, and he would have no tampering with locks, except by her authority or the Colonel’s. He even offered to send to Kenminster if she would write a note to my uncle, but she said she had not time, and walked off again, forbidding him to mention that she had been here.”
“Janet always was a queer fish!” said Jock.
“Poor Janet, I suppose she wanted some of her notes of lectures,” said her mother. “Brock’s sound old house-dog instinct must have been very inconvenient to her. I must write and ask what she wanted.”
“But she forbade him to mention it,” said Bobus.
“Of course that was only to avoid the fuss there would have been if it had been known that she had been here without coming to Kencroft. By the bye, I didn’t tell Brock those good people were coming to dinner. How well the dear old Monk looks, and how charming Essie and Ellie! But I shall never know them apart, now they are both the same size.”
“You won’t feel that difficulty long,” said Bobus. “There really is no comparison between them.”
“Just the insipid English Mees,” said Elvira. “You should hear what the French think of the ordinary English girl!”
“So much the better,” said Bobus. “No respectable English girl would wish for a foreigner’s insulting admiration.”
“Well done, Bobus! I never heard such an old-fashioned insular sentiment from you. One would think it was your namesake. By the bye, where is the great Rob?”
“At Aldershot,” said Jock. “I assure you he improves as he grows older. I had him to dine the other day at our mess, and he cut a capital figure by judiciously holding his tongue and looking such a fine fellow, that people were struck with him.”
“There,” said Armine, slyly, “he has the seal of the Guards’ approval.”
Jock could afford to laugh at himself, for he was entirely devoid of conceit, but he added, good humouredly—
“Well, youngster, I can tell you it goes for something. I wasn’t at all sure whether the ass mightn’t get his head out of the lion-skin.”
“Oh, yes! they are all lions and no asses in the Guards,” said Babie; whereupon Jock fell on her, and they had a playful skirmish.
Nobody came to dinner but John and his two sisters. It had turned out that the horse had been too much worked to be used again, and there was a fine moon, so that the three had walked over together. Esther and Eleanor Brownlow had always been like twins, and were more than ever so now, when both were at the same height of five feet eight, both had the same thick glossy dark-brown hair, done in the very same rich coils, the same clearly-cut regular profiles, oval faces, and soft carnation cheeks, with liquid brown eyes, under pencilled arches. Caroline was in confusion how to distinguish them, and trusted at first solely to the little coral charms which formed Esther’s ear-rings, but gradually she perceived that Esther was less plump and more mobile than her sister—her colour was more variable, and she seemed as timid as ever, while Eleanor was developing the sturdy Friar texture. Their aunt had been the means of sending them to a good school, and they had a much more trained and less homely appearance than Jessie at the same age, and seemed able to take their part in conversation with their cousins, though Essie was manifestly afraid of her aunt. They had always been fond of Barbara, and took eager possession of her, while John’s Oxford talk was welcome to all,—and it was a joyous evening of interchange of travellers’ anecdotes and local and family news, but without any remarkable feature till the time came for the cousins to return. They had absolutely implored not to be sent home in the carriage, but to walk across the park in the moonlight; and it was such a lovely night that when Bobus and Jock took up their hats to come with them, Babie begged to go too, and the same desire strongly possessed her mother, above all when John said, “Do come, Mother Carey;” and “rowed her in a plaidie.”
That youthful inclination to frolic had come on her, and she only waited to assure herself that Armine did not partake of her madness, but was wisely going to bed. Allen was holding out a scarf to Elvira, but she protested that she hated moonlight, and that it was a sharp frost, and she went back to the fire.
As they went down the steps in the dark shadow of the house, John gave his aunt his arm, and she felt that he liked to have her leaning on him, as they walked in the strong contrasts of white light and dark shade in the moonshine, and pausing to look at the wonderful snowy appearance of the white azaleas, the sparkling of the fountain, and the stars struggling out in the pearly sky; but John soon grew silent, and after they had passed the garden, said—
“Aunt Caroline, if you don’t mind coming on a little way, I want to ask you something.”
The name, Aunt Caroline, alarmed her, but she professed her readiness to hear.
“You have always been so kind to me” (still more alarming, thought she); “indeed,” he added, “I may say I owe everything to you, and I should like to know that you would not object to my making medicine my profession.”
“My dear Johnny!” in an odd, muffled voice.
“Had you rather not?” he began.
“Oh, no! Oh, no, no! It is the very thing. Only when you began I was so afraid you wanted to marry some dreadful person!”
“You needn’t be afraid of that. Ars Medico, will be bride enough for me till I meet another Mother Carey, and that I shan’t do in a hurry.”
“You silly fellow, you aren’t practising the smoothness of tongue of the popular physician.”
“Don’t you think I mean it?” said John, rather hurt.
“My dear boy, you must excuse me. It is not often one gets so many compliments in a breath, besides having one of the first wishes of one’s heart granted.”
“Do you mean that you really wished this?”
“So much that I am saying, ‘Thank God!’ in my heart all the time.”
“Well, my father and mother thought you might be wishing me to be a barrister, or something swell.”
“As if I could—as if I ever could be so glad of anything,” said she with rejoicing that surprised him. “It is the only thing that could make up for none of my own boys taking that line. I can’t tell you now how much depends on it, John, you will know some day. Tell me what put it into your head—”
He told her, as he had told his father nearly four years before, how the dim memory of his uncle had affected him, and how the bent had been decidedly given by his attendance on Jock, and his intercourse with Dr. Medlicott. At Oxford, he had availed himself of all opportunities, and had come out honourably in all examinations, including physical science, and he was now reading for his degree, meaning to go up for honours. His father, finding him steady to his purpose, had consented, and his mother endured, but still hoped his aunt would persuade him out of it. She was so far from any such intention, that a hint of the Magnum Bonum had very nearly been surprised out of her. For the first time since Belforest had come to her, did she feel in the course of carrying out her husband’s injunctions; and she felt strengthened against that attack from Janet to which she looked forward with dread. She talked with John of his plans till they actually reached the lodge gate, and there found Jock, Babie, and Eleanor chattering merrily about fireflies and glowworms a little way behind, and Bobus and Esther paired together much further back. When all had met at the gate and the parting good-nights had been spoken, Bobus became his mother’s companion, and talked all the way home of his great satisfaction at her wandering time being apparently over, of his delight in her coming to settle at home at last, his warm attachment to the place, and his desire to cultivate the neighbouring borough with a view to representing it in Parliament, since Allen seemed to be devoid of ambition, and so much to hate the mud and dust of public life, that he was not likely to plunge into it, unless Elvira should wish for distinction. Then Bobus expatiated on the awkward connection the Goulds would be for Allen, stigmatising the amiable Lisette, who of course by this time had married poor George Gould, as an obnoxious, presuming woman, whom it would be very difficult to keep in her right position. It was not a bad thing that Elvira should have a taste of London society, to make her less likely to fall under her influence.
“That is not a danger I should have apprehended,” said Caroline.
“The woman can fawn, and that is exactly what a haughty being like Elvira likes. She is always pining for a homage she does not get in the family.”
“Except from poor Allen.”
“Except from Allen, but that is a matter of course. He is a slave to be flouted! Did you ever see a greater contrast than that between her and our evening guests?”
“Esther and Eleanor? They have grown up into very sweet-looking girls.”
“Not that there can be any comparison between them. Essie has none of the ponderous Highness in her—only the Serenity.”
“Yes, there is a very pleasant air of innocent candour about their faces—”
“Just what it does a man good to look at. It is like going out into the country on a spring morning. And there is very real beauty too—”
“Yes, Kencroft monopolises all the good looks of the family. What a fine fellow the dear old Friar has grown.”
“If you bring out those two girls this year, you will take the shine out of all the other chaperons!”
“I wonder whether your aunt would like it.”
“She never made any objection to Jessie’s going out with you.”
“No. I should like it very much; I wonder I had not thought of it before, but I had hardly realised that Essie and Ellie were older than Babie, but I remember now, they are eighteen and seventeen.”
“It would be so good for you to have something human and capable of a little consideration to go out with,” added Bobus, “not to be tied to the tail of a will-of-the-wisp like that Elf—I should not like that for you.”
“I am not much afraid,” said Caroline. “You know I don’t stand in such awe of the little donna, and I shall have my Guardsman to take care of me when we are too frivolous for you. But it would be very nice to have those two girls, and make it pleasanter for my Infanta, who will miss Sydney a good deal.”
“I thought the Evelyns were to be in town.”
“Yes, but their house is at the other end of the park. What are Jock and the Infanta looking at?”
Jock and Babie, who were on a good way in advance in very happy and eager conversation, had come to a sudden stop, and now turned round, exclaiming “Look, mother! Here’s the original Robin Goodfellow.”
And on the walk there was a most ludicrous shadow in the moonlight, a grotesque, dancing figure, with one long ear, and a hand held up in warning. It was of course the shadow of the Midas statue, which the boys had never permitted to be restored to its pristine state. One ear had however crumbled away, but in the shadow this gave the figure the air of cocking the other, in the most indescribably comical manner, and the whole four stood gazing and laughing at it. There was a certain threatening attitude about its hand, which, Jock said, looked as if the ghost of old Barnes had come to threaten them for the wasteful expenditure of his hoards. Or, as Babie said, it was more like the ghastly notion of Bertram Risingham in Rokeby, of some phantom of a murdered slave protecting those hoards.
“I don’t wonder he threatens,” said Caroline. “I always thought he meant that audacious trick to have forfeited the hoards.”
“Very lucky he was balked,” said Bobus, “not only for us, but for human nature in general. Fancy how insufferable that Elf would have been if she had been dancing on gold and silver.”
“Take care!” muttered Jock, under his breath. “There’s her swain coming; I see his cigar.”
“And we really shall have it Sunday morning presently,” said his mother, “and I shall get into as great a scrape as I did in the old days of the Folly.”
It was a happy Sunday morning. The Vicar of Woodside had much improved the Church and services with as much assistance in the way of money as he chose to ask for from the lady of Belforest, though hitherto he had had nothing more; but he and his sister augured better things when the lady herself with her daughter and her two youngest sons came across the park in the freshness of the morning to the early Celebration. The sister came out with them and asked them to breakfast. Mrs. Brownlow would not desert Allen and Bobus, but she wished Armine to spare himself more walking. Moreover, Babie discovered that some desertion of teachers would render their aid at the Sunday School desirable on that morning.
This was at present her ideal of Sunday occupation, and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney’s guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine’s positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink from his first experience of the kind. The boys were too much impressed, by the apparition of one of the young gentlemen from Belforest, to comport themselves ill, but they would probably not have answered his questions even had they been in their own language, and they stared at him in a stolid way, while he disadvantageously contrasted them with the little ready-tongued peasant boys of Italy. However, he had just found the touch of nature which made the world kin, and had made their eyes light up by telling them of a scene he had beheld in Palestine, illustrating the parable they had been repeating, when the change in the Church bells was a signal for leaving off.
Very happy and full of plans were the two young things, much pleased with the clergyman and his sister, who were no less charmed with the little, bright, brown-faced, lustrous-eyed girl, with her eager yet diffident manner and winning vivacity, and with the slender, delicate, thoughtful lad, whose grave courtesy of demeanour sat so prettily upon him.
Though not to compare in numbers, size, or beauty with the Kencroft flock, the Belforest party ranged well in their seat at Church, for Robert never failed to accompany his mother once a day, as a concession due from son to mother. It was far from satisfying her. Indeed there was a dull, heavy ache at her heart whenever she looked at him, for however he might endeavour to conform, like Marcus Aurelius sacrificing to the gods, there was always a certain half-patronising, half-criticising superciliousness about his countenance. Yet, if he came for love of her, still something might yet strike him and win his heart?
Had her years of levity and indifference been fatal to him? was ever her question to herself as she knelt and prayed for him.
She felt encouraged when, at luncheon, she asked Jock to walk with her to Kenminster for the evening service, after looking in at Kencroft, Robert volunteered to be of the party.
Caroline, however, did not think that he was made quite so welcome at Kencroft as his exertion deserved. Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow were sitting in the drawing-room with the blinds down, presumably indulging in a Sunday nap in the heat of the afternoon, for the Colonel shook himself in haste, and his wife’s cap was a little less straight than suited her serene dignity, and though they kissed and welcomed the mother, they were rather short and dry towards Bobus. They said the children had gone out walking, whereupon the two lads said they would try to meet them, and strolled out again.
This left the field free for Caroline to propose the taking the two girls to London with her.
“I am sure,” said Ellen, “you have always been very kind to the children. But indeed, Caroline, I did not think you would have encouraged it.”
“It?—I don’t quite understand,” said Caroline, wondering whether Ellen had suddenly taken an evangelically serious turn.
“There!” said the Colonel, “I told you she was not aware of it,” and on her imploring cry of inquiry, Ellen answered, “Of this folly of Robert.”
“Bobus, do you mean,” she cried. “Oh!” as conviction flashed on her, “I never thought ofthat.”
“I am sure you did not,” said the Colonel kindly.
“But—but,” she said, bewildered, “if—if you mean Esther—why did you send her over last night, and let him go out to find her now.”
“She is safe, reading to Mrs. Coffinkey,” said Ellen. “I did not know Robert was at home, or I should not have let her come without me.”
“Esther is a very dear, sweet-looking girl,” said Caroline. “If only she were any one else’s daughter! Though that does not sound civil! But I know my dear husband had the strongest feeling about first cousins marrying.”
“Yes, I trusted to your knowing that,” said the Colonel. “And I rely on you not to be weak nor to make the task harder to us. Remembering, too,” he added in a voice of sorrow and pity that made the words sound not unkind, “that even without the relationship, we should feel that there were strong objections.”
“I know! My poor Bobus!” said Caroline, sadly. “That makes it such a pity she is his cousin. Otherwise she might do him so much good.”
“I have not much faith in good done in that manner,” said the Colonel.
Caroline thought him mistaken, but could not argue an abstract question, and came to the personal one. “But how far has it gone? How do you know about it? I see now that I might have detected it in his tone, but one never knows, when one’s children grow up.”
“The Colonel was obliged to tell him in the autumn that we did not approve of flirtations between cousins,” said Mrs. Brownlow.
“And he answered—?”
“That flirtation was the last thing he intended,” said the Colonel. “On which I told him that I would have no nonsense.”
“Was that all?”
“Except that at Christmas he sent her, by way of card, a drawing that must have cost a large sum,” said the Colonel. “We thought it better to let the child keep it without remark, for fear of putting things into her head; though I wrote and told him such expensive trumpery was folly that I was much tempted to forbid. So what does he do on Valentine’s Day but send her a complete set of ornaments like little birds, in Genoa silver—exquisite things. Well, she was very good, dear child. We told her it was not nice or maidenly to take such valuable presents; and she was quite contented and happy when her mother gave her a ring of her own, and we have written to Jessie to send her some pretty things from India.”
“She said she did not care for anything that Ellie did not have too,” added her mother.
“Then you returned them?”
“Yes, and my young gentleman patronisingly replies that he ‘appreciates my reluctance, and reserves them for a future time.’”
“Just like Bobus!” said Caroline. “He never gives up his purpose! But how about dear little Esther? Is she really untouched?”
“I hope so,” replied her mother. “So far it has all been put upon propriety, and so on. I told her, now she was grown up and come home from school she must not run after her cousins as she used to do, and I have called her away sometimes when he has tried to get her alone. Last evening, she told me in a very simple way—like the child she is—that Robert would walk home with her in the moonlight, and hindered her when she tried to join the others, telling me she hoped I should not be angry with her. He seems to have talked to her about this London plan; but I told her on the spot it was impossible.”
“I am afraid it is!” sighed Caroline. “Dear Essie! I will do my best to keep her peace from being ruffled, for I know you are quite right; but I can’t help being sorry for my boy, and he is so determined that I don’t think he will give up easily.”
“You may let him understand that nothing will ever make me consent,” returned the Colonel.
“I will, if he enters on it with me,” said Caroline; “but I think it is advisable as long as possible to prevent it from taking a definite shape.”
Caroline was much better able now to hold her own with her brother and sister-in-law. Not only did her position and the obligations they were under give her weight, but her character had consolidated itself in these years, and she had much more force, and appearance of good sense. Besides, John was a weight in the family now, and his feeling for his aunt was not without effect. They talked of his prospects and of Jessie’s marriage, over their early tea. The elders of the walking party came in with hands full of flowers, namely, the two Johns and Eleanor, but ominously enough, Bobus was not there. He had been lost sight of soon after they had met.
Yes, and at that moment he was loitering at a safe distance from the door of the now invalid and half-blind Mrs. Coffinkey, to whom the Brownlow girls read by turns. She lived conveniently up a lane not much frequented. This was the colloquy which ensued when the tall, well-proportioned maiden, with her fresh, modest, happy face, tripped down the steps:—
“So the Coffinkey is unlocked at last! Stern Proserpine relented!”
“Robert! You here?”
“You never used to call me Robert.”
“Mamma says it is time to leave off the other.”
“Perhaps she would like you to call me Mr. Robert Otway Brownlow.”
“Don’t talk of mamma in that way.”
“I would do anything my queen tells me except command my tones when there is an attempt to stiffen her. She is not to be made into buckram.”
“Please, Robert,” as some one met and looked at them, “let me walk on by myself.”
“What? Shall I be the means of getting you into trouble?”
“No, but I ought not—”
“The road is clear now, never mind. In town there are no gossips, that’s one comfort. Mother Carey is propounding the plan now.”
“Oh, but we shall not go. Mamma told me so last night.”
“That was before Mother Carey had talked her over.”
“Do you think she will?”
“I am certain of it! You are a sort of child of Mother Carey’s own, you know, and we can’t do without you.”
“Mother would miss us so, just as we are getting useful.”
“Yes, but Ellie might stay.”
“Oh! we have never been parted. Wecouldn’tbe.”
“Indeed! Is there no one that could make up to you for Ellie?”
“No, indeed!” indignantly.
“Ah, Essie, you are too much of a child yet to understand the force of the love that—”
“Don’t,” broke in Esther, “that is just like people in novels; and mamma would not like it.”
“But if I feel ten times far more for you than ‘the people in novels’ attempt to express?”
“Don’t,” again cried Esther. “It is Sunday.”
“And what of that, my most scriptural little queen?”
“It isn’t a time to talk out of novels,” said Esther, quickening her pace, to reach the frequented road and throng of church-goers.”
“I am not talking out of any novel that ever was written,” said Bobus seriously; but she was speeding on too fast to heed him, and started as he laid a hand on her arm.
“Stay, Essie; you must not rush on like a frightened fawn, or people will stare,” he said; and she slackened her pace, though she shook him off and went on through the numerous passengers on the footpath, with her pretty head held aloft with the stately grace of the startled pheasant, not choosing to seem to hear his attempts at addressing her, and taking refuge at last in the innermost recesses of the family seat at Church, though it was full a quarter to five.
There the rest of the party found her, and as they did not find Bobus, they concluded that all was safe. However, when the two Johns were walking home with Mother Carey, Bobus joined them, and soon made his mother fall behind with him, asking her, “I hope your eloquence prevailed.”
“Far from it, Bobus,” she said. “In fact you have alarmed them.”
“H. S. H. doesn’t improve with age,” he replied carelessly. “She never troubled herself about Jessie.”
“Perhaps no one gave her cause. My dear boy, I am very sorry for you,” and she laid her hand within his arm.
“Have they been baiting you? Poor little Mother Carey!” he said. “Force of habit, you know, that’s all. Never mind them.”
“Bobus, my dear, I must speak, and in earnest. I am afraid you may be going on so as to make yourself and—some one else unhappy, and you ought to know that your father was quite as determined as your uncle against marriages between first cousins.”
“My dear mother, it will be quite time to argue that point when the matter becomes imminent. I am not asking to marry any one before I am called to the bar, and it is very hard if we cannot, in the meantime, live as cousins.”
“Yes, but there must be no attempt to be ‘a little more than kin.’”
“Less than kind comes in on the other side!” said Bobus, in his throat. “I tell you the childisa child who has no soul apart from her sister, and there’s no use in disturbing her till she has grown up to have a heart and a will of her own.”
“Then you promise to let her alone?”
“I pledge myself to nothing,” said Bobus, in an impracticable voice. “I only give warning that a commotion will do nobody any good.”
She knew he had not abandoned his intention, and she also knew she had no power to make him abandon it, so that all she could say was, “As long as you make no move there will be no commotion, but I only repeat my assurance that neither your uncle nor I, acting in the person, of your dear father, will ever consent.”
“To which I might reply, that most people end by doing that against which they have most protested. However, I am not going to stir in the matter for some time to come, and I advise no one else to do so.”
A moment then the volume spread,And one short spell therein he read.Scott.
The reality of John’s intention to devote himself to medicine made Caroline anxious to look again at the terms of the trust on which she held the Magnum Bonum secret.
Moreover, she wanted some papers and accounts, and therefore on Monday morning, while getting up, she glanced towards the place where her davenport usually stood, and to her great surprise missed it. She asked Emma, who was dressing her, whether it had been moved, and found that her maid had been as much surprised as herself at its absence, and that the housekeeper had denied all knowledge of it.
“Other things is missing, ma’am,” said Emma; “there’s the key of the closet where your dresses hangs. I’ve hunted high and low for it, and nobody hasn’t seen it.”
“Keys are easily lost,” said Caroline, “but my davenport is very important. Perhaps in some cleaning it has been moved into one of the other rooms and forgotten there. I wish you would look. You know I had it before I came here.”
Not only did Emma look, but as soon as her mistress was ready to leave the room she went herself on a voyage of discovery, peeping first into the little dressing-room, where seeing Babie at her morning prayers, she said nothing to disturb her, and then going on to look into some spare rooms beyond, where she thought it might have been disposed of, as being not smart enough for my lady’s chamber. Coming back to her room she found, to her extreme amazement, the closet open, and Babie pushing the davenport out of it, with her cheeks crimson and a look of consternation at being detected.
“My dear child! The davenport there! Did you know it? How did it get there?”
“I put it,” said Barbara, evidently only forced to reply by sheer sincerity.
“You! And why?”
“I thought it safer,” mumbled Babie.
“And you knew where the key of the closet was?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In my doll’s bed, locked up in the baby-house.”
“This is most extraordinary. When did you do this?”
“Just before we came out to you at Leukerbad,” said Babie, each reply pumped out with great difficulty.
“Four years ago! It is a very odd thing. I suppose you had a panic, for you were too old then for playing monkey tricks.”
To which Babie made no answer, and the next minute her mother, who had become intent on the davenport, exclaimed, “I suppose you haven’t got the key of this in your doll’s bed?”
“Don’t you remember, mother,” said Barbara, “you sent it home to Janet, and it was lost in her bag on the crossing?”
“Oh, yes, I remember! And it is a Bramah lock, more’s the pity. We must have the locksmith over from Kenminster to open it.”
The man was sent for, the davenport was opened, desk, drawers, and all. Caroline was once more in possession of her papers. She turned them over in haste, and saw no book of Magnum Bonum. Again, more carefully she looked. The white slate, where those precious last words had been written, was there, proving to her that her memory had not deceived her, but that she had really kept her treasure in that davenport.
Then, in her distress, she thought of Barbara’s strange behaviour, went in quest of her, and calling her aside, asked her to tell her the real reason why she had thought fit to secure the davenport in the closet.
“Why,” asked Babie, her eyes growing large and shining, “is anything missing?”
“Tell me first,” said Caroline, trembling.
Then Babie told how she had wakened and seen Janet with the desk part raised up, reading something, and how, when she lay watching and wondering, Janet had shut it up and gone away. “And I did not feel comfortable about it, mother,” said Babie, “so I thought I would lock up the davenport, so that nobody could get at it.”
“You did not see her take anything away?”
“No, I can’t at all tell,” said Babie. “Is anything gone?”
“A book I valued very much. Some memoranda of your father were in that desk, and I cannot find them now. You cannot tell, I suppose, whether she was reading letters or a book?”
“It was not letters,” said Babie, “but I could not see whether it was print or manuscript. Mother, I think she must have taken it to read and could not put it back again because I had hidden the davenport. Oh! I wish I hadn’t, but I couldn’t ask any one, it seemed such a wicked, dreadful fancy that she could meddle with your papers.”
“You acted to the best of your judgment, my dear,” said Caroline. “I ought never to have let it out of my own keeping.”
“Do you think it was lost in the bag, mother?”
“I hope not. That would be worst of all!” said Caroline. “I must ask Janet. Don’t say anything about it, my dear. Let me think it over.”
When Caroline recollected Janet’s attempt, as related by Robert, to break open her bureau, she had very little doubt that the book was there. It could not have been lost in the bag, for, as she remembered, reference had been made to it when Janet had extorted permission to go to Zurich, and she had warned her that even these studies would not be a qualification for the possession of the secret. Janet had then smiled triumphantly, and said she would make her change her mind yet; had looked, in fact, very much as Bobus did when he put aside her remonstrances. It was not the air of a person who had lost the records of the secret and was afraid to confess, though it was possible she might have them in her own keeping. Caroline longed to search the bureau, but however dishonourably Janet might have acted towards herself, she could not break into her private receptacles without warning. So after some consideration, she made Barbara drive her to the station, and send the following telegraphic message to Janet’s address at Edinburgh:—
“Come home at once. Father’s memorandum book missing. Must be searched for.”
All that day and the next the sons wondered what was amiss with their mother, she was so pensive, with starts of flightiness. Allen thought she was going to have an illness, and Bobus that it was a very strange and foolish way of taking his resistance, but all the time Armine was going about quite unperceiving, in a blissful state. The vicar’s sister, a spirited, active, and very winning woman of thirty-five, had captivated him, as she did all the lads of the parish. He had been walking about with her, being introduced to all the needs of the parish, and his enthusiastic nature throwing itself into the cause of religion and beneficence, which was in truth his congenial element; he was ready to undertake for himself and his mother whatever was wanted, without a word of solicitation, nay rather, the vicar, who thought it all far too good to be true, held him back.
And when he came in and poured out his narrative, he was, for the first time in his life, even petulant that his mother was too much preoccupied to confirm his promises, and angry when Allen laughed at his vehemence, and said he should beware of model parishes.
By dinner-time the next day Janet had actually arrived. She looked thin and sharp, her keen black eyes roamed about uneasily, and some indescribable change had passed over her. Her brothers told her study had not agreed with her, and she did not, as of old, answer tartly, but gave a stiff, mechanical smile, and all the evening talked in a woman-of-the-world manner, cleverly, agreeably, not putting out her prickles, but like a stranger, and as if on her guard.
Of course there was no speaking to her till bedtime, and Caroline at first felt as if she ought to let one night pass in peace under the home roof; but she soon felt that to sleep would be impossible to herself, and she thought it would be equally so to her daughter without coming to an understanding. She yearned for some interchange of tenderness from that first-born child from whom she had been so long separated, and watched and listened for a step approaching her door; till at last, when the maid was gone and no one came, she yielded to her impulse; and in her white dressing-gown, with softly-slippered feet, she glided along the passage with a strange mixed feeling of maternal gladness that Janet was at home again, and of painful impatience to have the interview over.
She knocked at the door. There was no answer. She opened it. There was no one there, but the light on the terrace below, thrown from the windows of the lower room, was proof to her that Janet was in her sitting-room, and she began to descend the private stairs that led down to it. She was as light in figure and in step as ever, and her soft slippers made no noise as she went down. The door in the wainscot was open, and from the foot of the stairs she had a strange view. Janet’s candle was on the chair behind her, in front of it lay half-a-dozen different keys, and she herself was kneeling before the bureau, trying one of the keys into the lock. It would not fit, and in turning to try another, she first saw the white figure, and started violently at the first moment, then, as the trembling, pleading voice said, “Janet,” she started to her feet, and cried out angrily—
“Am I to be always spied and dogged?”
“Hush, Janet,” said her mother, in a voice of grave reproof, “I simply came to speak to you about the distressing loss of what your father put in my charge.”
“And why should I know anything about it?” demanded Janet.
“You were the last person who had access to the davenport,” said her mother.
“This is that child Barbara’s foolish nonsense,” muttered Janet to herself.
“Barbara has nothing to do with the fact that I sent you the key of the davenport where the book was. It is now missing. Janet, it is bitterly painful to me to say so, but your endeavours to open that bureau privately have brought suspicion upon you, and I must have it opened in my presence.”
“I have a full right to my own bureau.”
“Of course you have; but I had these notes left in my trust. It is my duty towards your father to use every means for their recovery.”
“You call it a duty to my father to shut up his discovery and keep it useless for the sake of a lot of boys who will never turn it to profit.”
“Of that I am judge. My present duty is to recover it. Your conduct is such as to excite suspicion, and I therefore cannot allow you to take anything out of that bureau except in my presence, till I have satisfied myself that his memoranda are not there. I would not search your drawers in your absence, and therefore telegraphed for you.”
“Thank you. Since you like to treat your daughter like a maidservant, you may go on and search my boxes,” said Janet, sulkily.
“I beg your pardon, my poor child, if I am unjustly causing you this humiliation,” said Caroline humbly, as Janet sullenly flumped down into a chair without answering. She took up the keys that Janet had brought with her, and tried them one by one, where Janet had been using them. The fourth turned in the lock, and the drawer was open!
“I will disarrange nothing unnecessarily,” said Caroline. “Look for yourself.”
Janet would not, however, move hand, foot, or eye, while her mother put in her hand and took out what lay on the top. It was the Magnum Bonum. She held it to the light and was sure of it; but she had taken up an envelope at the same time, and her eye fell on the address as she was laying it down. It was to—“James Barnes, Esq.” And as her eye caught the pencilled words “My Will,” a strange electric thrill went through her, as she exclaimed, “What is this, Janet? How came it here?”
“Oh! take it if you like,” said Janet. “I put it there to spare you worry; but if you will pursue your researches, you must take the consequences.”
Caroline, thus defied, still instinctively holding Magnum Bonum close to her, drew out the contents of the envelope, and caught in the broken handwriting of the old man, the words—“Will and Testament—George Gould—Wakefield—Elvira de Menella—whole estate.” Then she saw signature, seal, witnesses—date, “April 24th, 1862.”
“What is this? Where did it come from?” she asked.
“I found it—in his table drawer; I saw it was not valid, so I kept it out of the way from consideration for you,” said Janet.
“How do you know it was not valid?”
“Oh—why—I didn’t look much, or know much about it either,” said Janet, in an alarmed voice. “I was a mere child then, you know. I saw it was only scrawled on letter-paper, and I thought it was only a rough draft, which would just make you uncomfortable.”
“I hope you did, Janet. I hope you did not know what you were doing!”
“You don’t mean that it has been executed?”
“Here are witnesses,” said Caroline—her eyes swam too much to see their names. “It must be for better heads than ours to decide whether this is of force; but, oh, Janet! if we have been robbing the orphan all these years!”
“The orphan has been quite as well off as if it had been all hers,” said Janet. “Mother, just listen! Give me the keeping of my father’s secret, and—even if we lose this place—it shall make up for all—”
“You do not know what you are talking of, Janet,” said Caroline, pushing back those ripples of white hair that crowned her brow, “nor indeed I either! I only know you have spoken more kindly to me, and that you are under my own roof again. Kiss me, my child, and forgive me if I have pained you. You did not know what you did about the will, and as to this book, I know you meant to put it back again.”
“I did—I did, mother—if Barbara had not hidden the desk,” cried Janet. And as her mother kissed her, she laid her head on her shoulder, and wept and sobbed in an hysterical manner, such as Caroline had never seen in her before. Of course she was tired out by the long journey, and the subsequent agitation; and Caroline soothed and caressed her, with the sole effect of making her cry more piteously; but she would not hear of her mother staying to undress and put her to bed, gathered herself up again as soon as she could, and when another kiss had been exchanged at her bedroom door, Caroline heard it locked after her.
Very little did Caroline sleep that night. If she lost consciousness at all, it was only to know that something strange and wonderful was hanging over her. Sometimes she had a sense that her trust and mission as a rich woman had been ill-fulfilled, and therefore the opportunity was to be taken away; but more often there was a strange sense of relief from what she was unfit for. She remembered that strange dream of her children turning into statues of gold, and the Magnum Bonum disenchanting them, and a fancy came over her that this might yet be realised, a fancy to whose lulling effect she was indebted for the sleep she enjoyed in the morning, which made her unusually late, but prevented her from looking as haggard as Janet did, with eyelids swollen, as if she had cried a good deal longer last night.
The postbag was lying on the table, and directly after family prayers (which she had for some years begun when at home), Mrs. Brownlow beguiled her nervousness by opening it, and distributing the letters.
The first she opened was such a startling one, that her head seemed to reel, and she doubted whether the shock of last night was confusing her senses.
“MY DEAR MRS. BROWNLOW,—What will you think of us now that the full truth has burst on you? Of me especially, to whom you entrusted your dear daughter. I never could have thought that Nita would have lent herself to the transaction, and alas! I let the two girls take care of themselves more than was right. However, I can at least give you the comfort of knowing that it was a perfectly legal marriage, for Nita was one of the witnesses, and looked to all that—”
Here Caroline could read no more. Sick and stunned, she began to dispense her teacups, and even helped herself to some of the food that was handed round, but her hand trembled so, and she looked so white and bewildered, that Allen exclaimed—
“Mother, you are really ill. You should not have come down.”
She could not bear the crowd and buzz of voices and all the anxious eyes any longer. She pushed back her chair, and as sons came hurrying round with offered arms, she took the nearest, which was Jock’s, let him take her to the morning-room, and there assured him she was not ill, only she had had a letter. She wanted nothing, only that he should go back, and send her Janet. She tried once more to master the contents of Miss Ray’s letter, but she was too dizzy; and when Janet came in, she could only hold it out to her.
“Oh!” said Janet, “poor old Maria has forestalled me. Yes, mother, it is what I meant to tell you, only I thought you could not bear a fresh shock last night.”
“Married! Oh, Janet; why thus?”
“Because we wished to avoid the gossip and conventionality. My uncle and aunt were to be avoided.”
“Let me hear at once who it is,” said Caroline, with the sharpness of misery.
“It is Professor Demetrius Hermann, a most able lecturer, whose course we have been following. I met him a year ago, at the table d’hote, at Zurich, where he delivered a series of lectures on physiology on a new and original system. He is now going on with them in Scotland, where his wonderful acuteness and originality have produced an immense sensation, and I have no doubt that in his hands this discovery of my father’s will receive its full development.”
There was no apology in her tone; it was rather that of one who was defying censure; and her mother could only gasp out—
“How long?”
“Three weeks. When we heard you were returning, we thought it would save much trouble and difficulty to secure ourselves against contingencies, and profit by Scottish facilities.” Wherewith Janet handed her mother a certificate of her marriage, at Glasgow, before Jane Ray and another witness, and taking her wedding-ring from her purse, put it on, adding, “When you see him, mother, you will be more than satisfied.”
“Where is he?” interrupted Caroline.
“At the Railway Hotel, waiting till you are prepared to see him. He brought me down, but he is to give a lecture at Glasgow the day after tomorrow, so we can only remain one night.”
“Oh, Janet—Janet, this is very fearful!”
At that moment, Johnny strolled up to the window from the outside, and, as he greeted Janet with some surprise, he observed—
“There’s a most extraordinary looking foreign fellow loitering about out here. I warned him he was on private ground, and he made me a bow, as if I, not he, were the trespasser.”
On this Janet darted out at the window without another word, and John exclaiming, in dismay—
“Mother Carey! what is the matter?”
She gasped out, “Oh, Johnny! she’s married to him! And the children don’t know it. Send them in—Allen and Bobus I mean—make haste; I must prepare them. Take that letter, and let the others know.”
John saw the truest kindness was implicit obedience; and Allen and Bobus instantly joined her, the latter asking what new tomfoolery Janet had brought home, Allen following with a cup of coffee.
Caroline’s lips felt too dry to speak, and she held out the certificate.
It was received by Allen, with the exclamation—
“By Jove!”
And by Bobus, with an odd, harsh laugh—“I thought she would do something monstrous one of these days.”
“Did you ever hear of him, Bobus?” she found voice to say, after swallowing a mouthful of coffee.
“I fancy I have. Yes, I remember now; he was lecturing and vapouring about at Zurich; he is half Greek, I believe, and all charlatan. Well, Janethasbeen and gone and done for herself now, and no mistake.”
“But he is a professor,” pleaded Caroline. “He must be of some university.”
“Don’t make too sure,” said Allen, “A professor may mean a writing master. Good heavens! what a connection.”
“It can’t be so bad as that,” said Caroline. “Remember, your sister is not foolish.”
“Flatter an ugly woman,” said Bobus, “and it’s a regular case of fox and crow.”
“Mercy! here they come!” cried Allen.
“Mother, do you go away! This is not work for you. Leave us to settle the rascal,” said Bobus.
“No, Bobus,” she said; “this ought to be settled by me. Remember that, whatever the man may be, he is Janet’s husband, and she is your sister.”
“Worse luck!” sighed Allen.
“And,” she added, “he has to go away to-morrow, at latest,” a sentence which she knew would serve to pacify Allen.
They had crossed the parterre by this time, and were almost at the window.
It was Bobus who took the initiative, bowing formally as he spoke, in German—
“Good morning, Herr Professor. You seem to have a turn for entering houses by irregular methods.”
The new-comer bowed with suavity, saying, in excellent English—
“It is to your sister that in both senses I owe my entrance, and to the lady, your mother, that I owe my apology.”
And before Caroline well knew what was going on, he had one knee to the ground, and was kissing her hand.
“The tableau is incomplete, Janet,” said Bobus, whom Caroline heartily wished away. “You ought to be on your knees beside him.”
“I have settled it with my mother already,” said Janet.
Both Caroline and her eldest son were relieved by the first glance at the man. He was small, and had much more of the Greek than of the German in his aspect, with neat little features, keen dark eyes, and no vulgarity in tone or appearance. His hands were delicate; there was nothing of the “greasy foreigner” about him, but rather an air of finesse, especially in his exquisitely trimmed little moustache and pointed beard, and his voice and language were persuasive and fluent. It might have been worse, was the prominent feeling, as she hastily said—
“Stand up, Mr. Hermann; I am not used to be spoken to in that manner.”
“Nor is it an ordinary occasion on which I address madame,” said her new son-in-law, rising. “I am aware that I have transgressed many codes, but my anxiety to secure my treasure must plead for me; and she assured me that she might trust to the goodness of the best of mothers.”
“There is such a thing as abusing such goodness,” said Bobus.
“Sir,” said Hermann, “I understand that you have rights as eldest son, but I await my sentence from the lips of madame herself.”
“No, he is not the eldest,” interrupted Janet. “This is Allen—Allen, you were always good-natured. Cannot you say one friendly word?”
Something in the more childish, eager tone of Janet’s address softened Allen, and he answered—
“It is for mother to decide on what terms we are to stand, Janet, and strange as all this has been, I have no desire to be at enmity.”
Caroline had by this time been able to recover herself and spoke.
“Mr. Hermann can hardly expect a welcome in the family into which he has entered so unexpectedly, and—and without any knowledge of his antecedents. But what is done cannot be undone; I don’t want to be harsh and unforgiving. I should like to understand all about everything, and of course to be friends; as to the rest, it must depend on how they go on, and a great deal besides.”
It was a lame and impotent conclusion, but it seemed to satisfy the gentleman, who clasped her hand and kissed it with fervour, wrung that of Allen, which was readily yielded, and would have done the same by that of Bobus, if that youth had done more than accord very stiff cold tips.
Immediately after, John said at the door—
“Aunt Caroline, my father is here. Will you see him?”
That was something to be got over at once, and she went to the Colonel, who was very kind and pitiful to her, and spared her the “I told you so.” He did not even reproach her with being too lenient, in not having turned the pair at once out of her house; indeed, he was wise enough to think the extremity of a quarrel ought to be avoided, but he undertook to make every inquiry into Mr. Demetrius Hermann’s history, and observed that she should be very cautious in pledging herself as to what she would do for him, since she had, as he expressed it, the whip-hand of him, since Janet was totally dependent upon her.
“Oh! but Robert, I forgot; I don’t know if there is anything for anybody,” she said, putting her hand to her forehead; “there’s that other will! Ah! I see you think I don’t know what I am saying, and my head is getting past understanding much, but I really did find the other will last night.”
“What other will?”
“The one we always knew there must be, in favour of Elvira. This dreadful business put it out of my head; the children don’t know it yet, and I don’t seem able to think or care.”
It was true; severe nervous headache had brought her to the state in which she could do nothing but lie passively on her bed. The Colonel saw this, and bade her think of nothing for the present, and sent Barbara to take care of her.
She spent the rest of the day in the sort of aniantissement which that sort of headache often produces, and in the meantime everybody held tete-a-tetes. The Colonel held his peace about the will, not half crediting such a catastrophe, and thinking one matter at a time quite enough for his brain; but he talked to the Professor, to Janet, to Allen, and to Bobus, and tried to come to a knowledge of the bridegroom’s history, and to decide what course ought to be pursued, feeling as the good man always did and always would do, that he was, or ought to be, the supreme authority for his brother’s widow and children.
Allen was quite placable, and ready to condone everything. He thought the Athenian Professor a very superior man, with excellent classical taste, by which it was plain that his mosaic pavement, his old china, and his pictures had met with rare appreciation. Moreover, the Professor knew how to converse, and could be brilliantly entertaining; there was nothing to find fault with in his appearance; and if Janet was satisfied, Allen was. He knew his uncle hated foreigners, but for his own part, he thought nothing so dull as English respectability.
For once the Colonel declared that Bobus had more sense! Bobus had come to a tolerably clear comprehension of the matter, and his first impressions were confirmed by subsequent inquiries. Demetrius Hermann was the son of some lawyer of King Otho’s court who had married a Greek lady. He had studied partly at Athens, partly at so many other universities, that Bobus thought it rather suspicious; while his uncle, who held that a respectable degree must be either of Oxford or Cambridge, thought this fatal to his reputation. He had studied medicine at one time, but had broached some theory which the German faculty were too narrow to appreciate; “Which means,” quoth Bobus, “either that he could not get a licence to practise, or else had it revoked.”
Then he had taken to lecturing. The professorship was obscure; he said it was Athenian, and Bobus had no immediate means of finding out whether it were so or not, nor of analysing the alphabet of letters that followed his name upon the advertisement of his lectures.
Apparently he was a clever lecturer, fluent and full of illustration, with an air of original theory that caught people’s attention. He knew his ground, and where critically scientific men were near to bring him to book, was cautious to keep within the required bounds, but in the freer and less regulated places, he discoursed on new theories and strange systems connected with the mysteries of magnetism, and producing extraordinary and unexplained effects.
Robert and Jock were inclined to ascribe to some of these arts the captivation of so clever a person as their sister, by one whom they both viewed with repulsion as a mere adventurer.
They had not the clue which their mother had to the history of the matter, when the next day, though still far from well, she had an interview with her daughter and the Athenian Professor before their return to Scotland.
He knew of the Magnum Bonum matter. It seemed that Janet, as her knowledge increased, had become more sensible of the difficulties in the pursuit, and being much attracted by his graces and ability, had so put questions for her own enlightenment as to reveal to him that she possessed a secret. To cajole it from her, so far as she knew it, had been no greater difficulty than it was to the fox to get the cheese from the crow: and while to him she was the errant unprotected young lady of large and tempting fortune, he could easily make himself appear to her the missing link in the pursuit. He could do what as a woman she could not accomplish, and what her brothers were not attempting.
In that conviction, nay, even expecting her mother to be satisfied with his charms and his qualifications, she claimed that he might at least read the MS. of the book, assuring her mother that all she had intended the night before was to copy out the essentials for him.
“To take the spirit and leave me the letter?” said Caroline. “O Janet, would not that have been worse than carrying off the book?”
“Well, mother, I maintain that I have a right to it,” said Janet, “and that there is no justice in withholding it.”
“Do you or your husband fulfil these conditions Janet?” and Caroline read from the white slate those words about the one to whom the pursuit was intrusted being a sound, religious man, who would not seek it for his own advancement but for the good of others.
Janet exultantly said that was just what Demetrius would do. As to the being a sound religious man, her mother might seek in vain for a man of real ability who held those old-fashioned notions. They were very well in her father’s time, but what would Bobus say to them?
She evidently thought Demetrius would triumph in his private interview with her mother, but if Caroline had had any doubt before, that would have removed it. Janet honestly had a certain enthusiasm for science, beneficence, and the honour of the family, but the Professor besieged Mrs. Brownlow with his entreaties and promises just as if—she said to herself—she had been the widow of some quack doctor for whose secret he was bidding.
If she would only grant it to him and continue her allowance to Janet while he was pursuing it, then, there would be no limit to the share he would give her when the returns came in. It was exceedingly hard to answer without absolutely insulting him, but she entrenched herself in the declaration that her husband’s conditions required a full diploma and degree, and that till all her sons were grown up she had been forbidden to dispose of it otherwise. Very thankful she was that Armine was not seventeen, when a whole portfolio of testimonials in all sorts of languages were unfolded before her! Whatever she had ever said of Ellen’s insular prejudices, she felt that she herself might deserve, for she viewed them all as utterly worthless compared with an honest English or Scottish degree. At any rate, she could not judge of their value, and they did not fulfil her conditions. She made him understand at last that she was absolutely impracticable, and that the only distant hope she would allow to be wrung from her by his coaxing, wheedling tones, soft as the honey of Hybla, was, that if none of her sons or nephews were in the way of fulfilling the conditions, and he could bring her satisfactory English certificates, she might consider the matter, but she made no promises.