‘Thank you, a bit of partridge, Mr. Rollstone, if you please.’
‘Excuse me, Mrs. Grover. This is a grouse from Lord Northmoor’s own moors, I presume,’ replied Mr. Rollstone, to the tune of a peal of laughter from Herbert and exclamation—‘Not know a grouse!’—for which Ida frowned at him.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said his mother; ‘we had so much game up at my brother’s, Lord Northmoor’s, that I shall quite miss it now I am come away.’
‘Flimsy sort of grub!’ growled an old skipper. ‘Only fit for this sort of a tea—not to make a real meal on, fit for “a man”!’
The young folk laughed. Captain Purdy was only invited as a messmate of Mrs. Morton’s father.
‘You’ll excuse this being only a tea,’ went on Mrs. Morton. ‘I hope to have a dinner in something more of style if ever I return here, but I could not attempt it with my present establishment after what we have got accustomed to. Why,we never sat down to dinner without two menservants!’
‘Only two?’ said Mr. Rollstone. ‘I have never been without three men under me; and I always had two to wait, even when the lady dined alone.’
Mrs. Grover, who had been impressed for a moment, took courage to say—
‘I don’t think so much of your grouse, Mrs. Morton. It’s tasty and ’igh.’
‘High game goes with high families,’ wickedly murmured Herbert, causing much tittering at his corner of the table; and this grew almost convulsive, while another matron of the party observed—
‘Mrs. Macdonald, Mr. Holt’s sister in Scotland, once sent us some, and really, Mrs. Morton, if you boil them down, they are almost as good as a pat-ridge!’
‘Oh, really now, Mrs. Holt! I hope you didn’t tell Mrs. Macdonald so!’ said Mrs. Morton. ‘It is a real valuable article, such as my brother, Lord Northmoor, would only send to us, and one or two old friends that he wishes to compliment at Hurminster. But one must be used to high society to know how such things should be relished!’
‘Are Lord Northmoor’s moors extensive?’ asked Mr. Rollstone.
‘There’s about four or five miles of them,’ responded Herbert; ‘and these grouse are awfully shy.’
‘Ah, the Earl of Blackwing owns full twenty miles of heather,’ said the ex-butler.
‘Barren stuff!’ growled the skipper; ‘breeding nothing worth setting one’s teeth into!’
‘There are seven farms besides,’ put in Mrs. Morton. ‘My brother is going to have an audit-day next week.’
‘You should have seen the Earl’s audits,’ said Mr. Rollstone. ‘Five-and-twenty substantial tenant-farmers, besides artisans, and all the family plate on the sideboard!’
‘Ah, you should see the Northmoor plate!’ said Mrs. Morton. ‘There are racing cups, four of them—not that any one could drink out of them, for they are just centre-pieces for the table. There’s a man in armour galloping off headlong with a girl behind him— Who did your uncle say it was, Conny?’
‘The Templar and Rowena, mamma,’ said Constance.
‘Yes, that was the best—all frosted. I liked that better than the one where the girl with no clothes to speak of was running like mad after a golden ball. They said that was an heirloom, worth five hundred—’
‘Lord Burnside’s yachting cups are valued at five thousand,’ said Mr. Rollstone. ‘I should know, for I had the care of them, and it was a responsibility as weighed on my mind.’
So whatever Mrs. Morton described as to the dignities and splendours of Northmoor, Mr. Rollstone continued to cap with more magnificent experiences, so that, though he never pretended to view himself in the light of a participator in the grandeur he described, he continued, quite unintentionally, so to depreciate the glories of Northmoor, that Mrs. Morton began to recollect how far above him hersphere had become, and to decide against his future admission to her parties.
The young ladies, as soon as tea was over, retired into corners in pairs, having on their side much to communicate. Rose Rollstone was at home for a holiday, after having begun to work at an establishment for art and ecclesiastical needlework, and it was no small treat to her and Constance to meet and compare their new experiences. Rose, always well brought up by her father, was in a situation carefully trained by a lady head, and watched over by those who deepened and cultivated her religious feeling; and Constance had to tell of the new facilities of education offered to them. Ida was too delicate for school, their mother said, and was only to have music lessons at Brighton, or in London whenever the present house could be parted with; but Herbert had already begun to work with a tutor for the army, and Constance was to go to the High School at Colbeam and spend her Sundays at Northmoor, where a prettily-furnished room was set apart for her. She described it with so much zest that Rose was seized with a sort of alarm. ‘You will live there like all the lords and ladies that papa talks of, and grow worldly and fashionable.’
‘Oh no, no,’ cried Constance, and there was a girlish kissing match, but Rose seemed to think worldliness inevitable.
‘The Earl my papa lived with used to bet and gamble, and come home dreadfully late at night, and so did my lady and her daughters, and their poor maid had to sit up for them till four o’clock in the morning. Then their bills! They never toldhis lordship, but they sold their diamonds and wore paste. His lordship did not know, but their maid did, and told papa.’
Constance opened her eyes and declared that Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary never could do such things. Moreover, she averred that Lady Adela was always going about among the cottages, and that Miss Morton had not a bit of pride, and was going to live in London to teach the dust-pickers and match-box makers. ‘Indeed, I don’t think they are half as worldly in themselves,’ she said, ‘as Ida is growing with thinking about them.’
‘Ah, don’t you remember the sermon that said worldliness didn’t depend on what one has, but what one is?’
‘Talking of nothing better than sermons!’ said Herbert, coming on them. ‘Have you caught it of the governor, Con? I believe he thinks of nothing but sermons.’
And Constance exclaimed, ‘I am sure he doesn’t preach!’
‘Oh no, nothing comes out of his mouth that he can help; trust him for that.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘By the stodgy look of him. He would be the awfullest of prosers if he had the gift of the gab.’
‘You are an ungrateful boy,’ said Rose. ‘I am sure he must be very kind to you.’
‘Can’t help it,’ said Herbert. ‘The old fellow would be well enough if he had any go in him.’
‘I am sure he took you out hunting,’ exclaimed Constance indignantly, ‘the day they took us to the meet. And he leapt all the ditches when you—’
He broke in, ‘Well, what was I to do when I’ve never had the chance to learn to sit a horse? You’ll see next winter.’
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ asked Rose, rather mischievously.
To which Herbert turned a deaf ear and began to expatiate upon the game of Northmoor, till other sounds led him away to fall upon the othertête-à-têtebetween Ida and Sibyl Grover. In Ida’s mind the honours of Northmoor were dearly purchased by the dulness and strictness of the life there.
‘My uncle was as cross as two sticks if ever Herbert or I were too late for prayers, and he said it was nonsense of Herbert to say that kneeling at church spoilt his trousers—kneeling just like a school child! It made me so faint!’
‘And it looks so!’
‘I tried, because Lady Adela and Miss Bertha and all do,’ said Ida, ‘and they looked at me! But it made me faint, as I knew it would,’ and she put her head on one side.
‘Poor dear! So they were so very religious! Did that spoil it all?’
‘Well, we had pretty things off the Christmas-tree, and we lived quite as ladies, and drove out in the carriage.’
‘No parties nor dances? Or were they too religious?’
‘Ma says it is their meanness; but my aunt, Lady Northmoor, did say perhaps it would be livelier another year, and then we should have had some dancing and deportment lessons. I up and told her I could dance fast enough now, but she said itwould not be becoming or right to Lady Adela’s and Miss Morton’s feelings.’
‘Do they live there?’
‘Not in the house. Lady Adela has a cottage of her own, and Miss Morton stops with her. Lady Adela is as high and standoffish as the monument,’ said Ida, pausing for a comparison.
‘High and haughty,’ said Sibyl, impressed. ‘And the other lady?’
‘Oh, she is much more good-natured. We call her Bertha; at least, she told us that we might call her anything but that horrid Cousin Bertha, as she said. But she’s old, thirty-six years old, and not a bit pretty, and she says such odd things, one doesn’t know what to do. She thought I made myself useful and could wash and iron,’ said Ida, as if this were the greatest possible insult, in which Sibyl acquiesced.
‘And she thought I should know the factory girls, just the hands,’ added Ida, greatly disgusted. ‘As if I should! But ma says low tastes are in the family, for she is going to live in London, and go and sit with the shop-girls in the evening. Still I like her better than Lady Adela, who keeps herself to herself. Mamma says it is pride and spite that her plain little sickly girl hasn’t come to be my Lady.’
‘What, doesn’t she speak to them?’ said Sibyl, quite excited.
‘Oh yes, she calls, and shakes hands, and all that, but one never seems to get on with her. And Emily Trotman, she’s the doctor’s daughter, such a darling, told mesucha history—so interesting!’
‘Tell me, Ida, there’s a dear.’
‘She says they were all frightfully dissipated’ (Ida said it quite with a relish)—‘the old Lord and Mr. Morton, Lady Adela’s husband, you know, and Miss Bertha—always racing and hunting and gambling and in debt. Then there came a Captain Alder, who was ever so much in love with Miss Bertha, but most awfully in debt to her brother, and very passionate besides. So he took him out in his dog-cart with a fiery horse that was sure to run away.’
‘Who did?’
‘Captain Alder took Mr. Morton, though they begged and prayed him not, and the horse ran away and Mr. Morton was thrown out and killed.’
‘Oh!’ with extreme zest. ‘On purpose?’
‘Miss Bertha was sure it was, so that she might have all the fortune, and so she told him, and flung the betrothal ring in his face, and he went right off, and never has been heard of since.’
‘Well, thatisinteresting. Do you think he shot himself?’
‘No, he was too mean. Most likely he married a hideous millionaire: but the Mortons were always dreadful, and did all sorts of wicked things.’
‘I declare it’s as good as any tale—like the sweet one in theYoung Ladies’ Friendnow—“The Pride of Pedro.” Have you seen it?’
‘No, indeed, uncle and aunt only have great old stupid books! They wanted me to read those horrid tiresome things of Scott’s, and Dickens’s too, who is as old as the hills! Why, they could not think of anything better to do on their wedding tour but to go to all the places in the Waverley novels.’
‘Why, they are as bad as history! Jim brought one home once, and pa wanted me to read it, but I could not get on with it—all about a stupid king of France. I’m sure if I married a lord I’d make him do something nicer.’
‘I mean ma to do something more jolly,’ said Ida, ‘when we get more money, and I am come out. I mean to go to balls and tennis parties, and I shall be sure to marry a lord at some of them.’
‘And you will take me,’ cried Sibyl.
‘Only you must be very genteel,’ said Ida. ‘Try to learn style,do, dear. It must be learnt young, you know! Why, there’s Aunt Mary, when she has got ever so beautiful a satin dress on, she does not look half so stylish as Lady Adela walking up the road in an old felt hat and a shepherd’s-plaid waterproof! But they all do dress so as I should be ashamed. Only think what a scrape that got Herbert into. He was coming back one Saturday from his tutor’s, and he saw walking up to the house an awfully seedy figure of fun, in an old old ulster, and such a hat as you never saw, with a knapsack on her back, and a portfolio under her arm. So of course he thought it was a tramp with something to sell, and he holloaed out, “You’d better come out of this! We want none of your sort.” She just turned round and laughed, which put him in such a rage, that though she began to speak he didn’t wait, but told her to have done with her sauce, or he would call the keepers. He thinks she said, “You’d better,” and I believe he did move his stick a little.’
‘Ida, have done with that!’ cried Herbert’s voiceclose to her. ‘Hold your tongue, or I’ll—’ and his hand was near her hair.
‘Oh, don’t, don’t, Herbert. Let me hear,’ cried Sibyl.
‘That’s the way girls go on,’ said Herbert fiercely, ‘with their nonsense and stuff.’
‘But who—?’
‘If you go on, Ida—’ he was clutching her braid.
Sibyl sprang to the defence, and there was a general struggle and romp interspersed with screams, which was summarily stopped by Mr. Rollstone explaining severely, ‘If you think that is the deportment of the aristocracy, Miss Ida, you are much mistaken.’
‘Bother the aristocracy!’ broke out Herbert.
Calm was restored by a summons to a round game, but Sibyl’s curiosity was of course insatiable, and as she sat next to Herbert, she employed various blandishments and sympathetic whispers, and after a great deal of fuss, and ‘What will you give me if I tell?’ to extract the end of the story, ‘Did he call the keeper?’
‘Oh yes, the old beast! His name’s Best, but it ought to be Beast! He guffawed ever so much worse than she did!’
‘Well, but who was it?’
And after he had tried to make her guess, and teased his fill, he owned, ‘Mrs. Bury—a sort of cousin, staying with Lady Adela. She isn’t half a bad old party, but she makes a guy of herself, and goes about sketching and painting like a blessed old drawing-master.’
‘A lady? and not a young lady.’
‘Not as old as—as Methuselah, or old Rolypoly there, but I believe she’s a grandmother. If she’d been a boy, we should have been cut out of it. Oh yes, she’s a lady—a born Morton; and when it was over she was very jolly about it—no harm done—bears no malice, only Ida makes such an absurd work about every little trifle.’
Constance Morton was leaning on the rail that divided the gardens at Northmoor from the park, which was still rough and heathery. Of all the Morton family, perhaps she was the one who had the most profited by the three years that had passed since her uncle’s accession to the title. She had been at a good boarding-house, attending the High School in Colbeam, and spending Saturday and Sunday at Northmoor. It had been a happy life, she liked her studies, made friends with her companions, and enjoyed to the very utmost all that Northmoor gave her, in country beauty and liberty, in the kindness of her uncle and aunt, and in the religious training that they were able to give her, satisfying longings of her soul, so that she loved them with all her heart, and felt Northmoor her true home. The holiday time at Westhaven was always a trial. Mrs. Morton had tried Brighton and London, but neither place agreed with Ida: and she found herself a much greater personage in her own world than elsewhere, and besides could notalways find tenants for her house. So there she lived at her ease, called by many of her neighbours the Honourable Mrs. Morton, and finding listeners to her alternate accounts of the grandeur of Northmoor, and murmurs at the meanness of its master in only allowing her £300 a year, besides educating her children, and clothing two of them.
Ida considered herself to be quite sufficiently educated, and so she was for the society in which she was, or thought herself, a star, chiefly consisting of the families of the shipowners, coalowners, and the like. She was pretty, with a hectic prettiness of bright eyes and cheeks, and had a following of the young men of the place; and though she always tried to enforce that to receive attentions from a smart young mate, a clerk in an office, a doctor’s assistant, or the like, was a great condescension on her part, she enjoyed them all the more. Learning new songs for their benefit, together with extensive novel reading, were her chief employments, and it was the greater pity because her health was not strong. She dreamt much in a languid way, and had imagination enough to work these tales into her visions of life. Her temper suffered, and Constance found the atmosphere less and less congenial as she grew older and more accustomed to a different life.
She was a gentle, ladylike girl, with her brown hair still on her shoulders, as on that summer Saturday she stood looking along the path, but with her ears listening for sounds from the house, and an anxious expression on her young face. Presently she started at the sound of a gun, whichcaused a mighty cawing among the rooks in the trees on the slopes, and a circling of the black creatures in the sky. A whistling then was heard, and her brother Herbert came in sight in a few minutes more, a fine tall youth of sixteen, with quite the air and carriage of a gentleman. He had a gun on his shoulder, and carried by the claws the body of a rook with white wings.
‘Oh, Herbert,’ cried Constance in dismay, ‘did you shoot that by mistake?’
‘No; Stanhope would not believe there was such a crittur, and betted half a sov that it was a cram.’
‘But how could you? Our uncle and aunt thought so much of that poor dear Whitewing, and Best was told to take care of it. They will be so vexed.’
‘Nonsense! He’ll come to more honour stuffed than ever he would flying and howling up there. When I’ve shown him to Stanhope, I shall make that old fellow at Colbeam come down handsomely for him. What a row those birds kick up! I’ll send my other barrel among them.’
‘Oh no, don’t, Bertie. Uncle Frank has one of his dreadful headaches to-day.’
‘Seems to me he is made of headaches.’
‘Yes, Aunt Mary is very anxious. Oh, I would have done anything that you had not vexed them now and killed this poor dear pretty thing!’ said Constance, stroking down the glossy feathers of the still warm victim, and laying them against her cheek, almost tearfully.
‘Well, you are not going to tell them. Perhapsthey won’t miss it. I would not have done it if Stanhope had not been such a beast,’ said Herbert.
‘I shall not tell them, of course,’ said Constance; ‘but, if I were you, I should not be happy till they knew.’
‘Oh, that’s only girl’s way! I can’t have the old Stick upset now, for I’m in horrid want of tin.’
‘Oh, Bertie, was it true then?’
‘What, you don’t mean that they have heard?’
‘That you were out at those Colbeam races!’
‘To be sure I was, with Stanhope and Hailes and a lot more. We all went except the little kids and Sisson, who is in regular training for as great a muff as the governor there. Who told him?’
‘Mr. Hailes, who is very much concerned about his grandson.’
‘Old sneak; I wonder how he ferreted it out. Is there no end of a jaw coming, Con?’
‘I don’t know. Uncle Frank seemed quite knocked down and wretched over it. He said something about feeling hopeless, and the old blood coming out to be your ruin.’
‘Of course it’s the old blood! How did he miss it, and turn into the intolerable old dry fogey that he is, without a notion of anything fit for a gentleman?’
‘Now, Herbert—’
‘Oh yes. You should just hear what the other fellows say about him. Their mothers and their sisters say there is not so stupid a place in the county, he hasn’t a word to say for himself, and they would just as soon go to Portland at once as to a party here.’
‘Then it is a great shame! I am sure Aunt Mary works hard to make it pleasant for them!’
‘Oh yes, good soul, she does, she can’t help it; but when people have stuck in the mud all their lives, they can’t know any better, and it is abominably hard on a fellow who does, to be under a man who has been an office cad all his life, and doesn’t know what is expected of a gentleman! Screwing us all up like beggars—’
‘Herbert, for shame! for shame! As if he was obliged to do anything at all for us!’
‘Oh, isn’t he? A pretty row my mother would kick up about his ears if he did not, when I must come after him at this place, too!’
‘I think you are very ungrateful,’ said Constance, with tears, ‘when they are so good to us.’
‘Oh, they are as kind as they know how, but they don’t know. That’s the thing, or old Frank would be ashamed to give me such a dirty little allowance. He has only himself to thank if I have to come upon him for more. Found out about the Blackbird colt, has he? What a bore! And tin I must have out of him by hook or by crook if he cuts up ever so rough. I must send off this bird first by the post to confute Stanhope and make him eat dirt, and then see what’s to be done.’
‘Indeed, Bertie, I don’t think you will see him to-night. His head is dreadful, and Aunt Mary has sent for Mr. Trotman.’
‘Whew! You have not got anything worth having, I suppose, Conny?’
‘Only fifteen shillings. I meant it for—But you shall have it, dear Bertie, if it will only save worrying them.’
‘Fifteen bob! Fifteen farthings you might as well offer. No, no, you soft little monkey, I must see what is to be made of him or her ladyship, one or the other, to-day or to-morrow. If they know I have been at the place it is half the battle. Consequence was! Provided they don’t smell out this unlucky piebald! I wish Stanhope hadn’t been such a beast!’
At that moment, too late to avoid her, Lady Northmoor, pale and anxious, came up the path and was upon them. ‘Your uncle is asleep,’ she began, but then, starting, ‘Oh, Conny. Poor Whitewing. Did you find him?’
Constance hung her head and did not speak. Then her aunt saw how it was.
‘Herbert! you must have shot him by mistake; your uncle will be so grieved.’
Herbert was not base enough to let this pass. He muttered, ‘A fellow would not take my word for it, so I had to show him.’
She looked at him very sadly. ‘Oh, Herbert, I did not think you would have made that a reason for vexing your uncle!’
The boy was more than half sorry under those gentle eyes. He muttered something about ‘didn’t think he would care.’
She shook her head, instead of saying that she knew this was not the truth; and unable to bear the sting, he flung away from her, carrying the rook with him, and kicking the pebbles, trying to be angry instead of sorry. And just then came a summons to Lady Northmoor to see the doctor.
Yet Herbert Morton was a better boy than he seemed at that moment; his errors were chiefly caused by understandingnoblesse obligein a different way from his uncle. Moreover, it would have been better for him if his tutor had lived beyond the neighbourhood of Northmoor, where he heard, losing nothing in the telling, the remarks of the other pupils’ mothers upon his uncle and aunt; more especially as it was not generally the highest order of boy that was to be found there. If he had heard what the fathers said, he would have learnt that, though shy and devoid of small talk, and of the art of putting guests together, Lord Northmoor was trusted and esteemed. He might perhaps be too easily talked down; he could not argue, and often gave way to the noisy Squire; but he was certain in due time to see the rights of a question, and he attended thoroughly to the numerous tasks of an active and useful county man, taking all the drudgery that others shirked. While, if by severe stress he were driven to public speaking, he could acquit himself far better than any one had expected. The Bishop and the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions alike set him down on their committees, not only for his rank, but for his industry and steadiness of work. Nor had any one breathed any imputation upon the possession of what used to be known as gentility, before that good word was degraded, to mean something more like what Mrs. Morton aspired to. Lord and Lady Northmoor might not be lively, nor a great accession to society, but the anticipations of either amusement or annoyance from vulgarity or arrogance were entirelydisappointed. No one could call them underbred, or anything but an ingrain gentleman and lady, while there were a few who could uphold Lady Northmoor as thoroughly kind, sweet, sensible, and helpful to her utmost in all that was good.
All this, however, was achieved not only unconsciously but with severe labour by a man whose powers could only act slowly, and who was not to the manner born. Conscientiousness is a costly thing, and Strafford’s watchword is not to be adopted for nothing. The balance of duties, the perplexities of managing an impoverished and involved estate, the disappointment of being unable to carry out the responsibilities of a landlord towards neglected cottagers, the incapacity of doing what would have been desirable for the Church, and the worry and harass that his sister-in-law did not spare, all told as his office work had never done, and in spite of quiet, happy hours with his Mary, and her devoted and efficient aid whenever it was possible, a course of disabling neuralgic headaches had set in, and a general derangement of health, which had become alarming, and called for immediate remedy.
‘Rest, there is nothing for it but immediate rest and warm baths,’ said Lady Northmoor to Constance, who was waiting anxiously for the doctor’s verdict some hours later. ‘It is only being overdone—no, my dear, there is nothing really to fear, if we can only keep business and letters out of his way for a few weeks, my dear child.’
For Constance, who had been dreadfully frightened by the sight of the physician’s carriage, which seemed to her inexperienced eyes the omen of something terrible, fairly burst into tears of relief.
‘Oh, I am so glad!’ she said, as caresses passed—which might have been those of mother and daughter for heartfelt sympathy and affection.
‘You will miss your Saturdays and Sundays, my dear,’ continued the aunt, ‘for we shall have to go abroad, so as to be quite out of the way of everything.’
‘Never mind that, dear aunt, if only Uncle Frank is better. Will it be long?’
‘I cannot tell. He says six weeks, Dr. Smithsays three months. It is to be bracing air—Switzerland, most likely.’
‘Oh, how delightful! How you will enjoy it!’
‘It has always been a dream, and it is strange now to feel so downhearted about it,’ said her aunt, smiling.
‘Uncle Frank is sure to be better there,’ said Constance. ‘Only think of the snowy mountains—
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;They crown’d him long agoOn a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,With a diadem of snow.’
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;They crown’d him long agoOn a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,With a diadem of snow.’
And the girl’s eyes brightened with an enthusiasm that the elder woman felt for a moment, nor did either of them feel the verse hackneyed.
‘Ah, I wish we could take you, my dear,’ said Lady Northmoor; then, ‘Do you know where Herbert is?’
‘No,’ said Constance. ‘Oh, aunt, I am so sorry! I don’t think he would have done it if the other boys had not teased him.’
‘Perhaps not; but, indeed, I am grieved, not only on the poor rook’s account, but that he should have the heart to vex your uncle just now. However, perhaps he did not understand how ill he has been all this week. And I am afraid that young Stanhope is not a good companion for him.’
‘I do not think he is,’ said Constance; ‘it seems to me that Stanhope leads him into that betting, and makes him think it does not signify whether he passes or not, and so he does not take pains.’
Herbert was not to be found either then or atdinner-time. It turned out that he had taken from the stables the horse he was allowed to ride, and had gone over to display his victim to Stanhope, and then on to the bird-stuffer; had got a meal, no one wished to know how, only returning in time to stump upstairs to bed.
He thus avoided an interview with his uncle over the rook, unaware that his aunt had left him the grace of confession, being in hopes that, unless he did speak of his own accord, the vexatious knowledge might be spared to one who did not need an additional annoyance just then.
Lord Northmoor was not, however, to be spared. He was much better the next day, Sunday, a good deal exhilarated by the doctor’s opinion; and, though concerned at having to break off his work, ready to enjoy what he was told was absolutely essential.
The head-keeper had no notion of sparing him. Mr. Best regarded him with a kind of patronising toleration as an unfortunate gentleman who had the ill-hap never to have acquired a taste for sport, and was unable to do justice to his preserves; but towards ‘Mr. Morton’ there was a very active dislike. The awkward introduction might have rankled even had Herbert been wise enough to follow Miss Morton’s advice; but his nature was overbearing, and his self-opinion was fostered by his mother and Ida, while he was edged on by his fellow-pupils to consider Best a mere old woman, who could only be tolerated by the ignorance of ‘a regular Stick.’
With the under-keeper Herbert fraternised enough to make him insubordinate; and the days when Lord Northmoor gave permission for shootingor for inviting his companions for a share in the sport, were days of mutual offence, when the balance of provoking sneer and angry insult would be difficult to cast, though the keeper was the most forbearing, since he never complained of personal ill-behaviour to himself, whereas Herbert’s demonstrations to his uncle of ‘that old fool’ were the louder and more numerous because they never produced the slightest effect.
However, Best felt aggrieved in the matter of the rook, which had been put under his special protection, and being, moreover, something of a naturalist, he had cherished the hope of a special Northmoor breed of pied rooks.
So while, on the way from church, Lady Adela was detaining Lady Northmoor with inquiries as to Dr. Smith, Best waylaid his master with, ‘Your lordship gave me orders about that there rook with white wings, as was not to be mislested.’
‘Has anything happened to it?’ said Frank wearily.
‘Well, my lord, I sees Mr. Morton going up to the rookery with his gun, and I says to him that it weren’t time for shooting of the branchers, and the white rook weren’t to be touched by nobody, and he swears at me for a meddling old leggings, and uses other language as I’ll not repeat to your lordship, and by and by I hears his gun, and I sees him a-picking up of the rook that her ladyship set such store by, so it is due to myself, my lord, to let you know as I were not to blame.’
‘Certainly not, Best,’ was the reply. ‘I am exceedingly displeased that my nephew has behaved so ill to you, and I shall let him know it.’
‘His lordship will give it to him hot and strong, the young upstart,’ muttered Best to himself with great satisfaction, as he watched the languid pace quicken to overtake the boy, who had gone on with his sister.
Perhaps the irritability of illness had some effect upon the ordinary gentleness of Lord Northmoor’s temper, and besides, he was exceedingly annoyed at such ungrateful slaughter of what was known to be a favourite of his wife; so when he came upon Herbert, sauntering down to the stables, he accosted him sharply with, ‘What is this I hear, Herbert? I could not have believed that you would have deliberately killed the creature that you knew to be a special delight to your aunt.’
Herbert had reached the state of mind when a third, if not a fourth, reproach on the same subject on which his conscience was already uneasy, was simply exasperating, and without the poor excuse he had offered his aunt and sister, he burst out that it was very hard that such a beastly row should be made about a fellow knocking down mere trumpery vermin.
‘Speak properly, Herbert, or hold your tongue,’ said his uncle. ‘I am extremely displeased at finding that you do not know how to conduct yourself to my servants, and have presumed to act in this lawless, heartless manner, in defiance of what you knew to be your aunt’s wishes and my orders, and that you replied to Best’s remonstrance with insolence.’
‘That’s a good one! Insolent to an old fool of a keeper,’ muttered Herbert sullenly.
‘Insolence is shameful towards any man,’ returned his uncle. ‘And from a foolish headstrong boy to a faithful old servant it is particularly unbecoming. However, bad as this is, it is not all that I have to speak of.’
Then Herbert recollected with dismay how much his misdemeanour would tell against his pardon for the more important act of disobedience, and he took refuge in a sullen endeavour at indifference, while his uncle, thoroughly roused, spoke of the sins of disobedience and the dangers of betting. Perhaps the only part of the lecture that he really heard was, ‘Remember, it was these habits in those who came before us that have been so great a hindrance in life to both you and me, and made you, my poor boy, so utterly mistaken as to what becomes your position. How much have you thrown away?’
Herbert looked up and muttered the amount—twelve pounds and some shillings.
‘Very well, I will not have it owed. I shall pay it, deducting two pounds from your allowance each term till it is made up. Give me the address or addresses.’
At this Herbert writhed and remonstrated, but his uncle was inexorable.
‘The fellows will be at me,’ he said, as he gave Stanhope’s name.
‘You will see no more of Stanhope after this week. I have arranged to send you to a tutor in Hertfordshire, who I hope will make you work, and where, I trust, you will find companions who will give you a better idea of what becomes a gentleman.’
In point of fact, this had been arranged forsome time past, though by the desire of Herbert’s present tutor it had not been made known to the young people, so that, coming thus, there was a sound of punishment in it to Herbert.
The interview ended there. The annoyance, enhanced in his mind by having come on a Sunday, brought on another attack of headache; but late in the evening he sent for Herbert, who always had to go very early on the Monday. It was to ask him whether he would not prefer the payment being made to Stanhope and the other pupil after he had left them. Herbert’s scowl passed off. It was a great relief. He said they were prepared to wait till he had his allowance, and the act of consideration softened him, as did also the manifest look of suffering and illness, as his uncle lay on the couch, hardly able to speak, and yet exerting himself thus to spare the lad.
‘Thank you, sir,’ actually Herbert said, and then, with a gulp, ‘I am sorry about that bird—I wish I’d never told them, but it was Stanhope who drove me to it, not believing.’
‘I thought it was not your better mind,’ said his uncle, holding out his hand. ‘I should like you to make me a promise, Herbert, not to make a bet while I am away. I should go with an easier mind.’
‘I will, uncle,’ said Herbert, heartily reflecting, perhaps, it must be owned, on the fewer opportunities in that line at Westhaven, except at the regatta, but really resolving, as the only salve to his conscience. And there was that in his face and the clasp of his hand that gave his uncle a sense of comfort and hope.
Lady Adela, though small and pale, was one of the healthy women who seem unable to believe in any ailments short of a raging fever; and when she heard of neuralgia, decided that it was all a matter of imagination, and a sort of excuse for breaking off the numerous occupations in which she felt his value, but only as she would have acknowledged that of a good schoolmaster. Their friendly intercourse had never ripened into intimacy, and was still punctiliously courteous; each tacitly dreaded the influence of the other on the Vicar-in-Church matters, and every visit of the Westhaven family confirmed Lady Adela’s belief that it was undesirable to go below the surface.
Bertha, who came down for a day or two to assist at the breaking-up demonstration of the High School at Colbeam, was as ever much more cordial. The chief drawbacks with her were that cynical tone, which made it always doubtful whether she were making game of her hearers, and the philanthropy, not greatly tinged with religion, so as toconfuse old-fashioned minds. She used to bring down strange accounts of her startling adventures in the slums, and relate them in a rattling style, interluded with slang, being evidently delighted to shock and puzzle her hearers; but still she was always good-natured in deed if not in word, and Lord Northmoor was very grateful for her offer of hospitality to Herbert, who was coming to London for his preliminary examination.
She had come up to call, determined to be of use to them, and she had experience enough of travelling to be very helpful. Finding that they shuddered at the notion of fashionable German ‘baden,’ she exclaimed—
‘I’ll hit you off! There’s that place in the Austrian Tyrol that Lettice Bury frequents—a regular primitive place with a name—Oh, what is it, Addie, like rats and mice?’
‘Ratzes,’ said Adela.
‘Yes. The tourists have not molested it yet, and only natives bathe there, so she goes every year to renovate herself and sketch, and comes back furbished up like an old snake, with lots of drawings of impossible peaks, like Titian’s backgrounds. We’ll write and tell her to make ready for the head of her house!’
‘Oh, but—’ began Frank, looking to his wife.
‘Would it not be intruding?’ said Mary.
‘She will be enchanted! She always likes to have anything to do for anybody, and she says the scenery is just a marvel. You care for that! You are so deliciously fresh, beauties aren’t a bore to you.’
‘We are glad of the excuse,’ said Frank gravely.
‘You look ill enough to be an excuse for anything, and Mary too! How about a maid? Is Harte going?’
‘No,’ said Mary; ‘she says that foreign food made her so ill once before that she cannot attempt going again. I meant to do without.’
‘That would never do!’ cried Bertha. ‘You have quite enough on your hands with Northmoor, and the luggage and the languages.’
‘Is not an English maid apt to be another trouble?’ said Mary. ‘I do not suppose my French is good, but I have had to talk it constantly; and I know some German, if that will serve in the Tyrol.’
‘I’ll reconcile it to your consciences,’ said Bertha triumphantly. ‘It will be a real charity. There’s a bonny little Swiss girl whom some reckless people brought home and then turned adrift. It will be a real kindness to help her home, and you shall pick her up when you come up to me on your way, and see my child! Oh, didn’t I tell you? We had a housemaid once who was demented enough to marry a scamp of a stoker on one of the Thames steamers. He deserted her, and I found her living, or rather dying, in an awful place at Rotherhithe, surrounded by tipsy women, raging in opposite corners. I got her into a decent room, but too late to save her life—and a good thing too; so I solaced her last moments with a promise to look after her child, such a jolly little mortal, in spite of her name—Boadicea Ethelind Davidina Jones. She is two years old, and quite delicious—the darling of all the house!’
‘I hope you will have no trouble with the father,’ said Frank.
‘I trust he has gone to his own locker, or, if not, he is only too glad to be rid of her. I can tackle him,’ said Bertha confidently. ‘The child is really a little duck!’
She spoke as if the little one filled an empty space in her heart; and, even though there might be trouble in store, it was impossible not to be glad of her present gladness, and her invitation was willingly accepted. Moreover, her recommendations were generally trustworthy, and Mary only hesitated because, she said—
‘I thought, if I could do without a maid, we might take Constance. She is doing so very well, and likely to pass so well in her examinations, that it would be very nice to give her this pleasure.’
‘Good little girl! So it would. I should like nothing better; but I am afraid that if you took her without a maid, Emma would misunderstand it, and say you wanted to save the expense.’
‘Would it make much difference?’
‘Not more than we could bear now that we are in for it, but I fear it would excite jealousies.’
‘Is that worse than leaving the poor child to Westhaven society all the holidays?’
‘Perhaps not; and Conny is old enough now to be more injured by it than when she was younger.’
‘You know I have always hoped to make her like a child of our own when her school education is finished.’
Frank smiled, for he was likewise very fond of little Constance.
There was a public distribution of prizes, at which all the grandees of the neighbourhood were expected to assist, and it was some consolation to the Northmoors, for the dowager duchess being absent, that the pleasure of taking the prize from her uncle would be all the greater—if—
The whole party went—Lady Adela, Miss Morton, and all—and were installed in chairs of state on the platform, with the bright array of books before them—the head-mistress telling Lady Northmoor beforehand that her niece would have her full share of honours. No one could be a better or more diligent girl.
It quite nerved Lord Northmoor when he looked forth upon the sea of waving tresses of all shades of brown, while his wife watched in nervousness, both as to how he would acquit himself and how the exertion would affect him; and Bertha, as usual, was anxious for the credit of the name.
He did what was needed. Nobody wanted anything but the sensible commonplace, kindly spoken, about the advantages of good opportunities, the conscientiousness of doing one’s best. And after all, the inferiority of mere attainments in themselves to the discipline and dutifulness of responding to training,—it was slowly but not stammeringly spoken, and Bertha did not feel critical or ashamed, but squeezed Mary’s hand, and said, ‘Just the right thing.’
One by one the girls were summoned for their prizes, the little ones first. Lord Northmoor had not the gift of inventing a pretty speech for each, he could do no more than smile as he presented thebook, and read its name; but the smile was a very decided one when, in the class next to the highest, three out of the seven prizes were awarded to Constance Elizabeth Morton, and it might be a question which had the redder cheeks, the uncle or the niece, as he handed them to her. It was one of the few happinesses that he had derived from his brother’s family!
After such achievements on Constance’s part, it was impossible to withhold—as they drove back to Northmoor—the proposal to take her with them, and the effect was magical. Constance opened her eyes, bounded up, as if she were going to fly out of the carriage, and then launched herself, first on her uncle, then on her aunt, for an ecstatic kiss.
‘Take care, take care, we shall have the servants thinking you a little lunatic!’
‘I am almost! Oh, I am so glad! To be with you and Aunt Mary all the holidays! That would be enough! But to go and see all the places,’ she added, somehow perceiving that the desire to escape from home was, at least ought not to be approved of, and yet there was some exultation, when she hazarded a supposition that there was no time to go home.
Home—that is to say, Westhaven—was in some commotion when Herbert came back and grimly growled out his intelligence as to his own personal affairs. Mrs. Morton had been already apprized, in one of Lord Northmoor’s well-considered letters, of his intentions of removing his nephew to a tutor more calculated to prepare for the army, and she had accepted this as promotion such as was his due. However, when the pride of her heart, the tall gentlemanly son, made his appearance in a savage mood, her feelings were all on the other side, and those of Ida exaggerated hers.
‘So I’m to go to some disgusting hole where they grind the fellows no end,’ was Herbert’s account of the matter.
‘But surely with your connection there’s no need for grinding?’ said his mother.
Herbert laughed, ‘Much you know about it! Nobody cares a rap for connections nowadays, even if old Frank were a connection to do a man any good.’
‘But you’ll not go and study hard and hurtyourself, my dear,’ said his mother, though Herbert’s looks by no means suggested any such danger, while Ida added, ‘It is not as if he had nothing else to look to, you know. He can’t keep you out of the peerage.’
‘Can’t he then? Why, he can and will too, for thirty or forty years more at least.’
‘I thought his health was failing,’ said Ida, putting into words a hope her mother had a little too much sense of propriety to utter.
‘Bosh, it’s only neuralgia, just because he is such a stick he can’t take things easy, and lark about and do every one’s work—he hasn’t the least notion what a gentleman ought to do.’
‘It is bred in the bone,’ said his mother; ‘he always was a shabby poor creature! I always said he would not know how to spend his money.’
‘He is a regular screw!’ responded Herbert. ‘What do you think now! He was in no end of a rage with me just because I went with some of the other fellows to the Colbeam races; and one can’t help a bet or two, you know. So I lost twelve pound or so, and what must he do but stop it out of my allowance two pound at a time!’
There was a regular outcry at this, and Mrs. Morton declared her poor dear boy should not suffer, but she would make it up to him, and Herbert added that ‘it had been unlucky, half of it was that they were riled with him, first because he had shot a ridiculous rook with white wings that my lady made no end of a fuss about.’
‘Ah, then it is her spite,’ said Ida. ‘She’s a sly cat, with all her meek ways.’
Herbert was not displeased with this evening’s sympathy, as he lay outspread on the sofa, with the admiring and pitying eyes of his mother and sister upon him; but he soon began to feel—when he had had his grumble out, and could take his swing at home—that there could be too much of it.
It was all very well to ease his own mind by complaining, but when he heard of Ida announcing that he had been shamefully treated, all out of spite for killing a white rook, his sense of justice made him declare that the notion was nothing but girl’s folly, such as no person with a grain of sense could believe.
The more his mother and her friends persisted in treating him as an ill-used individual, the victim of his uncle’s avarice and his aunt’s spite, the more his better nature revolted and acknowledged inwardly and sometimes outwardly the kindness and justice he had met with. It was really provoking that any attempt to defend them, or explain the facts, were only treated as proofs of his own generous feeling. Ida’s partisanship really did him more good than half a dozen lectures would have done, and he steadily adhered to his promise not to bet, though on the regatta day Ida and her friend Sibyl derided him for not choosing to risk even a pair of gloves; and while one pitied him, the other declared that he was growing a skinflint like his uncle.
He talked and laughed noisily enough to Ida’s friends, but he had seen enough at Northmoor to feel the difference, and he told his sister that there was not a lady amongst the whole kit of them, except Rose Rollstone, who was coming down for her holiday.
‘Rose!’ cried Ida, tossing her head. ‘A servant’s daughter and a hand at a shop! What will you say next, I wonder?’
‘Lady is as lady acts,’ said Herbert, making a new proverb, whereat his mother and sister in chorus rebuked him, and demanded to know whether Ida were not a perfect lady.
At which he laughed with a sound of scoffing, and being tired of the discussion sauntered out of the house to that inexhaustible occupation of watching the boats come in, and smoking with old acquaintances, who were still congenial to him, and declared that he had not become stuck-up, though he was turned into an awful swell! Perhaps they were less bad for him than Stanhope, for they inspired no spirit of imitation.
When he came back a later post had arrived, bringing the news of Constance’s successes and of the invitation to her to share the expedition of her uncle and aunt. There was no question about letting her go, but the feeling was scarcely of congratulation.
‘Well, little Conny knows how to play her cards!’
‘Stuff—child wouldn’t know what it meant,’ said Herbert glumly.
‘Well,’ said his sister, ‘she always was the favourite, and I call it a shame.’
‘What, because you’ve been such a good girl, and got such honours and prizes?’ demanded Herbert.
‘Nonsense, Herbert,’ said his mother. ‘Ida’s education was finished, you know.’
‘Oh, she wasn’t a bit older than Conny is now.’
‘And I don’t hold with all that study, science and logic, and what d’ye call it; that’s no use to any one,’ continued his mother. ‘It’s not as if your sisters had to be governesses. Give me a girl who can play a tune on the piano and make herself agreeable. Your uncle may do as he pleases, but he’ll have Constance on his hands. The men don’t fancy a girl that is always after books and lectures.’
‘Not of your sort, perhaps,’ said Herbert, ‘but I don’t care what I bet that Conny gets a better husband than Ida.’
‘It stands to reason,’ Ida said, almost crying, ‘when uncle takes her about to all these fine places and sets her up to be the favourite—just the youngest. It’s not fair.’
‘As if she wasn’t by a long chalk the better of the two,’ said Herbert.
‘Now, Bertie,’ interposed his mother, ‘I’ll not have you teasing and running down your sister, though I do say it is a shame and a slight to pick out the youngest, when poor Ida is so delicate, and both of you two have ever so much better a right to favours.’
‘That’s a good one!’ muttered Herbert, while Ida exclaimed—
‘Of course, you know, aunt has always been nasty to me, ever since I said ma said I was not strong enough to be bothered with that horrid school; and as to poor Herbert, they have spited him because he shot that—’
‘Shut up, Ida,’ shouted Herbert. ‘I wouldn’t go with them if they went down on their knees to me! What should I do, loafing about among alot of disputing frog-eaters, without a word of a Christian language, and old Frank with his nose in a guide-book wanting me to look at beastly pictures and rum old cathedrals. You would be a fish out of water, too, Ida. Now Conny will take to it like a house afire, and what’s more, she deserves it!’
‘Well, ma,’ put in the provoked Ida, ‘I wonder you let Conny go, when it would do me so much good, and it is so unfair.’
‘My dear, you don’t understand a mother’s feelings. I feel the slight for you, but your uncle must be allowed to have his way. He is at all the expense, and to refuse for Conny would do you no good.’
‘Except that she will be more set up than ever,’ murmured Ida.
‘Oh, come now! I wonder which looks more like the set-up one,’ said Herbert, whose wider range had resulted in making him much alive to Ida’s shortcomings, and who looked on at her noisy style of flirtation with the eye of a grave censor. Whatever he might be himself, he knew what a young lady ought to be.
He triumphed a little when, during the few days spent in London, Constance wrote of a delightful evening when, while her uncle and aunt and Miss Morton had gone to an entertainment for Bertha’s match-box makers, she had been permitted to have Rose Rollstone to spend the time with her, the carriage, by their kind contrivance, fetching the girl both in going and coming.
The two young things had been thoroughly happy together. Rose had gone on improvingherself; her companions in the art embroidery line were girls of a good class, with a few ladies among them, and their tone was good and refined. It was the fashion among them to attend the classes, Bible and secular, put in their way, and their employers conscientiously attended to their welfare, so that Rose was by no means an unfitting companion for the High School maiden, and they most happily compared notes over their very different lives, when they were not engaged in playing with little Cea, as the unwieldy name of Miss Morton’sprotégéehad been softened. She was a very pretty little creature, with big blue eyes and hair that could be called golden, and very full of life and drollery, so that she was a treat to both; and when the housemaid, whose charge she was, insisted on her coming to bed, they begged to superintend her evening toilet, and would have played antics with her in her crib half the night if they had not been inexorably chased away.
Then they sat down on low stools in the balcony, among the flowers, in convenient proximity for the caresses they had not yet outgrown, and had what they called ‘a sweet talk.’
Constance had been much impressed with the beauty of the embroidery, and thought it must be delightful to do such things.
‘Yes, for the forewoman,’ said Rose, ‘but there’s plenty of dull work; the same over and over again, and one little stitch ever so small gone amiss throws all wrong. Miss Grey told us to recollect it was just like our lives!’
‘That’s nice!’ said Constance. ‘And it is for the Church and Almighty God’s service?’
‘Some of it,’ said Rose, ‘but there’s a good deal only for dresses, and furniture, and screens.’
‘Don’t you feel like Sunday when you are doing altar-cloths and stools?’ asked Constance reverently.
‘I wish I did,’ said Rose; ‘but I don’t do much of that kind yet, and one can’t keep up the being serious over it always, you know. Indeed, Miss Grey does not wish us to be dull; she reads to us when there is time, and explains the symbols that have to be done; but part of the time it is an amusing book, and she says she does not mind cheerful talk, only she trusts us not to have gossip she would not like to hear.’
‘I wonder,’ said Constance, ‘whether I should have come with you if all this had not happened? It must be very nice.’
‘But your school is nice?’
‘Oh yes. I do love study, and those Saturdays and Sundays at Northmoor, they are delicious! Uncle Frank reads with me about religion, you know.’
‘Like our dear Bible class?’
‘Yes; I never understood or felt anything before; he puts it so as it comes home,’ said Constance, striving to express herself. ‘Then I have a dear little class at the Sunday school.’
‘I am to have one, by and by.’
‘Mine are sweet little things, and I work for them on Saturdays, while Aunt Mary reads to me. I do like teaching—and, do you know, Rose, I think I shall be a High School teacher!’
‘Oh, Conny, I thought you were all so rich and grand!’
‘No, we are not,’ said Constance lazily; ‘we have nothing but what Uncle Frank gives us, and I can’t bear the way mamma and Ida are always trying to get more out of him, when I know he can’t always do what he likes, and nasty people think him shabby. I am sure I ought to work for myself.’
‘But if Herbert is a lord?’
‘I hope he won’t be for a long long time,’ cried Constance. ‘Besides, I am sure he would want all his money for himself! And as to being a teacher, Aunt Mary was, and Miss Arden, who is so wise and good, is one. If I was like them I think it would be doing real work for God and good—wouldn’t it, Rose? Oh dear, oh dear, there’s the carriage stopping for you!’