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Mr. May went into his study and closed the door. He poked the fire—he put himself into his easy-chair—he drew his writing-book towards him, and opened it at where a half-written sheet lay waiting. And then he paused, rubbed his hands softly together, and falling back again, laughed quietly to himself.
Yes; he who had stormed out of the drawing-room like a whirlwind, having discomfited everybody, leaving the girls in tears, and the boys in a white heat of passion, when he reached the profoundest depths of his own retirement, laughed. What did it mean? Of all the people in the world, his children would have been most entirely thunderstruck by this self-betrayal. They could not have understood it. They were acquainted with his passions, and with his moments of good temper. They knew when he was amiable, and when he was angry, by instinct, by the gleam of his eye, by the way in which he shut the door; but this was something totally unknown to them. The truth was that Mr. May, like many other people, having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when he pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited him to use it, without being suspected by anybody. A bad temper is a possession like another, and may be made skilful use of like other things which, perhaps, in themselves, are not desirable. He could work himself up into fury, and launch the doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and fizzing thunder-bolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all excited; and like most other people who possess such an unrevealed power, it pleased him very much when he persuaded his surroundings that it was an impulse of rage which moved him. He had been at the Meeting at the Music Hall, “to hear what those fellows had to say for themselves.” Contempt, unbounded but wrathful, was the feeling in his mind towards “those fellows;” but he felt that young Northcote's eloquence, reported in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for ever all hopes of his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he walked home as fast as his legs would carry him, and burst into his house, as we have seen, with a semblance of passion so perfectas to deceive his entire family and fill the place with anger and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the scene of conflict, he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled, recovering his composure by slow degrees.
When, however, this private indulgence was over, Mr. May's face grew dark enough. He pushed his writing away from him, and pulling out a drawer in his writing-table, which was full of papers of a very unliterary aspect, betook himself to the consideration of them, with anything but laughter in his looks, or in his mind. Letters upon blue paper in straight up and down handwriting—other papers, also blue, with ruled lines and numerals, for which Mr. May was more frightened than he would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three of them out in a bundle and read them over, one after another, with contracted brows. Debt is an idiosyncrasy like other things. Some people keep clear of it miraculously, some seem to drop into it without cause or meaning, and to spend all their lives afterwards in vain attempts to get out. Mr. May was one of these unfortunate men. He could not tell himself where his money went to. Poor man! it was not so much he had, and there was a large family to be fed and clothed, and schooled after a sort. But still other people on incomes as small as his had managed to maintain their families without dropping into this hopeless condition. He had been in debt since ever he could remember; and to be sure it was not the pain and trouble to him that it is to many people. So long as, by hook or by crook, he could manage to stave off the evil day, so long was he happy enough, and he had managed this by all sorts of semi-miraculous windfalls up to the present time. James's remittances had been like heavenly dew to him. It is true that these remittances had been intended to keep Reginald at Oxford, and perhaps something of the special hardness with which he regarded Reginald arose from the fact that he had done him wrong in this respect, and had appropriated what was intended for him. But after all, he had said to himself, the maintenance of the house in comfort, the keeping clean of the family name, and the staving off disagreeable revelations of the family's poverty, were more, for even Reginald's comfort, than a little more money in his pocket, which everybody knew was very dangerous for a young man.
Mr. May had always a bill coming due, which James's remittances arrived just in time to meet. Indeed, this was the normal condition of his life. He had always a bill coming due—a bill which some good-humoured banker had to be coaxedinto renewing, or which was paid at the last moment by some skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel into another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another, so that there may have been said to be always a certain amount of quite fictitious and visionary money floating about Mr. May, money which existed only in the shape of symbol, and which, indeed, belonged to nobody—which was borrowed here to-day, and paid there to-morrow, to be re-borrowed and repaid in the same way, never really reaching anybody's pocket, or representing anything but that one thing which money is supposed to be able to extinguish—debt. When human affairs reach this very delicate point, and there is nothing at any moment, except a semi-miraculous windfall, to keep a man going, the crisis is very serious. And it was no wonder that Mr. May was anxious to drive his son into accepting any possible appointment, and that he occasionally railed unreasonably at his family. Unless a hundred pounds or so fell down from the skies within the next ten days, he saw nothing before him but ruin. This, it is needless to say, is very far from being a comfortable position. Thesourdeagitation, excitement, feverish hope and fear of the sufferer might well affect his temper. If he could not get a hundred pounds within ten days, he did not know what he was to do.
And nobody could say (he thought to himself) that he was an expensive man; he had no expensive habits. He liked good living, it is true, and a glass of good wine, but this amount of regard for the table does not ruin men. He liked books also, but he did not buy them, contenting himself with such as the library could afford, and those which he could obtain by the reviews he wrote for the Church Magazines. How then was it that he never could get rid of that rapidly maturing bill? He could not tell. Keeping out of debt is one thing, and getting rid of it when you have once taken its yoke upon your neck is another. His money, when he had any, “slipped through his fingers,” as people say. When James's remittance or any other piece of good fortune gave him enough to pay that hundred pounds without borrowing elsewhere, he borrowed elsewhere all the same. It was a mysterious fatality, from which he seemed unable to escape. In such circumstances a crisis must come sooner or later, and it appeared to him that now at least, after many hairbreadth escapes, the crisis had come.
What was he to do? There was no chance, alas! of money from James, and even if Reginald accepted the chaplaincy, and was willing at once to come to his father's aid, there was no hope that he would have anything for some time—for chaplainsincomes are not, any more than other people's, generally paid in advance. He leaned back in his chair and went over again, for the hundredth time, the list of all the people he could borrow from, or who would “back” a bill for him, and he was still employed in this melancholy and hopeless enumeration, when a low knock came to the door, and a maid-of-all-work, pushing it open, thrust in a homely little man in a dusty-brown coat, who put up a hand to his forehead as he came in with a salutation which was half charity school-boy, half awkward recruit. Beyond this there was no ceremony about his entrance, no leave asked or question made. Betsy knew very well that he was to come in when he pleased, and that her master did not deny himself to Cotsdean. Mr. May received him with a familiar nod, and pointed hastily to a chair. He did not even take the trouble to put away those blue papers, which he would have done if any other individual, even if one of his children had come into the room.
“Good evening, Cotsdean,” he said, in a friendly tone. “Well, what news?”
“Nothing as is pleasant, sir,” said the man, sitting down on a corner of his chair. “I've been to the bank, and it's no use my explaining, or begging ever so hard. They won't hear of it. 'We've done it times and times,' they says to me, 'and we won't do it no more. That's flat,' and so indeed it is flat, sir, as you may say downright Dunstable; but that ain't no advantage to you and me.”
“Yes, it is, Cotsdean,” said the clergyman, “it is a decided advantage, for it shows there is nothing to be hoped from that quarter, and that is always good—even though it's bad bad, as bad as can be—”
“You may say so, sir,” said Cotsdean. “I don't know what's to be done no more than the babe unborn, and it's wearing me to death, that's what it's doing. When I looks round on my small family, it's all I can do not to cry out loud. What's to become of my children, Mr. May? Yours, sir, they'll never want friends, and a hundred or so here or there, that don't ruin gentlefolks; but without selling up the business, how am I ever to get a hundred pounds? It ain't equal, sir, I swear it ain't. You gets the money, and you takes it easy, and don't hold your head not a bit lower; but me as has no good of it (except in the way o' a bit of custom that is a deal more in looks than anything else), and has to go round to all the folks, to Mr. Brownlow, at the bank, and I don't know who, as if it was for me! I suffers in my credit, sir, and I suffers in my spirits, and I suffers in my health; and when thesmash comes, what's to become of my poor children? It's enough to put a man beside himself, that's what it is.”
Here the poor man's eyes grew bloodshot, partly with rubbing them, partly with tears. He rubbed them with the sleeve of his rough coat, and the tears were very real, though few in number. Cotsdean's despair was indeed tragical enough, but its outside had in it a dash of comedy, which, though he was in no mirthful mood, caught the quick eye of Mr. May. He was himself very painfully affected, to tell the truth, but yet it cost him an effort not to smile.
“Cotsdean,” he said, “have I ever failed you yet? You have done a good deal for me, I don't deny it—you have had all the trouble, but beyond that what have you suffered except in imagination? If you choose to exaggerate dangers, it is not my fault. Your children are as safe as—as safe as the Bank of England. Now, have I ever failed you? answer me that.”
“I can't say as you have, sir,” said Cotsdean, “but it's dreadful work playing with a man's ruin, off and on like this, and nobody knowing what might happen, or what a day or an hour might bring forth.”
“That is very true,” said Mr. May. “I might die, that is what you mean; very true, though not quite so kind as I might have expected from an old friend—a very old friend.”
“I am sure, Sir, I beg your pardon,” cried the poor man, “it wasn't that; but only just as I'm driven out o' my seven senses with thinking and thinking.”
“My dear Cotsdean, don't think; there could not be a more unnecessary exercise; what good does your thinking do, but to make you unhappy? leave that to me. We have been driven into a corner before now, but nothing has ever happened to us. You will see something will turn up this time. I ask you again, have I ever failed you? you know best.”
“No, sir,” said Cotsdean, somewhat doubtfully. “No, I didn't say as you had. It's only—I suppose I ain't so young as I once was—and a man's feelin's, sir, ain't always in his own control.”
“You must take care that it is only to me that you make such an exhibition as this,” said Mr. May. “Who is there? oh, my coffee! put it on the table. If you are seen coming here to me with red eyes and this agitated appearance,” he went on, waiting pointedly till the door was closed, “it will be supposed there is some family reason for it—again—”
“Oh, lor', Sir! you know—”
“Yes, I know very well,” said the clergyman. “I know that there couldn't be a better wife, and that bygones are bygones;but you must remember and take care; everybody doesn't know you—and her—so well as I do. When you come to see your clergyman in this agitated state, I put it to yourself, Cotsdean, I put it to your good sense, what is anybody to think? You must take great care not to betray yourself to anybody but me.”
The man looked at him with a half-gasp of consternation, bewildered by the very boldness with which he was thus set down. Betray himself—he drew a long breath, as if he had received adoucheof cold water in his face, which was indeed very much like the effect that this extraordinary address produced—betray himself! Poor Cotsdean's struggles and sufferings arose, at the present moment, entirely from the fact that he had allowed himself to be made use of for Mr. May's occasions, and both the men were perfectly aware of this. But though he gasped, Cotsdean was too much under the influence of his clergyman to do anything more. Had he been a Dissenter, he would have patronized young Northcote, who was as good a man as Mr. May (or far better if truth were told), with the frankest certainty of his own superior position, but being a humble churchman he yielded to his clergyman as to one of the powers that be. It is a curious difference. He sat still on the edge of his chair, while Mr. May walked across the room to the table by the door, where hiscafé noirhad been placed, and took his cup and drank it. He was not civil enough to ask his visitor to share it, indeed it never would have occurred to him, though he did not hesitate to use poor Cotsdean for his own purpose, to treat him otherwise than as men treat their servants and inferiors. When he had finished his coffee, he went leisurely back into his former place.
“You have nothing to suggest,” he said, “nothing to advise? Well, I must try what I can do. It will be hard work, but still I must do it, you know,” added Mr. May, in a gracious tone. “I have never concealed from you, Cotsdean, how much I appreciated your assistance; everything of this sort is so much worse in my position than in yours. You understand that? A gentleman—and a clergyman—has things expected from him which never would be thought of in your case. I have never omitted to acknowledge my obligations to you—and you also owe some obligations to me.”
“I don't deny as you've been very kind, sir,” said Cotsdean, half-grateful, half-sullen; then he wavered a little. “I never denied it,herand me could never have 'it it off but for you. I don't forget a favour—nobody can say that of me. I ain't forgot it in this case.”
“I don't say that you have forgotten it. I have always put the utmost confidence in you; but, my good fellow, you must not come to me in this down-in-the-mouth way. Have I ever failed you? We've been hard pressed enough at times, but something has always turned up. Have not I told you a hundred times Providence will provide?”
“If you put it like that, sir—”
“I do put it like that. I have always been helped, you know, sometimes when it seemed the last moment. Leave it to me. I have no more doubt,” said Mr. May, lifting up a countenance which was by no means so untroubled as could have been wished, “that when the time comes all will be well, than I have of the sun rising to-morrow—which it will,” he added with some solemnity, “whether you and I live to see it or not. Leave it all, I say, to me.”
Cotsdean did not make any reply. He was overawed by this solemnity of tone, and knew his place too well to set himself up against his clergyman; but still it cannot be denied that the decision was less satisfactory than one of much less exalted tone might have been. He had not the courage to say anything—he withdrew with his hat in his hand, and a cloud over his face. But as he left the house the doubt in his soul breathed itself forth. “If so be as neither me nor him see it rise, what good will that do to my family,” said Cotsdean to himself, and went his way to his closed shop, through all the sacks of seeds and dry rustling grain, with a heavy heart. He was a corn-factor in a tolerable business, which, as most of the bankers of Carlingford knew, he had some difficulty in carrying along, being generally in want of money; but this was not so rare a circumstance that any special notice should be taken of it. Everybody who knew thought it was very kind of Mr. May to back him up as he did, and even to put his name to bills for poor Cotsdean, to whom, indeed, he was known to have been very kind in many ways. But nobody was aware how little of these said bills went to Cotsdean, and how much to Mr. May.
When he was gone, the clergyman threw himself back again into his chair with a pale face. Providence, which he treated like some sort of neutral deity, and was so very sure of having on his side when he spoke to Cotsdean, did not feel so near to him, or so much under his command, when Cotsdean was gone. There were still two days; but if before that he could not make some provision, what was to be done? He was not a cruel or bad man, and would have suffered keenly had anything happened to poor Cotsdean and his family on his account. But they must be sacrificed if it came to that, and the thought was veryappalling. What was he to do? His friends were exhausted, and so were his expedients. There was no longer any one he could borrow from, or who would take even a share of his burden on their shoulders. What was he to do?
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It cannot be denied that, reluctant as Reginald May had been to accept the chaplaincy of which so much had been said, he had no sooner fairly done so, and committed himself beyond remedy, than a certain sense of relief began to steal over the young man's mind. He had made the leap. Moved, at last, by arguments which, perhaps, were not worth very much logically, and which even while he yielded to them he saw the weakness of, he felt sure that when he woke in the morning, and realized what he had done, fearful feelings of remorse would seize him. But, curiously enough, this was not so; and his first sensation was relief that the conflict was over, and that he had no more angry remonstrances to meet with, or soft pleadings from Ursula, or assaults of rude abruptness from Janey. All that was over; and then a warm glow of independence and competency came over the young man. You may be sure he had no fire in his rooms to make him warm, and it was a chill January morning, with snow in the heavy sky, and fog in the yellow air; but, notwithstanding, there came a glow of comfort over him.
Independent!—free to go where he pleased, buy what he liked, spend his time as best seemed to him, with a “position” of his own; even a house of his own. He laughed softly to himself at this new idea. It did not somehow hurt him as he thought it would, this sinecure he had accepted. Could he not make it up, as Ursula said, “work for the town in other ways without pay, since the town had given him pay without work?” A genial feeling of toleration came over Reginald's mind. Why should he have made such a fuss about it? It was natural that his father should insist, and, now that it was done, he himself did not wish it undone, as he had expected to do. After all, if you judged matters with such rigidity, who was there without guilt? what public appointmentwas given and held according to abstract right, as, formally speaking, it ought to be? Those in the highest offices were appointed, not because of their personal excellence, but because of being some other man's son or brother; and yet, on the whole, public duty was well done, and the unjust ruler and hireling priest were exceptions. Even men whose entry into the fold was very precipitate, over the wall, violently, or by some rat-hole of private interest, made very good shepherds, once they were inside. Nothing was perfect in this world, and yet things were more good than evil; and if he himself made it his study to create for himself an ideal position, to become a doer of all kinds of volunteer work, what would it matter that his appointment was not an ideal appointment? It seemed very strange to him, and almost like an interposition of Providence in his favour, that he should feel in this way, for Reginald was not aware that such revulsions of feeling were very natural phenomena, and that the sensation, after any great decision, is almost invariably one of relief. To be sure it upset this manly state of mind a little when, coming down to breakfast, his father gave him a nod, and said briefly, “I am glad you have seen your duty at last.”
This made him almost resolve to throw it up again; but the feeling was momentary. Why should he give it up? It had made him independent (already he thought of his independence as a thing accomplished), and he would make full amends to the Church and to Carlingford for taking two hundred and fifty pounds a year without working for it. Surely he could do that. He did not grudge work, but rather liked it, and would be ready to do anything, he did not care what, to make his sinecure into a volunteer's outpost for every good work. Yes, that was the way to look at it. And it was a glorious independence. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year!
“And the house,” cried Ursula, when Mr. May had left the breakfast-table, and left them free to chatter. “The house—I don't think you are likely to find a tenant for it. The houses in Grange Lane are so cheap now; and some people object to the poor old men. I think you must keep the house. Furnishing will be an expense; but, of course, when you have a certain income, that makes such a difference; and you can come and see us every day.”
“Why can't he live at home?” said Janey; “we are so poor; he ought to come and pay us something for his board, and help us to get on.”
“What can you know about it, at your age?” said Ursula. “We have not got proper rooms for Reginald. He ought, atleast, to have a study of his own, as well as a bed-room, now that he has an appointment. No, you must go to the College, Reginald; and, perhaps, you might have one of the boys with you, say Johnnie, which would be a great saving—for he has an appetite; he eats more than two of the rest of us do. You might take one of them with you—to save the bills a little—if you like.”
“Take me,” said Janey, “I have a good appetite too; and then I'm a girl, which is a great deal more useful. I could keep your house. Oh, Reginald! mayn't we go out and see it? I want to see it. I have never once been over the College—not in all my life.”
“We might as well go, don't you think, Ursula?” he said, appealing to her with a delightful mixture of helplessness and supremacy. Yesterday, he had not been able to assert any exclusive claim to sixpence. Now he had a house—a house all his own. It pleased him to think of taking the girls to it; and as for having one of them, he was ready to have them all to live with him. Ursula thought fit to accede graciously to this suggestion, when she had looked after her numerous household duties. Janey, in the mean time, had been “practising” in one of her periodical fits of diligence.
“For, you know, if Reginald did really want me to keep house for him,” said Janey, “(you have too much to do at home; or, of course, he would like you best), it would be dreadful if people found out how little I know.”
“You ought to go to school,” said Ursula, gravely. “It is a dreadful thing for a girl never to have had any education. Perhaps Reggie might spare a little money to send you to school; or, perhaps, papa—”
“School yourself!” retorted Janey, indignant; but then she thought better of it. “Perhaps just for a year to finish,” she added in a doubtful tone. They thought Reginald could do anything on that wonderful two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
The College was a picturesque old building at the other side of Carlingford, standing in pretty grounds with some fine trees, under which the old men sat and amused themselves in the summer mornings. On this chilly wintry day none of them were visible, except the cheerful old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show them the chaplain's rooms.
“The old gentlemen is all as pleased as Punch,” said Joe. “We was a feared as it might be somebody foreign—not a Carlingford gentleman; and some parsons is queer, saving your presence, Mr. May; but we knows where you comes from, and all about you, as one of the old gentlemen was just a-saying to me. Furnished, Miss? Lord bless you, yes! they're furnished. It's all furnished, is College. You'll think as the things look a bit queer; they wasn't made not this year, nor yet last year, I can tell you; and they ain't in the fashion. But if so be as you don't stand by fashion, there they is,” said Joe, throwing open the door.
The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued into a kind of awe. An empty house, furnished, is more desolate, more overwhelming to the imagination, than a house which is bare. For whom was it waiting, all ready there, swept and garnished? Or were there already unseen inhabitants about, writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the chairs? Even Janey was hushed.
“I'd rather stay at home, after all,” she whispered in Ursula's ear under her breath.
But after awhile they became familiar with the silent place, and awoke the echoes in it with their voices and new life. Nothing so young had been in the College for years. The last chaplain had been an old man and an old bachelor; and the pensioners were all solitary, living a sort of monastic life, each in his room, like workers in their cells. When Janey, surprised by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than one window was put up and head projected to know the cause of this profanation.
“Joe!” cried one portentous voice; “what's happened? what's the meaning of this?”
“It's only them a-laughing, sir,” said Joe, delighting in the vagueness of his rejoinder. “They ain't used to it, that's the truth; but laugh away, Miss, it'll do you good,” he added benignly. Joe was of a cheerful spirit, notwithstanding his infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days.
Somewhat taken aback, however, by the commotion produced by Janey's laugh, the young party left the College, Ursula carrying with her sundry memoranda and measurements for curtains and carpets. “You must have curtains,” she said, “and I think a carpet for the study. The other room will do; but the study is cold, it has not the sunshine. I wonder if we might go and look at some, all at once.”
Here the three paused in the road, and looked at each othersomewhat overcome by the grandeur of the idea. Even Reginald, notwithstanding his Oxford experience, held his breath a little at the thought of going right off without further consideration, and buying carpets and curtains. As for Janey, she laughed again in pure excitement and delight.
“Fancy going into Holden's, walking right in, as if we had the Bank in our pockets, and ordering whatever we like,” she cried.
“I suppose we must have them!” said Reginald, yielding slowly to the pleasure of acquisition. Ursula was transformed by the instinct of business and management into the leader of the party.
“Of course you must have them,” she said, with the air of a woman who had ordered curtains all her life, “otherwise you will catch cold, and that is not desirable,” and she marched calmly towards Holden's, while Janey dropped behind to smother the laughter which expressed her amazed delight in this new situation. It is doubtful whether Holden would have given them so good a reception had the Miss Mays gone to hint to order curtains for the Parsonage—for the Carlingford tradesmen were very well aware of the difficulties, in point of payment, which attended Mr. May's purchases. But Holden was all smiles at the idea of fitting up the rooms in the College.
“Carpets? I have a Turkey carpet that would just suit one of those old rooms—old-fashioned rooms are so much thought of at present,” said the man of furniture.
“Yes—I suppose that would do,” said Reginald, with a side look at his sister, to know if he was right. Ursula slew him with a glance of her brown eyes. She was almost grand in superior knowledge and righteous indignation.
“Turkey! are you out of your senses? Do you think we have the Bank in our pockets,” she whispered to him angrily, “as Janey says?”
“How was I to know? He said so,” said the alarmed chaplain, cowed, notwithstanding his income.
“Hesaid so! that is just like you boys, taking whatever everyone tells you. Why, a Turkey carpet costs a fortune. Mr. Holden, I think, if you please, Brussels will do; or some of those new kinds, a jumble of colours without any decided pattern. Not too expensive,” said Ursula solemnly, the colour mounting to her face. They were all rather brought down from their first delight and grandeur when this was said—for stipulating about expense made a difference all at once. The delightful sensation of marching into Holden's as if the world belonged to them was over; but Janey was touched to see thatHolden still remained civil, and did not express, in his countenance, the contempt he must have felt.
When this was over, and Mr. Holden had kindly suggested the idea of sending various stuffs to the College, “that they might judge of the effect,” the party went home, slightly subdued. The air was heavy and yellow, and prophesied snow; but a very red wintry sun had managed to make an opening temporarily in the clouds, and threw a ruddy ray down Grange Lane, bringing out the few passengers who were coming and going under the old garden walls. Ursula clasped her hands together, and came to a stop suddenly, when she turned her eyes that way.
“Oh!” she said, “here she is—she is coming! all by herself, and we can't help meeting her—the young lady in black!”
“Shall we speak to her?” said Janey with a little awe.
“Who is the young lady in black?” said Reginald, “this girl who is coming up? I never saw her before in Carlingford. Is she some one you have met with the Dorsets? She don't look much like Grange Lane.”
“Oh, hush! here she is,” said Ursula, losing all that importance of aspect which her position as leader of the expedition had given her. A pretty blush of expectation came over her face—her dimples revealed themselves as if by magic. You will think it strange, perhaps, that the sight of one girl should produce this effect upon another. But then Phœbe represented to Ursula the only glimpse she had ever had into a world which looked gay and splendid to the country girl—a world in which Phœbe had appeared to her as a princess reigning in glory and delight. Ursula forgot both her companions and her recent occupation. Would the young lady in black notice her; stop, perhaps, and talk to her—remember her? Her eyes began to glow and dance with excitement. She stumbled as she went on in her anxiety, fixing her eyes upon the approaching figure. Phœbe, for her part, was taking a constitutional walk up and down Grange Lane, and she too was a little moved, recognizing the girl, and wondering what it would be wisest to do—whether to speak to her, and break her lonely promenade with a little society, or remember her “place,” and save herself from further mortification by passing the clergyman's daughter, who was a cousin of the Dorsets, with a bow.
“The Dorsets wouldn't recognise me, nor Miss May either,” Phœbe said to herself, “if they knew—”
But Ursula looked so wistful as they approached each other that she had not the courage to keep to this wise resolution. Though she was only the granddaughter of Tozer, the butterman,she was much more a woman of the world than this pretty blushing girl who courted her notice. She put out her hand instinctively when they met. “It can't harm anybody but myself, after all,” she thought.
“Oh, I am so glad you remember me,” cried Ursula. “I knew you in a moment. Have you come to stay here? This is my brother, Reginald, and my little sister, Janey,” (how Janey scowled at thatlittle!and with reason, for she was by half an inch the taller of the two). “Are you taking a walk? I do hope you like Carlingford. I do hope you are going to stay. That is our house down at the end of the lane, close to St. Roque's. Papa is the clergyman there. It will be so delightful,” said Ursula, repeating herself in her excitement, “if you are going to stay.”
“I am going to stay for some time,” said Phœbe graciously, “I don't quite know how long. I came here shortly after I saw you in town. My grandfather lives here. Grange Lane is very nice for a walk. Grandmamma is an invalid, so that I don't leave her very often. It was great luck finding you just as I had come out; for it is not cheerful walking alone.”
Phœbe felt perfectly sure that through each of the three heads turned towards her a hurried inquiry was going on as to which of those enclosed houses contained the grandmother who was an invalid; but no sort of enlightenment followed the inquiry, and as for Ursula it terminated abruptly in her mind with a rush of cordiality. She was not at an age when friendship pauses to make any inquiry into grandmothers.
“I am so glad! for if you are not going anywhere in particular, we may all walk together. Janey knows you quite well. I have talked of you so often,” (here Phœbe gave a gracious bow and smile to Janey, who was not quite sure that she liked to be thus patronized), “and so does my brother,” said Ursula, more doubtfully. “Do you like Carlingford? Have you seen many people? Oh! I do hope you will stay.”
“I have not seen anybody,” said Phœbe. “My people are not much in society. When one is old and sick, I don't suppose one cares—”
“There is no society to speak of in Carlingford,” said Reginald. “It is like most other country towns. If you like it we shall be sure your liking is quite disinterested, for it has no social charms—”
When had Reginald said so many words at a time to a young lady before? The girls exchanged glances. “I think it is pretty,” said Phœbe, closing the subject. “It is going to snow, don't you think? I suppose you skate like all the young ladiesnow. It seems the first thing any one thinks of when the winter begins.”
“Do you skate?” said Ursula, her eyes brighter and opener than ever.
“Oh, a little—as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no society,” said Phœbe, turning to Reginald for the first time, “people are free here from the necessity of doing as everybody does. I don't think there is any such bondage in the world—dressing, living, working, amusing yourself—you have to do everything as other people do it. So I skate—I can't help myself; and a hundred foolish things beside.”
“But I should think itdelightful,” cried Ursula, “I have always envied the boys. They look so warm when we are all shivering. Reginald, if it freezes will you teach us? I think I should like it better than anything in the world.”
“Yes,” said Reginald, “if Miss—if we can make up a party—if you,” he added with a perfectly new inflection in his voice, “will come too.”
“I see you don't know my name,” said Phœbe, with a soft little laugh. “It is Beecham. One never catches names at a party. I remembered yours because of a family in a novel that I used to admire very much in my girlish days—”
“Oh! I know,” cried Janey, “the Daisy Chain. We are not a set of prigs like those people. We are not goody, whatever we are; we—”
“I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of the family character,” said Reginald in a tone that made Janey furious. Thus discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage, where Ursula was most eager that her friend should come in. And here Mr. May joined them, who was impressed, like everybody else, by Phœbe's appearance, and made himself so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her father in her life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul, it suited him to show a high good-humour with everybody in recompense for his son's satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed, in a state of high complacence with himself for having managed matters so cleverly that the very thing which should have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the chaplaincy determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired Phœbe, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge of the world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but the stranger freed herself with graceful excuses. She had her patient to attend to.
“That is a very lady-like young woman,” said Mr. May,when they had gone in, after watching regretfully their new acquaintance's progress through Grange Lane. “You met her in town, did you? A friend of the Dorsets? Where is she living, I wonder; and whom does she belong to? One does not often see that style of thing here.”
“I never saw any one like her before,” said Ursula fervently; and they were still all uniting in admiration of Phœbe—when—
But such an interruption demands another page.
Top
“Well, who is she?” cried Mrs. Sam Hurst, too curious to think of the ordinary decorums. She had no bonnet on, but a light “cloud” of white wool over her cap, and her whole aspect was full of eagerness and excitement. “Why didn't you tell me you knew her? Who is she? I am dying to know.”
“Who is—who?” said Ursula, rather glad of the opportunity of being politely rude to Mrs. Sam Hurst before papa. “How is any one to find out from the way you speak? She? who is she?”
“That is just what I want you to tell me,” said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with imperturbable good-humour. “You, Mr. May, you are always good to me, though Ursula has her little tempers—the girl you were talking to at the door. I stood and watched from the window, and I scarcely could contain myself sufficiently not to bounce out in the middle of the talk. Now do tell, as the Americans say. Who is that Tozer girl?”
“That Tozer girl!” Ursula gave a little shriek, and grew first red and then pale with horror and dismay.
“Yes; I told you about her; so well dressed and looking so nice. That was she; with the very same dress, such a charming dress! so much style about it. Who is she, Ursula? Mr. May, tell me who is she? You can't imagine how much I want to know.”
Ursula dropped into a chair, looking like a little ghost, faint and rigid. She said afterwards to Janey that she felt in the depths of her heart that it must be true. She could have cried with pain and disappointment, but she would not give Mrs. Sam Hurst the pleasure of making her cry.
“There must be some mistake,” said Reginald, interposing. “This is a lady—my sister met her in town with the Dorsets.”
“Oh, does she know the Dorsets too?” said the inquirer. “That makes it still more interesting. Yes, that is the girl that is with the Tozers; there can be no mistake about it. She is the granddaughter. She was at the Meeting last night. I had it from the best authority—on the platform with old Tozer. And, indeed, Mr. May, how any one that had been there could dare to look you in the face!—”
“I was there myself,” said Mr. May. “It amused me very much. Tell me now about this young person. Is she an impostor, taking people in, or what is it all about? Ursula looks as if she was in the trick herself, and had been found out.”
“I amsureshe is not an impostor,” said Ursula. “An impostor! If you had seen her as I saw her, at a great, beautiful, splendid ball. I never saw anything like it. I was nobody there—nobody—and neither were Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy—but Miss Beecham! It is a mistake, I suppose,” the girl said, raising herself up with great dignity; “when people are always trying for news, they get the wrong news sometimes, I don't doubt. You may be sure it is a mistake.”
“That's me,” said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with a laugh; “that is one of Ursula's assaults upon poor me. Yes, I confess it, I am fond of news; and I never said she was an impostor. Poor girl, I am dreadfully sorry for her. I think she is a good girl, trying to do her duty to her relations. She didn't choose her own grandfather. I dare say, if she'd had any say in it, she would have made a very different choice. But whether your papa may think her a proper friend for you—being Tozer's granddaughter, Miss Ursula, that's quite a different business, I am bound to say.”
Again Ursula felt herself kept from crying by sheer pride, and nothing else. She bit her lips tight; she would not give in. Mrs. Hurst to triumph over her, and to give her opinion as to what papa might think proper! Ursula turned her back upon Mrs. Hurst, which was not civil, fearing every moment some denunciation from papa. But nothing of the kind came. He asked quite quietly after a while, “Where did you meet this young lady?” without any perceptible inflection of anger in his tone.
“Why, papa,” cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long silent, “everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has heard of anything else since she came home. She met her of course at the ball. You know; Reginald,youknow! The ball where she went with Cousin Anne.”
“Never mind Cousin Anne; I want the name of the people at whose house it was.”
“Copperhead, papa,” said Ursula, rousing herself. “If Cousin Anne does not know a lady from a common person, who does, I wonder? It was Cousin Anne who introduced me to her (I think). Their name was Copperhead, and they lived in a great, big, beautiful house, in the street where ambassadors and quantities of great people live. I forget the name of it; but I know there was an ambassador lived there, and Cousin Anne said——”
“Copperhead! I thought so,” said Mr. May. “When Ursula has been set a-going on the subject of Cousin Anne, there is nothing rational to be got from her after that for an hour or two. You take an interest in this young lady,” he said shortly, turning to Mrs. Sam Hurst, who stood by smiling, rather enjoying the commotion she had caused.
“Who, I? I take an interest in anybody that makes a stir, and gives us something to talk about,” said Mrs. Hurst, frankly. “You know my weakness. Ursula despises me for it, but you know human nature. If I did not take an interest in my neighbours what would become of me—a poor lone elderly woman, without either chick or child?”
She rounded off this forlorn description of herself with a hearty laugh, in which Janey, who had a secret kindness for their merry neighbour, though she feared her “for papa,” joined furtively. Mr. May, however, did not enter into the joke with the sympathy which he usually showed to Mrs. Hurst. He smiled, but there was somethingdistraitand pre-occupied in his air.
“How sorry we all are for you,” he said; “your position is truly melancholy. I am glad, for your sake, that old Tozer has a pretty granddaughter to beguile you now and then out of recollection of your cares.”
There was a sharp tone in this which caught Mrs. Hurst's ear, and she was not disposed to accept any sharpness from Mr. May. She turned the tables upon him promptly.
“What a disgraceful business that Meeting was! Of course, you have seen the paper. There ought to be some way of punishing those agitators that go about the country, taking away people's characters. Could not you bring him up for libel, or Reginald? I never knew anything so shocking. To come to your own town, your own neighbourhood, and to strike you through your son! It is the nastiest, most underhanded, unprincipled attack I ever heard of.”
“What is that?” asked Reginald.
He was not easily roused by Carlingford gossip, but there was clearly more in this than met the eye.
“An Anti-State Church Meeting,” said Mr. May, “with special compliments in it to you and me. It is not worth our while to think of it. Your agitators, my dear Mrs. Hurst, are not worth powder and shot. Now, pardon me, but I must go to work. Will you go and see the sick people in Back Grove Street, Reginald? I don't think I can go to-day.”
“I should like to know what was in the paper,” said the young man, with an obstinacy that filled the girls with alarm. They had been in hopes that everything between father and son was to be happy and friendly, now that Reginald was about to do what his father wished.
“Oh, you shall see it,” said Mrs. Hurst, half alarmed too; “but it is not anything, as your father says; only we women are sensitive. We are always thinking of things which, perhaps, were never intended to harm us. Ursula, you take my advice, and don't go and mix yourself up with Dissenters and that kind of people. The Tozer girl may be very nice, but she is still Tozer's granddaughter, after all.”
Reginald followed the visitor out of the room, leaving his sisters very ill at ease within, and his father not without anxieties which were so powerful, indeed, that he relieved his mind by talking of them to his daughters—a most unusual proceeding.
“That woman will set Reginald off at the nail again,” he cried; “after he had begun to see things in a common-sense light. There was an attack made upon him last night on account of that blessed chaplaincy, which has been more trouble to me than it is worth. I suppose he'll throw it up now. But I wash my hands of the matter. I wonder how you girls can encourage that chattering woman to come here.”
“Papa!” cried Janey, ever on the defensive, “wehateher! It is you who encourage her to come here.”
“Oh, hush!” cried Ursula, with a warning glance; it was balm to her soul to hear her father call Mrs. Hurstthat woman. “We have been to see the house,” she said; “it was very nice. I think Reginald liked it, papa.”
“Ah, well,” said Mr. May, “girls and boys are queer articles. I dare say the house, if he likes it, will weigh more with him than justice or common sense. So Copperhead was the people's name? What would be wanted, do you think, Ursula, to make Reginald's room into a comfortable room for a pupil? Comfortable, recollect; not merely what would do; and one that has been used, I suppose, to luxury. You can look over it and let me know.”
“Are we going to take a pupil, papa?” cried Janey, with widening eyes.
“I don't know what you could teach him,” he said. “Manners, perhaps? Let me know, Ursula. The room is not a bad room; it would want a new carpet, curtains, perhaps—various things. Make me out a list. The Copperheads have a son, I believe. Did you see him at that fine ball of yours?”
“Oh! papa, he danced with me twice; he was very kind,” said Ursula, with a blush; “and he danced all the night with Miss Beecham. It must be a falsehood about her being old Tozer's granddaughter. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always by her side. I think Mrs. Hurst must have made it all up out of her own head.”
Mr. May gave a little short laugh.
“Poor Mrs. Hurst!” he said, recovering his temper; “how bitter you all are against her. So he danced with you twice? You must try to make him comfortable, Ursula, if he comes here.”
“Is Mr. Clarence Copperhead coming here?”
Ursula was struck dumb by this piece of news. The grand house in Portland Place, and all Sophy Dorset's questions and warnings, came suddenly back to her mind. She blushed fiery red; she could not tell why. Coming here! How strange it would be, how extraordinary, to have to order dinner for him, and get his room in order, and have him in the drawing-room in the evenings! How should she know what to say to him? or would papa keep him always at work, reading Greek or something downstairs? All this flashed through her mind with the rapidity of lightning. Mr. May made no reply. He was walking up and down the room with his hands behind him, as was his habit when he was “busy.” Being busy was separated from being angry by the merest visionary line in Mr. May's case; his children never ventured on addressing him at such moments, and it is impossible to describe how glad they were when he withdrew to his own room before Reginald's return; but not a minute too soon. The young man came back, looking black as night. He threw himself into a chair, and then he got up again, and began also to walk about the room like his father. At first he would make no reply to the questions of the girls.
“It is exactly what I expected,” he said; “just what I looked for. I knew it from the first moment.”
It was Janey, naturally, who had least patience with this unsatisfactory utterance.
“If it was just what you expected, and you looked for it allthe time, why should you make such a fuss now?” she cried. “I declare, for all you are young, and we are fond of you, you are almost as bad as papa.”
Reginald did not take any notice of this address; he went on repeating the same words at intervals.
“A child might have known it. Of course, from the beginning one knew how it must be.” Then he suddenly faced round upon Ursula, who was nearly crying in excitement and surprise. “But if they think I am to be driven out of a resolution I have made by what they say—if they think that I will be bullied into giving up because of their claptrap,” he cried, looking sternly at her, “then you will find you are mistaken. You will find I am not such a weak idiot as you suppose. Give up! because some demagogue from a Dissenting Committee takes upon him to criticise my conduct. If you think I have so little self-respect, so little stamina,” he said, fiercely, “you will find you have made a very great mistake.”
“Oh, Reginald,me?” cried Ursula, with tears in her eyes; “did I ever think anything unkind of you? did I ever ask you to do anything that was disagreeable? You should not look as if it was me.”
Then he threw himself down again on the old sofa, which creaked and tottered under the shock.
“Poor little Ursula!” he cried, with a short laugh. “Did you think I meant you? But if they thought they would master me by these means,” said Reginald with pale fury, “they never made a greater mistake, I can tell you. A parcel of trumpery agitators, speechifiers, little petty demagogues, whom nobody ever heard of before. A fine thing, indeed, to have all the shopkeepers of Carlingford sitting in committee on one's conduct, isn't it—telling one what one ought to do? By Jupiter! It's enough to make a man swear!”
“I declare!” cried Janey loudly, “how like Reginald is to papa! I never saw it before. When he looks wicked like that, and sets his teeth—but I am not going to be pushed, not by my brother or any one!” said the girl, growing red, and making a step out of his reach. “I won't stand it. I am not a child any more than you.”
Janey's wrath was appeased, however, when Reginald produced the paper and read Northcote's speech aloud. In her interest she drew nearer and nearer, and read the obnoxious column over his shoulder, joining in Ursula's cries of indignation. By the time the three had thus got through it, Reginald's own agitation subsided into that fierce amusement which is the frequent refuge of the assaulted.
“Old Green in the chair! and old Tozer and the rest have all been sitting upon me,” he said, with that laugh which is proverbially described as from the wrong side of the mouth, whatever that may be. Ursula said nothing in reply, but in her heart she felt yet another stab. Tozer! This was another complication. She had taken so great a romantic interest in the heroine of that ball, which was the most entrancing moment of Ursula's life, that it seemed a kind of disloyalty to her dreams to give up thus completely, and dethrone the young lady in black; but what could the poor girl do? In the excitement of this question the personality of Reginald's special assailant was lost altogether: the girls did not even remember his name.