“How happy by my mother’s sideWhen some dear friend became a bride!To shine beyond the rest I wasIn gay embroidery drest.Vain of my drapery’s rich brocade,I held my flowing locks to braid.”Anstice(from the Greek).
“How happy by my mother’s sideWhen some dear friend became a bride!To shine beyond the rest I wasIn gay embroidery drest.Vain of my drapery’s rich brocade,I held my flowing locks to braid.”
Anstice(from the Greek).
“Epidemicsof marriage set in from time to time,” said Jane Mohun. “Gillian has set the fashion.”
For the Rock Quay neighbourhood was in a state of excitement over a letter from Mrs. White, of Rocca Marina, announcing the approaching marriage of Mr. White’s niece, Maura, with Lord Roger Grey, a nephew of dear Emily’s husband, and heir to the Dukedom. The White family were coming home for the wedding, and the interest entirely eclipsed that of Gillian Merrifield’s. In fact, though that young lady somewhat justified the Oxford stories, she was in a state of much inward agitation between real love for Ernley, and pain in leaving home, so she put on an absolutely imperturbable demeanour. Her reserve and dread of comments made her so undemonstrative and repressive to her Captain that there were those who doubted whether she cared for him at all, or only looked on her wedding as a mediæval maiden might have done, as coming naturally a few years after she had grown up. Ernley Armytage knew better, and so did her parents. The wedding was hurried on by Captain Armytage’s appointment to a frigate on the coast of Southern America, where he had to join at once, in lieu of a captain invalided home; and Gillian accepted the arrangements, which would take her to Rio, “as much a matter of course,” said her aunt, “as if she had been a wife for ten years.” Her uncle, Mr. Mohun, was anxious that the marriage of his sister Lily’s daughter should take place at the family home, Beechcroft. If there had been scruples, chiefly founded on the largeness of the party, and the trouble to Mrs. Mohun, these were forgotten in the convenience of being out of the way of Rockstone gossip, as well as for other reasons.
“I should certainly have escaped,” said General Mohun. “I have no notion of meeting that unmitigated scamp.”
“Mr. White ought to be warned,” said Jane.
“You’ll do so, I suppose; and much good it will be.”
“I do not imagine that it will. It will be too charming to surpass Franciska and Ivinghoe; but if neither you nor Jasper will speak to old Tom, I shall deliver my conscience to Ada.”
“And be advised to mind your own business.”
Nevertheless, Jane Mohun did deliver her conscience, when, on the day after the arrival, there had been loud lamentations over the intended absence of the Merrifield family. “It would have looked well to make it a double wedding, all in the family,” said Mr. White.
To which Miss Mohun only answered by a silence which Mrs. White was unwilling to break, but Maura exclaimed—
“But I thought Valetta would be sure to be my bridesmaid. Such friends as we were at the High School!”
It did not strike Miss Mohun that the friendship had been very close or very beneficial; but Adeline added, “We thought she would pair so well with Vera Prescott, and then uncle will give all the dresses—white silk with cerise trimmings. We ordered them in Paris.”
“Uncle Tom is so generous!” said Maura. “There is no end to his kindness. I’ll go and unpack some of the patterns, that Miss Mohun may see them.”
She tripped out of the room, and Jane exclaimed, “Poor child! Has Emily written to you, Ada?”
“Yes, rather stiffly. Mr. White thinks it aristocratic pride.”
“Ada, you know it is not that.”
“Well, I suppose the Greys are hardly gratified by the connection, though Mr. White will make it worth their while. You see the Duke leaves everything in his power to his daughters, so poor Roger will be very badly off.”
“But—” There was so much expressed in that “but” that Adeline began to answer one of the sentiments she supposed it to convey. “He can do it easily—for all the rest are provided for by the Marble Works—except the two eldest brothers. Richard has gone away, and Alexis—oh, you know he has notions of his own that Mr. White does not like.”
“Does Mr. White know all about Lord Roger, or why the Duke should cut him off as far as possible?”
“My dear Jane, it is not charitable to bring things up against young men’s follies.”
“It is a pretty considerable folly to have done what compelled him to retire. Reginald was called in at the inquiry, and knows all about it.”
“But that was ages ago, and he has been quite distinguished in the Turkish army.”
“Yes; and I also know that English gentlemen have associated with him as little as possible. I should call it a fatal thing to let Maura marry him. What does Captain Henderson say?”
“Mr. White thinks that it is all jealousy. And really, Jenny, I do not in the least believe that he will make her unhappy. He is old enough to have quite outgrown all his wild ways, and he has quite gentlemanly manners and ways. Besides, Maura likes him, and is quite bent upon it.”
Still there was a dissatisfied look on Jane’s face, and Adeline went on answering it, with tears in her eyes. “My dear Jane, I know what you would say, and what Reginald and all the rest feel, that it is not what we should like! But, my dear, don’t let the whole family rise up in arms! It would be of no use, only make it painful for me. Maura is quite bent upon it, and she has arrived at turning her uncle round her finger so much that I am sometimes hardly mistress of the house! Oh, I don’t tell any one, not Lily nor any one, but it will really be a relief to me when she is gone, with her Greek coaxing ways. Her uncle is wrapped up in her, and so proud of her being a Duchess that he would condone anything. Indeed, I am always afraid of her putting it into his head to suppose that her disappointment about Ivinghoe was in any way owing to my family pride.”
Jane was sorry for Adeline, and able to perceive how the wifely feelings, which she had taken on herself, by choosing a man of inferior breeding and nature clashed with her hereditary character and principles.
“You are absolutely relieved that the Beechcroft wedding takes all of us out of the way naturally and without offence,” she said so kindly that Ada laid her head on her sisterly shoulder, and allowed herself to shed a few tears.
“Yes, yes,” she said; “I am glad to have so good a reason to mention. Only I do hope Jasper will not object to Valetta’s coming back to be bridesmaid. That would really be a blow and give offence, and it would make difficulties with others—even James Henderson, who swears by Jasper. I have often wished they would have done as I advised, and have had this wedding at Rocca Marina, out of the way of everybody! I sometimes think it will be the death of me. Do come home to help me through it.”
She spoke so like the Ada of old that it went to Jane’s heart.
She promised that she would return in time to give the very substantial assistance in which all believed, and the more sentimental support in which nobody believed, though her distaste arose tenfold after seeing the bridegroom, who looked like an old satyr, all the more because Maura was like a Greek nymph. Mrs. Henderson was much grieved, and had tried remonstrance with her sister, but found her quite impervious.
Glad were all the Merrifields to escape to the quiet atmosphere of Beechcroft, where the relations were able to congregate between the Court, the Vicarage, and the more-distant Rotherwood; and the wedding was an ideal one in ecclesiastical beauty, and the festivities of those who had known and loved Lady Merrifield as Miss Lily in early youth, grandmothers who had been her schoolchildren, and were pleased to hear that she was a grandmother herself, and hoped in a year or two to welcome her grandchildren.
Alethea and her little Somervilles she had seenen routeto Canada, and Phyllis was to come in due time when Bernard Underwood could be spared from the bank in Colombo, and they would bring their little pair.
In the matter of bridesmaids Gillian certainly had the advantage, for she was amply provided with sisters and cousins, Dolores coming for a few days for the wedding; whereas the six whom Maura had provided for beforehand in Paris were only, as Miss Jane said, “scraped up” with difficulty from former schoolfellows. Lord Roger’s nieces would not hear of being present. Paulina was unwillingly pressed into the service, as well as the more willing Vera; but Mysie Merrifield was not to be persuaded to give up her visit to Lady Phyllis, and Aunt Jane could only carry home Valetta, who held the whole as “capital fun,” and liked the acquisition of the white silk and lace and cerise ribbons. Dolores had negotiated that No. 6 of the Vanderkist girls should spend a year with Miss Mohun for a final polish at the High School at Rock Quay, so as to be with her brother Adrian, who was completing his term at the preparatory school before his launch at Winchester.
Wilfred also returned, father and uncle having decided that he did not merit a game licence, nor to attack the partridges of Beechcroft, and the prospect of the gaieties of Cliffe House consoled him.
Adeline had to endure her husband’s mortification at other disappointments. The Ducal family was wholly unrepresented. Even Emily, the connecting link, would not venture on the journey; and the clerical nephew was not sufficiently gratified by Lord Roger’s intention tose rangerto undertake to officiate; and a Bishop, who had enjoyed the hospitality of Rocca Marina, proved to have other engagements. No clergyman could be imported except Maura’s brother Alexis, who had been two years at work at Coalham under Mr. Richard Burnet, and had just been appointed by the newly-chosen Bishop of Onomootka, and both were to go out with him as chaplains. In the meantime, while the Bishop was preparing, by tours in England, Alexis undertook the duties of Mr. Flight’s curate, rejoicing in the opportunity of seeing his elder sister, and the old friends with whom he had never been since his unlucky troubles with Gillian Merrifield, now no more.
The delight of receiving him compensated to Kalliope Henderson for much that was distressing to both in Maura’s choice. The seven years that had passed had made him into a noble-looking man, with a handsome classical countenance, lighted up by earnestness and devotion, a fine voice and much musical skill, together with a bright attractive manner that, all unconsciously on his part, had turned the heads of half the young womanhood of Coalham, and soon had the same effect at Rock Quay.
Vera and Paulina were in a state of much excitement over their white silks, in which the three other sisters took great pleasure in arraying them, and Thekla only wished that Hubert could see them. She should send him out a photograph, buying it herself with her own money.
She was, of course, to see the wedding, in her Sunday white and broad pink sash, of the appropriateness of which she was satisfied when, at Beechcroft, they met Miss Mohun’s young friend, Miss Vanderkist, in the same garb. She and her brother had been put under Magdalen’s protection, as Miss Mohun was too much wanted at Cliffe House to look after them; but Sir Adrian, a big boy of twelve, wanted to go his own way, and only handed her over with “Hallo, Miss Prescott! you’ll look after this pussy-cat of ours while Aunt Jane is dosing Aunt Ada with salts and sal volatile. She—I’ll introduce you! Miss Prescott, Miss Felicia Vanderkist! She wants to be looked after, she is a little kitten that has never seen anything! I’m off to Martin’s.”
The stranger did look very shy. She was a slight creature, not yet seventeen, with an abundant mass of long golden silk hair tied loosely, and a very lovely face and complexion, so small that she was a miniature edition of Lady Ivinghoe.
Her name was Wilmet Felicia, but the latter half had been always used in the family, and there was something in the kitten grace that suited the arbitrary contractions well. In fact, Jane Mohun had been rather startled to find that she had the charge of such a little beauty, when she saw how people turned around at the station to look, certainly not at Valetta, who was a dark bright damsel of no special mark.
At church, however, every one was in much too anxious a state to gaze at the coming procession to have any eyes to spare for a childish girl in a quiet white frock. St. Andrew’s had never seen such a crowded congregation, for it was a wedding after Mr. White’s own heart, in which nobody dared to interfere, not even his wife, whatever her good taste might think. So the church was filled, and more than filled, by all who considered a wedding as legitimate gape seed, and themselves as not bound to fit behaviour in church. On such an occasion Magdalen, being a regular attendant, and connected with the bridesmaids, was marshalled by a churchwarden into a reserved seat; but there they were dismayed by the voices and the scrambling behind them, which, in the long waiting, the Vicar from the vestry vainly tried to subdue by severe looks; and Felicia, whose notions of wedding behaviour were moulded on Vale Lecton and Beechcroft, looked as if she thought she had got into the house of Duessa, amid all Pride’s procession, as in the prints in the large-volumed “Faërie Queene.”
And when, on the sounds of an arrival, the bridegroom stood forth, the resemblance to Sans Foy was only too striking, while the party swept up the church, the bride in the glories of cobweb veil, white satin, &c., becomingly drooping on her uncle’s arm, while he beamed forth, expansive in figure and countenance, with delight. Little Jasper Henderson, anxious and patronising to his tiny brother Alexis, both in white pages’ dresses picked out with cerise, did his best to support the endless glistening train.
The bridesmaids’ costumes taxed the descriptive powers of the milliners in splendour and were scarcely eclipsed by the rich brocade and lace of Mrs. White, as she sailed in on Captain Henderson’s arm; but her elaborate veil and feathery bonnet hardly concealed the weary tedium of her face, though to the shame, well nigh horror, of her sister, she was rouged. “I must, I must,” she said; “he would be vexed if I looked pale.”
It was true that “he” loved her heartily, and that he put all the world at her service; but she had learnt where he must not be offended, and was on her guard. Hers had been the last wedding that Jane had attended in St. Andrew’s. “Did she repent?” was Jane’s thought. No, probably not. She had the outward luxuries she had craved for, and her husband was essentially a good man, though not of the caste to which her instincts belonged—very superior in nature and conscience to him to whom his blinded vanity was now giving his beautiful niece, a willing sacrifice.
It was over! More indecorous whispering and thronging; and the procession came down the aisle, to be greeted outside by a hail of confetti and rice; the schoolboys, profiting by the dinner interval, and headed by Adrian, had jostled themselves into the foreground, and they ran headlong to the portico of Cliffe House to renew the shower.
And there, unluckily, Mr. White recognised the boy, and, pleased to have anything with a title to show, turned him round to the bridegroom, with, “Here, Lord Roger, let me introduce a guest, Sir Adrian Vanderkist.”
“Ha, I didn’t know poor Van had left a son. I knew your father, my boy. Where was it I saw him last? Poor old chap!”
“You must come in to taste the cake, my boy,” began Mr. White.
“Thank you, Mr. White, I must get back to Edgar’s. Late already. The others are off.”
“Not a holiday! For shame! He’ll excuse you. I’ll send a note down to say you must stay to drink the health of your father’s old friend.”
Those words settled the matter with Adrian. The holiday was enticing, and might have overpowered the chances of a scholarship, for which he was working; but he had begun to know that there were perplexities from which it was safer to retreat; and that he had never transgressed his Uncle Clement’s warning might be read in the clear open face that showed already the benefits, not only of discipline, but of self-control. So obedience answered the question; though, as he again thanked and refused, he looked so dogged as he turned and walked off, that Ethel Varney whispered to Vera that at school he was called, “the Dutchman, if not the Boer.”
Nor did he ever mention the temptation or his own resistance. Only Mr. White asked Miss Mohun to bring him to the dance which was to be given in the evening, telling her of his refusal of the invitation to wedding cake and champagne and she—mindful of her duty to her charge as hinted by Clement Underwood—had not granted the honour of his presence on the score of his school obligations.
The afternoon was spent in desultory wanderings about the gardens, Magdalen and her sisters being invited guests, and Vera in a continual state of agitated expectation. Had not Wilfred Merrifield always been a cavalier of her own? And here he was, paying no attention to her, with all the embellishment of her bridesmaid’s adornments, and squiring instead that little insignificant Felicia, in a simple hat, and hair still on her shoulders; whilst she had to put up with nothing better than a young Varney, who was very shy, and had never probably mastered croquet.
She was an ill-used mortal; and why had she not Hubert to show how superior she was to them all, in having a piece of property of her own to show off?
There was Paula, too, playing animated tennis with that clerical brother of the bride, who had been talking to Magdalen about the frescoes of St. Kenelm’s (as if she, Vera, had not the greatest right to know all about those frescoes!). Even little Thekla was better off, for she was reigning over a merry party of the little ones, which had been got up for the benefit of the small Hendersons, and of which Theodore White had constituted himself the leader, being a young man passionately devoted to little children.
So when the guests dispersed to eat their dinner at their homes and dress for the dance, Vera was extremely cross. Each of the other three had some delightful experiences to talk over; but whether it was Mr. Theodore’s fun in acting ogre behind the great aloe, or Mr. Alexis’s achievements with the croquet ball, or his information about the Red Indians and Onomootka, she was equally ungracious to all; she scolded Thekla for crumpling her skirt, and was quite sure that Paula had on the wrongfichuthat was meant for her. Each bridesmaid had been presented with a bracelet, like a snake with ruby eyes; but Vera, fingering hers with fidgeting petulance, seemed to have managed to loosen the clasp, and when arranging her dress for the evening thought that her snake had escaped.
Upstairs and downstairs she rushed in hopes of finding it. The cab in which they had returned was gone home to come again, and there was the chance that it might be there or in the Cliffe House gardens; and then the others tried to console her, but they were not able to hinder a violent burst of crying, which scandalised Thekla.
“I am sure you couldn’t cry more if you had lost Hubert’s, and that would be something worth crying about.”
Hubert’s was an ingeniously worked circle of scales of Californian gold, the first ornament that Vera had ever possessed, and that all the sisters had set great store by. But with an outcry of joy Vera exclaimed, “Here’s the snake all safe! I pushed the other up my arm because it looked so plain and dull, and it was that which came off.”
“That is a great deal worse than losing the snake,” said Thekla. “He has a nasty face, and I don’t like him, with his red eyes.”
“Don’t be silly,” returned Vera; “this is a great deal more valuable.”
“Surely the value is in the giver,” said Paula; to which Vera returned in the same vein, “Don’t be silly and sentimental, Polly.”
She was so much cheered by the recovery of the snake that they brought her off to the evening dance without a fresh fit of ill-humour, and she sprang out under the portico of Cliffe House, with her spirits raised to expectation pitch.
But disappointment was in store for her. It was not disappointment in other eyes. Paula had all the attention she expected or desired, she danced almost every time and did not reckon greatly on who might be her partner. What pleased and honoured her most was being asked to dance by Captain Henderson himself.
What was it to Vera, however, that partners came to her, young men of Rock Quay whom she knew already and did not care about? And she never once had the pleasure of saying that she was keeping the next dance for Wilfred Merrifield! To her perceptions, he was always figuring away with Felicia Vanderkist, her golden hair seemed always gleaming with him; and though this was not always the case, as the nephew of the house was one of those who had duties to guests and was not allowed by his aunts to be remiss, yet whenever he was not ordered about by them, he was sure to be found by Felicia’s side.
Vera’s one consolation was that Alexis White took her to supper. To be sure he was a clergyman, and had stood talking to Lady Flight half the time, and his conversation turned at once to Hubert Delrio’s frescoes; but then he was very handsome, and graceful in manner, and he sympathised with her on the loss of her bracelet, and promised to have a search for it by daylight in the gardens.
“And variable as the shadeBy the light quivering aspen made.”—Scott.
“And variable as the shadeBy the light quivering aspen made.”
—Scott.
Thebracelet came to light in the gardens of Cliffe House the next morning, and Alexis White walked over to the Goyle to return it safely, little guessing, when he set forth to enjoy the sight of the purple moors, and to renew old recollections, what a flutter of gratified vanity would be excited in one silly little breast, though he only stayed ten minutes, and casually asked whether the sisters were coming to Lady Flight’s garden party. Everybody was going there. Miss Mohun even took Felicia, as it was on a Saturday’s holiday; and, unwittingly, she renewed all the agitation caused by Wilfred’s admiration, and that of others, to the all-unconscious girl. Vera could no longer think herself the reigning belle of Rock Quay, though she talked of Felicia as a schoolgirl or a baby, or a horrid little forward chit! Her excitement was, however, divided between Wilfred and Mr. Alexis White, who could not look in her direction without putting her in a state of eagerness.
In this, however, she was not alone. Half the ladies were interested about him; his manners were charming, his voice in church beautiful, and his destination as chaplain to a missionary bishop made him doubly interesting; while he himself, even though his mind was set on higher things, was really enjoying his brief holiday, and his sister, Mrs. Henderson, was delighted to promote his pleasure, and garden parties and the like flourished as long as weather permitted; and as Vera was a champion player, she was sure to be asked to the tournaments, and to have to practise for them.
Inopportunely there arrived a letter from Hubert, requiring an answer about the form of ornament in the moulding of the fourteenth century! Paula dutifully went to the library, looked out and traced two or three examples, French and English. Nothing remained but for Vera to write the letter after the early dinner. However, she went to sleep in a hammock, and only roused herself to recollect that there was to be tea and lawn tennis at Carrara.
“Won’t you just write to Hubert first?”
“Oh, bother, how can I now? Don’t worry so!”
“But, Flapsy, he really needs it without loss of time.”
“I’m sure he has no right to make me his clerk in that horrid peremptory way, as if one had nothing else to do but wait on his fads.”
“Flapsy, how can you?” broke out even Thekla.
“Surely it is the greatest honour,” said Paula.
“Well, do it yourself then, I’m not going to be bothered for ever.”
Thekla went off, in great indignation, to beg “sister” to speak to Flapsy, and beg her not to use dear Hubert so very very badly, which of course Magdalen refused to do, and Thekla had her first lesson on the futility of interfering with engaged folk; Paula meanwhile sent off the despatch, with one line to say that Vera was too busy to write that day.
There had been two or three letters from Hubert, over which Vera had looked cross, but had said nothing; and at last she came down from her own room, and announced passionately, “There! I have done with Mr. Hubert Delrio, and have written to tell him so!”
“Vera, what have you done?”
“Written to tell him I have no notion of a man being so tiresome and dictatorial! I don’t want a schoolmaster to lecture me, and expect me to drudge over his work as if I was his clerk.”
“My dear,” said Magdalen, “have you had a letter that vexed you? Had you not better wait a little to think it over?”
“No! Nonsense, Maidie! He has been provoking ever so long, and I won’t bear it any longer!” and she flounced into a chair.
“Provoking! Hubert!” was all Paulina could utter, in her amazement and horror.
“Oh, I daresay you would like it well enough! Always at me to slave for him with stupid architectural drawings and stuff, as if I was only a sort of clerk or fag! And boring me to read great dull books, and preaching to me about them, expecting to know what I think! Dear me!”
“Those nice letters!” sighed Paula.
“Nice! As if any one that was one bit in love would write such as that! No, I don’t want to marry a schoolmaster or a tyrant!”
“How can you, Flapsy?” went on Paula, so vehemently that Magdalen left the defence thus far to her; “when he only wishes for your sympathy and improvement.”
The worst plea she could have used, thought the elder sister, as Vera broke out with, “Improvement, indeed! If he cared for me, he would not think I wanted anyimproving! But he never did! Or he would have taken Pratt and Povis’ offer, and I should have been living in London and keeping my carriage! Or he would have taken me to Italy! But that horrid home of his, and his mother just like a half-starved hare! I might have seen then it was not fit for me; but I was a child, and over-persuaded among you all! But I know better now, and I know my own mind, as I didn’t then. So you need not talk! I have done with him.”
“Oh, Flapsy, Flapsy, how can you grieve him so? You don’t know what you are throwing away!” incoherently cried Paula, collapsing in a burst of tears. “Maidie, Maidie, why don’t you speak to her, and tell her how wicked it is—and—and—and—”
The rest was cut short by sobs.
“No, Paula, authority or reasoning of mine would not touch such a mood as this. We must leave it to Hubert himself. If she really cares for him, she will have recovered from her fit of temper by the time his letter can come, and it may have an effect upon her, if our tongues have not increased her spirit of opposition. I strongly advise you to say nothing.”
Paula tried to take her sister’s advice, and would have adhered to it, but that Vera would talk and try to make her declare the rupture to have been justified; and this produced an amount of wrangling which did good to no one. Magdalen really rejoiced when the frequent golf and tennis parties carried Vera on her bicycle out of reach of arguing, even if it took her into the alternative of flirtation.
Thekla cried bitterly, and declared that she should never speak to Flapsy again; but in half an hour’s time was heard chattering about the hedgehog’s meal of cockroaches. In another week the excitement was over. The Bishop of Onomootka had come and gone, after holding meetings and preaching sermons at Rock Quay and all the villages round, and had carried off Alexis White with him.
Nothing had come of the intercourse of the latter with his rich uncle, nor of the varieties of encounters with the damsels of Rock Quay, except that society was declared by more than one to have become horridly flat and slow.
Vera was one of these, and the letters received from Hubert Delrio did not stir up a fresh excitement. There were no persuasions to revoke her decision, no urgent entreaties, no declaration of being heart-broken. He acquiesced in her assurance that the engagement had been a mistake; and he wrote at more length to Magdalen, avowing that he had for some time past traced discontent in Vera’s letters, and fearing that he had been too didactic and peremptory in writing to her. He relinquished the engagement with much regret, and should always regard it as having been a fair summer dream—but, though undeserving, he hoped still to retain Miss Prescott’s kindness and friendship, which had been of untold value to him.
A little more zeal and distress would have been much more pleasing to Vera; and she began to be what Agatha and Thekla called cross, and Paula called drooping, and even excited alarm in her, lest Flapsy should be going into a decline. But a note came to the Goyle which Magdalen read alone, and likewise she cycled alone to Rockstone.
“Miss Mohun, can you give me a few minutes?” said she, as the trim little figure emerged from beneath the copper beeches, basket in hand.
“By all means; I shall not be due at the cutting-out meeting till three o’clock.”
“I wanted to consult you about an invitation that Mrs. White has been so very kind as to give my little sister, Vera.”
“Oh!” quoth Jane Mohun, in a dry sort of tone.
“I know that she had wished to take out one of her own nieces to Rocca Marina, but that Sir Jasper did not wish it, and I thought perhaps it would be easier for you than for Lady Merrifield to tell me whether there is any objection that would apply to Vera.”
“I suppose Vera wishes to go?”
“She is so wild with delight that it would be a serious thing to disappoint her. Mrs. White is very kind and good, and has thought that she has flagged of late, and has supposed it might be due to poor Hubert Delrio, but, indeed, it was no fault of his.”
“None at all, except for out-growing her.”
“The offer was hinted at to go with Valetta even before we knew it was declined at Clipstone, and that made me anxious to know whether it would be well for me to send Vera. I suppose she would pick up pronunciation of languages, which would be a great advantage, as she will have to earn her own living, and Mrs. White is so good as to promise lessons in arts and music. I hear, too, it is quite an English colony, with a church and schools.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. White is a very good and careful man about his workmen. I have been there at the Henderson’s wedding, and it is a charming place, a castle fit for Mrs. Radclyffe, with English comforts, and an Italian garden and an English village on the mountain side. My sister would do all that she promises, and would look after any young girl very well; you may quite trust her.”
“Then is there any fear of Italian society?—not that poor Vera has any attractionof that kind,” hesitated Magdalen.
“None at all. All the society they have is of English travellers coming with introductions. I fancy it is very dull at times, and that Adeline wants a young person about her. You need have no fears. Ah! I see you still want to know why the Merrifields don’t consent. It is not their way. They would not let the Rotherwoods have Mysie to bring up with Phyllis, and—and Val is just the being that needs a mother’s eye over her. But I really and honestly think that your Vera may quite safely be put under Adeline’s care, and that she is likely to be all the better for it.”
“One thing more,” added Magdalen, with a little hesitation; “is your nephew, Wilfred, likely to be one of the party?”
“None at all. His father wants to keep him under his own eye, and his mother is anxious about his health; nor do I think Mr. White wants him, having his own two nephews, who are useful, so he will remain under Captain Henderson here.”
“Thank you! That settles it in my mind. I am sure the change to a fresh home will be an excellent thing for my poor Vera, and that the training of imitation of one to whom she looks up is what she most needs.”
“Very true,” said Miss Mohun.
And as she afterwards said to Lady Merrifield, “It was in all sincerity and honesty that I gave the advice to Magdalen, who is very sensible in the matter. In plain English, Ada can’t do without a lady in waiting, and Vera probably fancies that Lords, young or old, start from every wave like the spirits of our fathers, at Rocca Marina, in which she will probably be disappointed; but Ada will be a very dragon as to her manners and discretion, and not being his own niece, old Tom White will not be deluded by his ambition and any blandishments of hers. As people go, they are very safe guardians, and Vera—Flapsy as they call her—is just of the composition to be improved, and not disimproved, by living with Ada.”
“Probably, though I do not like the foolish little puss to be rewarded for throwing over young Delrio.”
“He was so much too good for her that I am more inclined to reward her for doing so!”
Agatha, however, came home somewhat annoyed by the whole arrangement. She supposed the rupture with Hubert might have been inevitable; but she was very sorry for it, thinking that Vera might have grown up to him, and regretting the losing him as a brother. Nor did she like the atmosphere of the Whites and Rocca Marina for her feather-brained young sister. “Dolores had no great opinion of her Aunt Adeline,” she said.
“My dear,” said Magdalen, as they sat over their early fire, “I have talked it over with Lady Merrifield and Miss Mohun, and they both tell me that Mrs. White is very sensible, and sure to be discreet for any girl in her charge—probably better for Flapsy than a more intellectual woman.”
“But—! Such a marriage as this one!” said Agatha.
“It was Mr. White’s own niece, and taken out of Mrs. White’s hands,” said Magdalen. “Besides,” as Agatha still looked unconvinced, “one thing that made me think the invitation desirable was that it would break off any foolishness with Wilfred Merrifield—I think it was in their minds too.”
“Wilfred! Oh, there was a little nonsense.”
“Less on his side, since Felicia Vanderkist has been here; but I think Vera has been all the more disposed to—to—”
“Run after him,” said Agatha. “I could fancy it in Flapsy; but he is such a boy, and not half so nice-looking as the rest of them either.”
“My dear Agatha, I must tell you he reminds me strangely of a young Mr. Merrifield whom I knew at Filsted when I was younger than you.”
“A brother of Bessie?”
“Even so. He got into some kind of trouble at Filsted, his father came and broke it off, and sent him out to Canada, where I fear he did not do well, and nothing has been heard of him since, except—”
She spoke with a catch in her voice which made Agatha look up at her, and detect a rising colour.
“Nothing!” she repeated.
“Except an anonymous parcel, returning to the brothers in Canada the sum he had taken with him. Strangely, the clue was not followed up, and he is lost sight of! But Wilfred’s air, and still more his manner, is always recalling his cousin to me, and, Nag, dear, I could not bear to see Vera go through the same trial by my exposing her to the intercourse. Not that I know any harm of Wilfred, but his parents could not like anything of the kind.”
“Certainly not! Yes, I suppose you are right, dear old Maidie.” But Agatha pondered over those words that had slipped out, “the same trial.”
“Thou shalt have the airOf freedom. Follow and do me service.”—“The Tempest.”
“Thou shalt have the airOf freedom. Follow and do me service.”
—“The Tempest.”
“IsAgatha in?” asked Dolores Mohun, jumping off her bicycle as she saw Magdalen, on a frosty day the next Christmas vacation, in her garden.
“She is doing scientific arithmetic with Thekla; giving me a holiday, in fact! You University maidens quite take the shine out of us poor old teachers.”
“Ah! if we can give shine we can’t give substance. But I want to borrow Nag, if you have no objection.”
“Borrow her! I am sure it is something she will like.”
“It is in the way of business, but she will like it all the same. They want me to give a course of lectures on electricity at Bexley to the Institute and the two High Schools, and I particularly want a skilled assistant, whom I can depend upon; not masters, nor boys! Now Nag is just what I should like. We should stay at Lancelot Underwood’s, a very charming place to be at.”
“Isn’t he some connection?”
“Connection all round. Phyllis Merrifield married his brother, banking in Ceylon, and may come home any day on a visit; and Ivinghoe’s pretty wife is Lancelot’s niece. He edits what is really the crack newspaper of the county, in spite of its being true blue Conservative, Church and all.”
“ThePursuivant? It has such good literary articles.”
“Oh, yes! Mrs. Grinstead and Canon Harewood write them. His wife is a daughter of old Dr. May—rather a peculiar person, but very jolly in her way.”
“But would they like to have Agatha imposed upon them?”
“Certainly; they are just the people to like nothing better, and it will only be for a fortnight. I have settled it all with them.”
At which Magdalen looked a little doubtful, but Dolores reiterated that there need be no scruple, she might ask Aunt Lily if she liked; but Lance Underwood was Mayor, and member of all the committees, and the most open-hearted man in the world besides, and it was all right.
To the further demur as to safety, Dolores answered that to light a candle or sit by the fire might be dangerous, but as long as people were careful, it was all right, and Agatha had already assisted in some experiments at Rock Quay, which had shown her to be thoroughly understanding and trustworthy, and capable of keeping off the amateur—the great bugbear.
So Magdalen consented, after rapturous desires on the part of Agatha, and assurances from General Mohun that Dolores had it in her by inheritance and by training to meddle with the lightning as safely as human being might; and Lady Merrifield owned with a sigh that she must accept as a fact that what even the heathens owned as a Divine mystery and awful attribute, had come to be treated as a commonplace business messenger and scientific toy, though (as Mrs. Gatty puts it) the mystery had only gone deeper. So much for the peril; and for the other scruple, it was set at rest by a hospitable letter from Mrs. Underwood, heartily inviting Miss Agatha Prescott, as an Oxford friend of Gillian.
So off the two electricians set, and after two days of business and sight-seeing in London, went down to Bexley. In the third-class carriage in which they travelled they were struck by the sight of a tall lady in mourning—a sort of compromise between a conventual and a secular bonnet over short fair hair, and holding on her lap a tiny little girl of about six years old, with a small, pinched, delicate face and slightly red hair, to whom she pointed out by name each spot they passed, herself wearing an earnest absorbed look of recognition as she pointed out familiar landmark after landmark till the darkness came down. Also there were two cages—one with a small pink cockatoo, and another with two budgerigars.
As the train began slackening Dolores exclaimed:
“There he is! Lance—!”
“Lance! Oh, Lance!” was echoed; and setting the child down, her companion almost fell across Agatha, and was at the window as the train stopped.
What happened in the next moment no one could quite tell; but as the door was torn open there was a mingled cry of “Angel!” and of “Lance!” and the traveller was in his arms, turning the next moment to lift out the frightened little girl, who clung tight round her neck; while Lance held out his hand with, “Dolores! Yes. This is Dolores, Angel, whom you have never seen.”
Each knew who the other was in a moment, and clasped hands in greeting, as well as they could with the one, and the other receiving bird-cages, handbags, umbrellas, and rugs from Agatha, whom, however, Lance relieved of them with a courteous, “Miss Prescott! You have come in for the arrival of my Australian sister! What luggage have you?” Wherewith all was absorbed in the recognition of boxes, and therewith a word or two to an old railway official, “My sister Angela.”
“Miss Angela! this is an unexpected pleasure!”
“Tom Lightfoot! is it you? You are not much altered. Mr. Dane, I should have known you anywhere!” with corresponding shakes of the hand.
“Yes, that’s ours. Oh, the birds! There they are! All right! Oh! not the omnibus, Lance! Let the traps go in that! Then Lena will like to stretch her legs, and I must revel in the old street.”
Dolores and Agatha felt it advisable to squeeze themselves with the bird-cages into the omnibus, and leave the brother and sister to walk down together, though the little girl still adhered closely to her protector’s hand.
“Poor Field’s little one? Yes, of course.”
“But tell me! tell me of them all!”
“All well! all right! But how—”
“TheMozambiquewas out of coal and had to put in at Falmouth. You know, I came by her because they said the long sea voyage would be best for this child, and it was so long since I had heard of any one that I durst not send anywhere till I knew—and I knew Froggatt’s would be in its own place. Oh! there’s the new hotel! the gas looks just the same! There’s the tower of St. Oswald’s, all shadowy against the sky. Look, Lena! Oh! this is home! I know the lamps. I’ve dreamt of them! Tired, Lena, dear? cold? Shall I carry you?”
“No, no; let me!” and he lifted her up, not unwillingly on her part, though she did not speak. “You are a light weight,” he said.
“I am afraid so,” answered Angel. “Oh! there’s the bus stopping at Mr. Pratt’s door.”
“Mine, now. We have annexed it.”
“But let me go in by the dear old shop. The window is as of old, I see. Ernest Lamb! don’t you know me?” as a respectable tradesman came forward. “And Achille, is it? You are as much changed as this old shop is transmogrified! And they are all well? Do you mean Bernard?”
“Bernard and Phyllis may come home any day to deposit a child. They lost their boy, and hope to save the elder one. But come, Angel! if you have taken in enough we must go up to those electrical girls. Dolores is come to give a lecture, with the other girl to assist, Miss Prescott.”
“Dolores! Yes, poor Gerald’s love! They are almost myths to me. Ah!” as Lancelot opened his office-door, “now I know where I am! And there’s the old staircase! This is the real thing, and no mistake.”
“Angel, Angel, come to tea!” And Gertrude, comfortable and substantial, in loving greeting threw arms round the new comers, Lance still carrying the child, who clung round his neck as he brought her into the room, full of his late fellow travellers, and also of a group of children.
“It is as if we had gone back thirty years or more,” was Angela’s cry, as she looked forth on what had been as little altered as possible from the old family centre; and Lance, setting down the child, spoke as the pretty little blue-eyed girls advanced to exchange kisses with their new aunt.
“Margaret, or Pearl, whom you knew as a baby; Etheldred, or Awdrey, and Dickie! Fely is at Marlborough. There, take little Lena—is that her name—to your table, and give her some tea.”
“Her name is Magdalen,” said Angela, removing the little black hat and smoothing the hair; but Lena backed against her, and let her hand hang limp in Pearl’s patronising clasp. Nor would she amalgamate with the children, nor even eat or drink except still beside “Sister,” as she called Angela. In fact, she was so thoroughly worn out and tired, as well as shy and frightened, that Angela’s attention was wholly given to her and she could only be put to bed, but not in the nursery, which, as Angel said, seemed to her like a den of little wild beasts. So she was deposited in the chamber and bed hastily prepared for the unexpected guest; and even there, being wakeful and feverish from over-fatigue, there was no leaving her alone, and Gertrude, after seeing her safely installed, could only go down with the hope that she would be able to spare her slave or nurse, which was it? by dinner-time.
“Who is that child so like?” said Dolores, in their own room.
“Very like somebody, but I can’t tell whom,” said Agatha. “Who did you say she is?”
“I cannot say I exactly know,” said Dolores. “I believe she is the daughter of Fulbert Underwood’s mate, on a sheep-farm in Queensland, and that as her mother died when she was born, she has been always under the care of this Angela, living in the Sisterhood there.”
“Not a Sister?”
“Not under vows, certainly. I never saw her before, but I believe she is rather a funny flighty person, and that Fulbert was afraid at one time that she would marry this child’s father.”
“Is he alive?”
“Which? Fulbert died four or five years ago, and I think the little girl’s father must be dead, for she is in mourning.”
“There’s something very charming about her—Miss Underwood.”
“Yes there is. They all seem to be very fond of her, and yet to laugh about her, and never to be quite sure what she will do next.”
“Did I not hear of her being so useful among the Australian black women?”
“No one has ever managed those very queer gins so well; and she is an admirable nurse too, they say. I am very glad to have come in her way.”
They did not, however, see much of her that evening. The head master of the Grammar School and his wife, the head mistress of the High School, and a few others had been invited to meet them; and Angela could only just appear at dinner, trusting to a slumber of her charge, but, on coming out of the dining-room, a wail summoned her upstairs at once, and she was seen no more that night.
However, with morning freshness, Lena showed herself much lessfarouche, and willing to accept the attentions of Mr. Underwood first, and, later, of his little daughter Pearl—a gentle, elder sisterly person, who knew how to avert the too rough advances of Dick—and made warm friends over the pink cockatoo; while Awdrey was entranced by the beauties of the budgerigars.
Robina had been informed by telegram, and came up from Minsterham with her husband, looking just like his own father, and grown very broad. He was greatly interested in the lecture, and went off to it, to consider whether it would be desirable for the Choristers’ School. Lancelot had, of course, to go, and Angela declared that she must be brought up to date, and rejoiced that Lena was able to submit to be left with the other children under the protection of Mrs. Underwood, who averred that she abhorred electricity in all its forms, and that if Lance were induced to light the town, or even the shop by that means, he must begin by disposing of her by a shock.
It was an excellent lecture, only the two sisters hardly heard it. They could think of nothing but that they were once more sitting side by side in the old hall, where they had heard and shared in so many concerts, on the gala days of their home life.
The two lecturers, as well as the rest of the party, were urgently entreated to stay to tea at the High School; but when the interest of the new arrival was explained, the sisters and brother were released to go home, Canon Harewood remaining to content their hostesses.
“Enough of science and of art!Close up those barren leaves,Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.”—Wordsworth.
“Enough of science and of art!Close up those barren leaves,Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.”
—Wordsworth.
Atelegramhad been handed to Mr. Mayor, which he kept to himself, smiling over it, and he—at least—was not taken utterly by surprise at the sight of a tall handsome man, who stepped forward with something like a shout.
“Angel! Lance! Why, is it Robin, too?”
“Bear, Bear, old Bear, how did you come?”
“I couldn’t stop when I heard at Clipstone that Angel was here, so I left Phyllis and the kid with her mother. Oh, Angel, Angel, to meet at Bexley after all!”
They clung together almost as they had done when they were the riotous elements of the household, while Lance opened the front door, and Robina, mindful of appearances, impelled them into the hall, Bernard exclaiming, “Pratt’s room! Whose teeth is it?”
“Don’t you want Wilmet to hold your hands and make you open your mouth?” said Lance, laughing.
Gertrude, who had already received the Indian arrival, met Angela, who was bounding up to see to her charge, with, “Not come in yet! She is gone out with the children quite happily, with Awdrey’s doll in her arms. Come and enjoy each other in peace.”
“In the office, please,” said Angela. “That is home. We shall be our four old selves.”
Lance opened the office door, and gave a hint to Mr. Lamb, while they looked at each other by the fire.
Bernard was by far the most altered. The others were slightly changed, but still their “old selves,” while he was a grave responsible man, looking older than Lancelot, partly from the effects of climate; but Angela saw enough to make her exclaim, “Here we are! Don’t you feel as if we were had down to Felix to be blown up?”
“Not a bit altered,” said Bernard, looking at the desks and shelves of ledgers, with the photographs over the mantelpiece—Felix, Mr. Froggatt, the old foreman, and a print of Garofalo’s Vision of St. Augustine, hung up long ago by Felix, as Lance explained, as a token of the faith to which all human science and learning should be subordinated.
“A declaration of thePursuivant,” said Angela. “How Fulbert did look out forPur! I believe it was his only literature.”
“Phyllis declares,” said Bernard, “that nothing so upsets me as a failure inPur’sarrival.”
“And this isPur’sheart and centre!” said Robina.
“Only,” added Angela, “I miss the smell of burnt clay that used to pervade the place, and that Alda so hated.”
“Happily the clay is used up,” said Lance. “I could not have brought Gertrude and the children here if the ceramic art, as they call it, had not departed. Cherry was so delighted at our coming to live here. She loved the old struggling days.”
“Fulbert said he never felt as if he had been at home till he came here. He nevertookto Vale Leston.”
“Clement and Cherry have settled in very happily,” said Robina, “with convalescent clergy in the Vicarage.”
“I say, Angel, let us have a run over there,” cried Bernard, “you and I together, for a bit of mischief.”
“Do,dolet us! Though this is real home, our first waking to perception and naughtiness, it is more than Vale Leston. We seem to have been up in a balloon all those five happy years.”
“A balloon?” said Bernard. “Nay, it seems to me that till they were over, I never thought at all except how to get the most rollicking and the finest rowing out of life. It seems to me that I had about as much sense as a green monkey.”
“Something sank in, though,” said Lance; “you did not drift off like poor Edgar.”
“Some one must have done so,” said Angela. “I wanted to ask you, Lancey, about advertising for my little Lena’s people; the Bishop said I ought.”
“I say,” exclaimed Bernard, “was it her father that was Fulbert’s mate? I thought he was afraid of your taking up with him. You didn’t?”
“No, no. Let me tell you, I want you to know. Field and a little wife came over from Melbourne prospecting for a place to sit down in. They had capital, but the poor wife was worn out and ill, and after taking them in for a night, Fulbert liked them. Field was an educated man and a gentleman, and Ful offered them to stay there in partnership. So they stayed, and by and by this child was born, and the poor mother died. The two great bearded men came galloping over to Albertstown from Carrigaboola, with this new born baby, smaller than even Theodore was, and I had the care of her from the very first, and Field used to ride over and see the little thing.”
“And—?” said Bernard, in a rather teasing voice, as his eyes actually looked at Angela’s left hand.
“I’ll own itdidtempt me. I had had some great disappointments with my native women, running wild again, and I could not bear my child having a horrid stepmother; and there was the glorious free bush life, and the horses and the sheep! But then I thought of you all saying Angel had broken out again; and by and by Fulbert came and told me that he was sure there was some ugly mystery, and spoke to Mother Constance, and they made me promise not to take him unless it was cleared up. Then, as you know, dear Ful’s horse fell with him; Field came and fetched me to their hut, and I was there to the last. Ful told each of us again that all must be plain and explained before we thought of anything in the future. He, Henry Field, said he had great hopes that he should be able to set it right. Then, as you know, there was no saving dear Fulbert, and after that Mother Constance’s illness began. Oh! Bear, do you recollect her coming in and mothering us in the little sitting-room? I could not stir from her, of course, while she was with us. And after that, Harry Field came and said he had written a letter to England, and when the answer came, he would tell me all, and I should judge! But I don’t think the answer ever did come, and he went to Brisbane to see if it was at the bank; and there he caught a delirious fever, and there was an end of it!”
At that moment something between a whine or a call of “sister” was heard. Up leapt Angela and hurried away, while Lance observed, “Well! That’s averted, but I am sorry for her.”
“It was not love,” said Robina.
“Or only for the child,” said Bernard; “and that would have been a dangerous speculation.”
“The child or something else has been very good for her,” said Lance; “I never saw her so gentle and quiet.”
“And with the same charm about her as ever,” said Bernard. “I don’t wonder that all the fellows fall in love with her. I hope she won’t make havoc among Clement’s sick clergy.”
“I suppose we ought to go up and fulfil the duties of society,” said Robina, rising. “But first, Bear, tell me how is Phyllis?”
“Pretty fair,” he answered. “Resting with her mother, but she has never been quite the thing of late. I almost hope Sir Ferdinand will see his way to keeping us at home, or we shall have to leave our little Lily.”
Interruption occurred as a necessary summons to “Mr. Mayor,” and the paternal conclave was broken up, and had to adjourn to Gertrude’s tea in the old sitting-room.
“I see!” exclaimed Agatha, as she looked at the party of children at their supplementary table. “I see what the likeness is in that child. Don’t you, Dolores? Is it not to Wilfred Merrifield?”
“There is very apt to be a likeness between sandy people, begging your pardon, Angel,” said Gertrude.
“Yes, the carroty strain is apt to crop up in families,” said Lance, “like golden tabbies, as you ladies call your stable cats.”
“All the Mohuns are dark,” said Dolores, “and all Aunt Lily’s children, except Wilfred; and is not your Phyllis of that colour?”
“Phyllis’s hair is not red, but dark auburn,” said Bernard, in a tone like offence.
“I never saw Phyllis,” said dark-browed Dolores, “but I have heard the aunts talk over the source of the—the fair variety, and trace it to the Merrifields. Uncle Jasper is brown, and so is Bessie; but Susan is, to put it politely, just a golden tabby, and David’s baby promises to be, to her great delight, as she says he will be a real Merrifield. So much for family feeling!”
“Sister, Sister!” came in a bright tone, “may I go with Pearl and get a stick for Ben? He wants something to play with! He is eating his perch.”
Ben, it appeared, was the pink cockatoo, who was biting his perch with his hooked beak. The children had finished their meal, and consent was given. “Only, Lena, come here,” said Angela, fastening a silk handkerchief round her neck, and adding, “Don’t let Lena go on the dew, Pearl; she is not used to early English autumn, I must get her a pair of thicker boots.”
“What is her name?” asked Agatha, catching the sound.
“Magdalen Susanna. Her father made a point of it, instead of his wife’s name, which, I think, was Caroline.”
“I don’t think I ever knew a Magdalen except my own elder sister,” said Agatha, “and Susanna! Did you say Miss Merrifield had a sister Susan?”
“An excellent, sober-sided, dear old Susan! Yes, Susanna was their mother’s name,” said Dolores “and now that you have put it into my head, little Lena, when she is animated, puts me more in mind of Bessie than even of Wilfred, though the colouring is different. Why?”
“Did you never hear,” said Agatha, “that there was one of the brothers who was a bad lot, and ran away. My sister says Wilfred is like him. I believe,” she added, “that he was her romance!”
“Ha!” exclaimed Bernard, “that’s queer! We had a clerk in the bank who gave his name as Meriton, and who cut and ran the very day he heard that Sir Jasper Merrifield was coming out as Commandant. Yes, he was carroty. I rarely saw Wilfred at Clipstone, but this might very well have been the fellow, afraid to face his uncle.”
Angela did not look delighted. “She is not destitute, you know,” she said, “I am her guardian, and she will have about two hundred a year.”
“Is there a will?” asked Lance.
“Oh, yes, I have it upstairs! It is all right. It was at the bank at Brisbane, and they kept a copy. I brought her because the Bishop said it was my duty to find out whether there were any relations.”
“Certainly,” said Bernard. “In our own case, remember what joy Travis’s letter was!”
Angela was silent, and presently said, “You shall see the will when I have unpacked it, but there is no doubt about my being guardian.”
“Probably not,” said Bernard, rather drily.
“If it be a valid will, signed by his proper name,” said Lance.
Whereupon the two brothers fell into a discussion on points of law, not unlike the editor of thePursuivant, as he had become known to his family, but most unlike the Bernard they had known before his departure for the East. At any rate it dissipated the emotional tone of the party; and by and by, when Bernard and Angela had agreed to make a bicycle rush to Minsterham the next day, “that is,” said Angela “if Lena is happy enough to spare me,” the Harewoods took leave.
When the children had gone to bed, and Angela had stayed upstairs so long that Gertrude augured that she was waiting till her charge had gone to sleep, and that they should have no more of her henceforth but “Lena’s baulked stepmother,” she came down, bringing a document with her, which she displayed before her brothers.
There was no question but that it was a will drawn up in due form, and very short, bequeathing his property at Carrigaboola, Queensland, to his daughter, Magdalen Susanna, and appointing Fulbert Underwood and Angela Margaret Underwood and “my brother Samuel” her guardian. It was dated the year after his daughter’s birth, and was signed Henry Field, with a word interposed, which, as Lance said, might be anything, but was certainly the right length for the first syllables of Merrifield. Bernard looked at it, and declared it was, to the best of his belief, the same signature as his former clerk used to write.
“And this,” he said, looking at the seal, “is the crest of the Merrifield’s—the demi lion. I know it well on Sir Jasper’s seal ring.”
“Have you nothing else, Angel?” asked Lance.
“Here is the certificate of her baptism, but that will tell you nothing.”
No more it did, it only called the child the daughter of Henry and Caroline Field, and the surname was omitted in the bequest.
“Who was the mother?” asked Lance.
“I never exactly knew. Fulbert thought she had been a person whom Field had met in America or somewhere, and married in a hurry. Fulbert said she was rather pretty, but she was a poor helpless, bewildered thing, and very poorly. He wanted to bring her to Albertstown for fit help and nursing; but she cried so much at the idea of either horse or wagon over the-no-roads, that it was put off and off and she had only his shepherd’s housekeeper, so it was no wonder she did not live! Field was dreadfully cut up, and blamed himself extremely for having given way to her; but it is as likely as not the journey would have been just as fatal.”
“Poor thing!”
“You never heard her surname?”
“No, it did not signify.”
“He did not name his child after her?”
“No. I remember Fulbert saying he supposed she should be called Caroline; and he exclaimed, ‘No, no, I always said it should be Magdalen and Susanna.’”
“My sister’s name,” repeated Agatha.
“And Susan Merrifield,” added Dolores.
“But she is mine, mine!” cried Angela, with a tone like herself, of a sort of triumphant jealousy. “They can’t take her away from me!”
“Gently, Angela, my dear,” said Lance, in a tone so like Felix of old, that it almost startled her. “Tell me what arrangement is this about the property. Your share of Fulbert’s has never been taken out, I think?”
“No, Macpherson, the purchaser, you know, of Fulbert’s share, pays me my amount out of it, and agreed to do the same by Lena. I don’t think the value is quite what it used to be. It rather went down under Field; but Macpherson is all there, and it has been a better season. I could sell it all to him, hers and mine both; but I have thought how it would be, as it is her native country, and I have not parted with my own to go out again to Carrigaboola, and bring her up there. I assure you I am up to it,” she added, meeting an amused look. “I know a good deal more about sheep farming than either of you gentlemen. I can ride anything but a buckjumper, and boss the shepherds, and I do love the life, no stifling in fields and copses! I only wish you would come too, Bear; it would do you ever so much good to get a little red paint on those white banker’s hands of yours.”
“Well done, sister Angel!” And the brothers both burst out laughing.
“But really,” proceeded Angela, “it is by far the best hope of keeping up Christianity among those hands. Fulbert had a sort of little hut for a chapel, and once a month one of the clergy from Albertstown came over there; I used to ride with him when I could, and if I were there, I could keep a good deal going till the place is more peopled, and we can get a cleric. It is a great opportunity, not to be thrown away. I can catch those cockatoos better than a parson. And there are the blacks.”
The brothers had not the least doubt of it. Angela was Angela still, for better or for worse. Or was it for worse? Yet she went up to bed chanting—
“His sister she went beyond the seas,And died an old maid among black savagees.”
“His sister she went beyond the seas,And died an old maid among black savagees.”