'There is an effectual way of preventing that,' said Lance, with a lurking smile.
'Well, I suppose it must come to that sooner or later, and I do trust you not to tease and bother.'
'I will strive to make your feeling the rule, not of mine, but of my demonstration of it,' said Lance, tingling all over with suppressed ecstasy; 'that is, as far as I can help.'
'I can't understand your liking it! An old, dry, used-up heart!'
'But on whom? I am but too content with——'
A rapid booted tread was at the door; it was hastily opened. 'Gertrude, what's the meaning?' said the professor. 'Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. Underwood.' This with withering politeness, and the door was shut again.
'He is going to Papa,' Gertrude laughed, with her natural mischievous triumph; then, laying her hand on Lance's arm, she exclaimed, 'Now, whatever you do, promise me not to be bullied into giving up the shop;' then, lowering her tone to its former tenderness, 'What he could do is good enough for any one.'
'So I feel,' said Lance, 'though I could drop it, if you wished. My personal share in the retail trade I mean, of course, not the editorship, for that is my sheet-anchor.'
'The Pursuivant! I thought I never could touch it again.'
'His poor Pur,' repeated Lance. 'I must show you this note, though I am ashamed. And he bade me give you this;' as from the depths of a business-like pocket-book he extracted an envelope, and from it the note and dried piece of myrtle. She greeted it with a little cry, and fresh tears. 'Ah! he said you would remember,' said Lance.
'Remember! I should think I did! Didn't he tell you?'
'I know nothing but what he wrote here. He left this for me to have, after it was all over.'
'I see! I see! O, I am glad you did not give it me at first. Dear, dear thing! Now I know! That day when he came here he made me gather it for him, and told me he had one great wish, and I was to remember it when I saw this.'
'And that great wish?' It was an odd sort of wet-eyed smile of Lance's, but then she had rested her head against him. 'Did you know it?'
'I don't know. It was the day I was half wild with misery and a strange sort of gladness together, only one could not break out with his calm eye on one—the day he came here, and Papa told him what was the matter with him. Then he sat with me, and he said things to me that made me feel as I had never done before. He didn't mean it, I know, for it was all telling me how it was with him, and how, if he were well, he never could have thought in that way of any one. It just made me feel that his saying it to me showed——'
'Showed what might have been,' said Lance. 'Yes, it was more than direct words would have been from any one else.'
'And he kept on mixing in things about you, and what you had been to him, but I wouldn't see what he was driving at; for, Lance, I must tell you now it did make me feel to love—love him really—and not be ashamed; if he thought me worth tellingall that—and it was so nice to be able, however it was to end, that I did not want to do anything else, and I couldn't bear the sound of your name then, though when I remember that look, and that wish, and see the spray of myrtle, Lance, I must have had you if you had been—as bad as Rupert Cheviot himself.'
But she actually did lift up her face with a look that allowed him to bend down and kiss it, as he said, 'See, he only told me to give it you,when—not on those terms. Though you are doubly precious, because I shall ever feel you to be his gift.'
She had certainly accepted infinitely more than he could have dared to anticipate from her outset, and now she was perhaps glad of the respite afforded by reading the letter that he had put into her hand, and which lasted till again came steps.
'Papa this time,' she whispered, as he opened the door, calling, 'Ethel, here's Tom in a—Hollo, I thought you were in the drawing-room.'
'Don't go,' they cried with one voice, and Gertrude, saying, 'May I? I must!' put Felix's letter into his hand.
He pushed up his spectacles to read it, but he could not do so dry-eyed, and Lance turned aside blushing and embarrassed.
'Dear fellow!' he exclaimed. 'Well—that's a pretty good testimonial to bring in your hand, Lance.'
'You must not believe half of that, sir,' said Lance huskily.
'Eh, Daisy, mus'n't I? And pray what am I to say to Tom about your shocking behaviour in denying yourself to Mary's brother-in-law? Music lessons have been dangerous things ever since the gamut of Hortensio.'
'May I? He knows!' was Lance's eager question to Gertrude, as he took her hand and looked up mutely, but with lustrous eyes, to the Doctor.
'So you have made it right, children. There, then, Lancelot Underwood, you have got my youngest darling, and I can tell you I never made one of them over with greater confidence and comfort. If we have spoilt our most motherless one, you know what that is, and there's good stuff in her too. Indeed, I never thought so well of the chit before.'
'I'm sure I didn't,' said the chit herself dreamily, causing them both to smile, and Lance to mutter something inarticulately foolish and happy, but the clang of the dinner-bell startled them, and they sprang away to their rooms during the five minutes' law; while Ethel, coming in from the street, met her father in the hall, smiling unutterable things. 'No!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean it! I didn't think she could so soon!'
'I fancy Lance may thank Tom and his great Rupert for that.'
'He did worry her intolerably! Oh! papa, I trust it is no mistake.'
'I think not, Ethel. Once accepted, the warm living outcome of affection cannot fail to be infinitely better than the dream she has been brooding over so long, and as saint-worship it will hurt neither of them. Ah well! I should have liked the other to be one of us, but it was not to be. He was the making of our Daisy, and this one is his equal in all but what age only can give.'
'Ah! I always wished to see Daisy in love,' said Ethel, rather as if the wish had recoiled upon her.
'What's to be done now? There's the Grange carriage,' exclaimed the Doctor.
Yes, Flora, George, and Dickie, all had driven in to lunch at the early dinner, and to face those cheeks whose glow no cold water could moderate, those eyes that shone strangely under downcast lids.
In fact, Mr. Rivers had been so much pleased by Gertrude's consent to the Swiss expedition that he had given his wife no peace till she had come to arrange it. Gertrude was taken aback. 'Oh dear!' she exclaimed, 'I had forgotten all about it.'
'Forgotten!' Poor Mr. Rivers looked at her with all the amazement and reproach his lustreless black eyes could express.
'I remember now, George,' she faltered, colouring unreasonably; 'it was very kind.'
'But you promised, Daisy,'
'We will talk it over, George,' said her father, coming to her rescue, as in her increasing softness she looked down convicted. 'You see,Ihave not been consulted.'
George took this in earnest, and lumbered into an apology, while Dickie rather unrestrainedly laughed, and said, 'Grandpapa, when does Aunt Daisy consult you?'
'When she has made up her mind,' said the Doctor, with a glance at her.
But Daisy would at that moment have been thankful enough to consult him. True, the sentiment she had felt before had scarcely been love, so repressed and undeveloped had it been; and the flood of bliss, the wonderful sense of affection that had mastered her, was something entirely unlike the slow, measured way in which, even at the first moment of her half-consent, she had fancied yielding to Lance. In this one half-hour he had acquired a place with her so entirely independent of his being Felix's brother, nay, so substantially dearer than Felix himself, that she was half ashamed of her present self, half shocked at having called her former feelings by the name of love, and wholly and foolishly in despair at the notion of a six weeks' tour away from Lance.
Thus Ethel found her, when, on the break up of the dinner, she stole a few moments of consultation with the two young lovers before following her father and the Riverses to the drawing-room.
'Oh! Ethel, what shall I do?' Daisy was saying with tears in her eyes. 'Isn't it a judgment on me for ever saying I would go! I only did it because that Rupert baited me so, and I was so miserable I was ready to go anywhere out of his way.'
'But is it not a pity you should not go?' said Lance.
'What, you?'
'You know I cannot be much away from Bexley, so it would not make much difference that way,' he said, blushing; 'and I am afraid you will have to lead a very humdrum life; so had you not better see a little of the world?'
'I shall hate it all. Oh! Ethel, get me off! Things like this are acts of oblivion, you know.'
'I certainly would if it were for your pleasure,' said Ethel, thoughtfully; 'but you see this is the first thing that has seemed to do poor George Rivers any good.'
'And,' said Lance, affectionately, 'surely, dearest, it can do our happiness no harm to try to lend a little of it to others.'
'Ethel!' she cried out, 'I do believe he is going to make me good. There! I give in; I'll go, and not be more a victim than I can help.'
'Lance,' said Ethel, 'by-the-by, I've never congratulated you. Just tell me—suppose you were asked to go too, could you?'
He considered a moment, shutting his eyes as the brightened face looked up to him. 'I don't like to say no,' he answered; 'it is an immense temptation, but there is nobody to take my place on the spur of the moment, and at this time of year too. Indeed, if I went now, besides upsetting everything, it might hinder me from getting a holiday later, when we might want it more,' he added, crimsoning.
'I see,' said Ethel. 'Do you know, Daisy, I've a great mind to go instead of you.'
'O you old darling duck of an Ethel! I should as soon have thought of asking the gate-post. But if you would! Oh! wouldn't I take good care of Papa.'
'Yes, I think you would, Daisy, and it is my last chance, you see. I believe I shall do as well for George to lionize.'
'And be a dozen times better for Flora—and write such letters!'
'So here goes.'
'Now, Lancelot, if you don't delight in that Ethel of mine beyond every other creature—I suppose, for human nature's sake, I must let Cherry come first, but if I thought you would snub her like Charles, or patronise her like George, or even be hail fellow well met with her like Hector, I'd never let you into the family! Now—' as signs of clearing the dinner became evident—'I'll get my hat: there's no place to sit in in the house.'
Ethel's proposition was received with rapture.
George and Flora had just been informed by the Doctor how the case stood. They had been far too much absorbed in their own sorrows to mark the course of Daisy's feelings, but Flora had seen enough at luncheon to be prepared for the disclosure. Nobody could like his position, and she did not pretend to do so; but she saw it was of no use to expostulate, and abstained from letting her husband perceive, as she did, how entirely that of a tradesman it was.
'I am sorry it was not Rupert Cheviot,' was all she said, 'and very sorry not to take Daisy with us; but it is no use to coerce her, even if one could. She would be no good now.'
So Ethel was the more warmly accepted. Even the Doctor was happier that Flora should have her sister with her, and liked the notion of atête-à-têtewith his Daisy ere she was transplanted; and as to Flora, her gratitude on her own and her husband's account knew no bounds.
'Dear, dear old Ethel!' she said; 'such a life-long sister as you, bearing with one, and forgiving one through all, is as sweet and precious a relationship as almost any the world has to give!'
[1]To this it had been raised from the original 250l.partly by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and partly by Mr. Fulmort's brother and Miss Charlecote. (author)
[1]To this it had been raised from the original 250l.partly by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and partly by Mr. Fulmort's brother and Miss Charlecote. (author)
'Now for the double wedding!' said Mother Constance, as one September evening the Reverend Charles Audley entered the Superior's room in the temporary daughter-house at East Ewmouth.
'What should an old blind Australian know of gay weddings?'
'Don't you know that to hear of mundane festivities is the delight of convents?'
'The festivities were to no great extent.'
'Of course not, but you must begin at the beginning, for I lost all knowledge of everybody and thing that had not got small-pox.'
For the malady had been raging in a town at the other end of England, and the special hospital where she and her staff had done service had only just closed, and quarantine was over, so that she could return.
'Which is the beginning?'
'Mine are only confused lights since Lance brought his Daisy to see me on their way to the sands by St. Kitt's Head. What a fresh pleasant face it is! and with a spice of originality in it, too.'
'Commend me to the elder sister's. Leonard Ward had prepared me for it, when I met him circulating among the unhappy deported Melanesians in Queensland. I believe she was the making of him, and a noble work he is.'
'Come, I can't let you go back to the Antipodes. Miss May was abroad at that time, and plans were not in the least fixed, only that Lance should not give up the retail business.'
'No, he said very justly, that if he did so, Mrs. Lamb would never be contented without her husband doing the same, and that would be destruction. When I went down to the S.P.G. meeting at Bexley, I saw a good deal how the land lay, and found that all the neighbours were quite ready to visit Lance's wife, and she will live at Marshlands in a very different style from the old times we remember. I am afraid Mrs. Lamb will be a trial, but she is prepared for that.'
'It was an excellent plan to have the weddings together at Stoneborough. They could hardly have borne another here.'
'No. There was a proposal that Will and Robina should be married at Minsterham, but they rather shrank from that, and the De la Poers wrote urgently to persuade her to have the wedding at Repworth, but she saw he disliked it, and then Miss May came forward and undertook to manage it all, "being inured to such affairs," as she put it; but there was an old promise in an unguarded moment that all their young Ladyships should be bridesmaids, and they held to it: so Lord and Lady De la Poer brought a bevy of daughters to the Swan at Stoneborough, and you had better be prepared, for they are coming to see Vale Leston to-morrow, and probably will come on here. Nice people, exceedingly fond of Robina. I never saw such loads of wedding presents. Lady Caergwent gives a great Russian samovar, labelled for "school feasts."'
'I suppose Fernan—I beg his pardon, Mr. Travis Underwood—did not give another diamond bouquet.'
'No. The common sense keeping he has got into showed itself in the choice of all the household plate, just the same, for each of the couples.'
'And Angela was not there, I know. Our Mother wrote to me that the poor child was so distressed at the notion of going that as they did not make a point of it, she thought it better not to send her. I think she will soon be allowed to become a postulant. It seems evidently the life she needs. But who were Miss May's bridesmaids?'
'She set her face against any but her sister and Geraldine—would hear of no one else, though Cherry had always avoided it before. They called themselves the elderly bridesmaids. What! does the conventual mind require to know what they wore? Not the same as Robina's, who had white and blue ribbons; but they were in—what do you call it?—a Frenchified name for some kind of purple.'
'Mauve?'
'Yes, mauve with white fixings; very becoming to Cherry.'
'Who married them?'
'It was a joint performance of Mr. Wilmot, Richard May, and myself, but we had a characteristic hitch. They gave my couple the first turn, and when I held out the book for the ring, my bridegroom began fumbling in his pocket and reddening up to the roots of his red hair, while poor Robina's eyes grew rounder and rounder under her veil, and Clement rose taller and taller behind her, looking as if just cause or impediment had arisen, and he only wished he had not been commanded to hold his peace.'
'Did you marry them with the key of the door?'
'Not exactly—Lance's long hand came in between with the ring in his palm.'
'Only one between the two couples?'
'No, Bill had asked Lance to get both together, and had never claimed his own. It was a fine incident to tease him about, but he says he has his memory made fast to him now for ever. After all, Lance gave him the wrong one, and the brides had to change afterwards.'
'So they were married with each other's rings?'
'Yes, and I don't think they much regret it.'
'Where are they gone?'
'To see little Stella in her glory, and the other two are bound to a great Rhenish musical festival, and to hear the Freiburg and Lucerne organs. They went off together in the same railway carriage, and were only to part in London. The whole affair was as quiet as possible. I am glad it was at Stoneborough. Dr. May filled the place that neither Clement nor Harewood could have borne to take.'
'And you have not told me of Cherry or Clement.'
'You will see them to-morrow, and I think you will be satisfied about Cherry. The wrench last July was dreadful; both she and Clement say that they could never have made up their minds to it if they had known the grief it would cause in the village, and the partings they would undergo, but it has certainly been good for her. She looks well, and she says that though a little while ago she felt as if she had nothing to hope or fear, a month of Whittingtonia has shown her enough to engross a hundred lifetimes.'
'And little Gerald?'
'He walks better, and he is exceedingly happy at Stoneborough. Dickie May, the Archdeacon's son, you know, a fine fellow of fourteen, is so kind to him, teaches him to make models, and I fancy has secured that admiration little boys pay to big ones. They say the poor little fellow will probably outgrow his weakness and do well in the end, but that he must be kept at home for a good many years.'
'At which I suppose Cherry cannot repine.'
'No; he is her delight; and with Bernard to give the element of manhood and spirit, I don't think he will be spoilt, for Clement is sure to be strict enough. I never saw any one more improved than Bernard, by-the-by; he is grown into a reasonable being, and as devoted and attentive to Cherry as they all are. I am sure she is happier even now than she ever thought to be again! There was as much smile as tear when she told me that she was coming to see Felix and Theodore to-morrow, and to admire Wilmet in the Priory. She is carrying on a gleam from the past sunshine of her life.'
'She is learning topleurer son Albert gaîment,' said Mother Constance. 'So we must when the pillars of our joy are taken from us here. And sooner or later we can do so, if we can believe of them that they have become pillars that shall never be removed, with the new Name written upon them, in the House of the Lord above.'