'I can answer for one! But she? People always preach that long engagements wear out a girl's life.'
'If you were sixteen and thirteen over again, I should say, "Don't!" very decidedly; but having gone so far, I think you had best go on. I really believe that not only would an understanding be a great present relief, but that an avowed engagement would be a great comfort and protection to her.'
'I'll never let her go back to that drudgery!' cried Will.
'That you must settle with her,'
'Then I have your sanction?'
'Yes; but I'm not your father!'
'Oh! he'll be jolly and glad! He never interferes with anything in reason! I wonder how Wilmet will look!'
'That must be ascertained by experiment. We must shut up now, Will, or poor Tedo will have another restless night. Good-night!'
'Pah! I should like to go out and halloo!'
'Write a poem instead, and work off the steam!' said Felix, turning down the lamp to get rid of that most unpoetical-looking poet.
Will had announced an intention of walking to Penbeacon in early morning, and when rallied by Angela on having overslept himself, the great audacious slap-dash fellow proved to have turned as shy as a girl. He kept on blushing up to the ears, looking sheepish, and losing opportunities from sheer awkwardness. If the space had been as small, or Felix as punctilious as at John's courtship, the crisis could hardly have come on; but Felix had put off going to Bexley, to see the affair through, and was resolved that the mutual infliction of misery should last no longer. So finding matters instatu quoat dinner-time, he ordered the waggonet, and declaring suddenly that he would protect Cherry through the visits she had to return, he packed in three sisters, declaring, with a twinkle in his eye, that he knew Bobbie wanted to finish her sketch of the church. Clement was gone to the far end of the village, and Bernard was fishing, so that the coast was clear.
But the drawing went on in solitude under the cedar for a quarter of an hour; and when at last a sort of irresolute saunter resulted in a big loosely-built personage reclining on the grass at the sketcher's feet, a good many more minutes were spent in pulling up tufts, while she was too glad to have him there to suggest that he was doing the work of a dozen chaffer-grubs. Indeed, she soon saw that he was ill at ease, and her painting felt the influence of his restlessness, which began to alarm her, though she durst not disturb it. He might mean to have it out with her—he might be composing a poem—to which last opinion she inclined when he at length lay prone on his back, his straw hat entirely over his face; and she expected either a heroic utterance, or a hasty demand for a pencil and a page of her sketch-book. Instead of which, after a deep sigh, came the portentous words—'Double-distilled donkey!'
'Indeed, I don't think he's quite that!' justice compelled her to say.
'There! I knew how it would be! Nothing but an unmitigated idiot could have thought otherwise for a moment!'
'Thought what?' said Robina—not exactly liking to consider the 'unmitigated idiot' meant to apply to herself, the most obvious antecedent.
'Why, I was ten thousand asses for coming out here!'
'Indeed!'
Something in the tone of that 'indeed' raised him to a sitting posture, with his arms embracing his knees, a resolute and deplorable attitude. 'I say, Robina, tell me at once, and put an end to it, whether you care for that sprig of nobility!'
'I!' she cried, her eyes flashing. 'How can you suspect me!' and indignation made it sound like—'insult me!'
'Don't be in such a fury with a poor fellow that has been driven nearly to desperation!' said William, putting an elbow on the chair where her apparatus stood.
'It was your own fault!' said Robina; she meant it to be sternly, but it was softly. 'I wanted to explain to you, but you never would let me!'
'I did not know that you—I mean, that I felt that I had no right to ask!'
'O Willie!'
'Robina! Robin—dearest! Are you thinking of that evening?—Bah! what's this?' as his start forward upset the chair against him.
'The water I was painting with! Let me wipe it. It is making a green stream over your face!' at which they both laughed hysterically; and what Will tried to do to the hands that were drying his face may be inferred from—'Now, don't! Let me do it properly! Be quiet, let me look!' And as he half sat, half knelt, she turned up his great freckled face with her hand under his chin. 'There's a green drop still in the corner of your left eye! Let me take it out.'
'The last drop of the green-eyed monster, I promise you, Robina. Now, don't you know what they always do to good little boys, who have had their faces washed nice and clean?'
'But you haven't been a good little boy! You were very naughty, making me ever so unhappy!' and, smiling as she was, there was a tear not green in her eye.
'Ah! You could never have been so wretched as I was; not knowing whether what was my deepest earnest was child's play to you, and not daring to ask.'
'Just like me!' she whispered.
'And now, is it not like waking out of a horrible dream, or getting out of a mist of darkness, to find that we have had one another's heart ever—ever since? my Robin—mine own—mine own!'
'Oh! indeed it is! I don't think we quite knew what we were doing then, but it has only grown as we have grown older.'
'And will grow for ever, Robina!'
'I trust so!'
'Isn't this rest?' he said presently.
'After all those worries! Oh! I must tell you about Lord Ernest!'
'I don't want to hear a word about Lord Ernest, or Lord Anybody! Bless me, I forgot! I was to let the fellow knew if I could have him up at the farm; and in fact I was waiting to know whether you wanted him made a man of for you!' and Will laughed merrily. 'I'd have done my best, Robin!'
'I do want him made a man of, but not for me,' said Robina, stroking his face, by way of reward for a generosity she could not speak of. 'You'll do it, Willie?'
'He'll be off with it, now!'
'Nonsense! that had nothing at all to do with it. He had been trying to read at home, and it did not answer.'
'Never does!'
'He got bothered, and came to Eweford in a fit of temper. The family did not know where he was, and I thought I ought to show him their letters, and let him see how vexed they were. Felix said I had better let it alone, and I found after all that Lord Ernest had written to his father.'
'Felix knows about us. How is that?'
'I was uncomfortable at his not knowing. I once tried to tell Wilmet, when I was afraid I ought not to keep thenid d'avis;but she said I was a silly child, and would not listen.'
'How lucky! What a delicious time we had at Barèges! It is like a stream of sunshine in my mind. Won't we go there again some day! That would have settled my business, even if there had been no summer evening at home. I've got your sketches up in my rooms, and this one will follow them.'
'If you haven't gone and spoilt it! Look! There's a great dab of blue, that you made me make, half way up the church tower.'
'Make it Clement, in a sky-blue scarlet vestment, pronouncing a benediction!'
'For shame, Willie! that's as bad as Angela. Besides, he isn't gone up as high asthatyet!'
'Make it a forget-me-not, then!'
'Up there! and as big as the window?'
'Make it something! I won't have it washed out. It marks the prime moment of my life—when I came from darkness into sunshine. You must come some day and do our Cathedral from the meads, and I'll show you where I cut out our initials and 1861.'
'No! did you?'
'Of course; and all the more because you would not break a sixpence. You will now?'
'With all my heart!'
'I declare I haven't got one now! Only a three-penny bit, again.'
'Here's one!' said Robina. 'Give me the three-penny, and then it will be half from each.'
'That's not the right arrangement,' said Will, as he frowned horribly over the difficulty of dividing the coin. 'I say, I'll get you a ring to-morrow, though it won't be such a one as Jack's.'
'No, it will be much better!' said Robina, taking the scissors at her chatelaine, (from a Repworth Christmas-tree,) and snipping a lock from his head, while he was still struggling with the sixpence. 'There, I shall make that into a ring! Yes it is the only one I will have—the only gold I care for.'
'If you call that gold, it is decisive,' said Will, laughing, as she twined the ruddy thing in her fingers. 'You must have something to set it in?'
'Yes; I must wait till the chestnut horse comes home, for a few hairs of his mane for a foundation—black would show through.'
Bill protested in favour of 'a real one,' but without much effect. Was not the sixpence yielding at last? and had she not that precious bird's-nest, which she had not dared to wear during his displeasure, unwitting that this grieved him the more? They were very earnest over the old-fashioned ceremony of the sixpence; they scratched a W and an R on each moiety, and made a hole, and Robina undertook the finding a cord for each. It was playfully done, but with great depth beneath.
'It has been the homely token of a great deal of simple trust!' said Will.
'And I am sure we are poor enough!' added Robina.
'But you will never go back to that abominable harness?'
'Indeed I must! No, Will! Cannot you see how wrong and foolish it would be to be living on Felix, with nothing to do, and no one wanting me?'
'No one?'
'Cherry is all the world to Felix, and teaches Stella. Angela takes the parish work; and it would be a sin and shame to waste my education in dawdling here. Even dear old Lancey is too much taken up with his music to want me to keep house for him. I should only be in his way; and I do not want to enter on all the questions about society there!'
'No; Bexley would not do for you!'
'And when I am getting one hundred pounds now, and am to have one hundred and fifty after Christmas, when Miss Oswald goes, would it not be sheer waste and laziness to come and prey on Felix, when I might be earning a nice little nest-egg to furnish our house with?'
'That's to coax me; but I can't stand your working for me!'
'I might as well say I can't stand your working for me, you silly fellow! You don't see me crying at your keeping pupils at Penbeacon.'
'Yes, but I'm the right one!'
'I declare you've been learning of my godmothers, who say it is unworthy of a man to let his womankind work. A regular Mahometan notion, isn't it? And I shall get my holidays whenever you are available. Don't you see?'
'I see it exactly in Miss Hepburn's light. Men must work!'
'And women weep! Eh? I've no intention of weeping! I much prefer working, and I do no more than is wholesome for any person's well-being. I believe it is Green-eyes again?'
'No; I'm not afraid of you, my own, own steady-hearted Bird! I never would have been, had I known whether you viewed that evening walk as play or earnest. I've done with that sort of trouble; but I should like to lift you out of all the drudgery of work-a-day life, and give you all that heart could wish!'
'The heart of a bird of paradise!' said she, looking into his face; 'the heart of a robin red-breast gets much nearer what it wishes when it is working—working for you, you know! Ay! that's so sweet, that you want to get it all for yourself!'
'My sweetest Bird! before you have talked me quite out of my senses, with your poetical way of putting it, let me say that you and I don't work on equal terms. There's the rub!'
'Oh! You're ashamed of the governess?'
'No indeed, dearest; but that you—you—equal to any in birth—should be in an inferior position!'
'Lord Earnestlypoor!' announced Amelia, in one single word, as she advanced on them from the house, with the gentleman following. 'He asked for Mr. Harewood.'
Up they sprung, holding out their hands.
'I thought I might walk over for my answer,' he said, with a sense of interrupting something.
William gave a conscious laugh. 'I'm afraid I've not been up to Penbeacon yet.'
'I think,' said Robina, rallying her powers, 'we had better make our avowal at once. Lord Ernest, we want your congratulations. We have been engaged this long time, and my eldest brother has just given us leave to make it known.'
Good breeding and self-command might perhaps be what prevented all sign of aught but frank friendliness. 'Indeed! I wish you joy with all my heart. Does Grace know?'
'I am going to write to Grace.'
'She will be very unselfish if she rejoices.'
'I don't think it will make any difference for some time to come,' said Robina.
'You see,' said Will, 'we neither of us have anything; and she will have it that she is so happy among your sisters, that it is no hardship to go on as she is.'
'My mother will say that it is as great a compliment as ever she received.—Well, Harewood! when you can think of such sublunary matters as pupils, will you let me know? I wouldn't have interrupted you, but I had no notion anything so interesting was going on!'
He was so genuinely simple and hearty, that Will was impelled to try whether he still wished to be his pupil, by asking whether he would object to sleeping at a cottage. 'Not in the least!' he said, 'it would be rather jolly! All I want is for you to work me up. I feel more bound than ever not to come to grief, now they have let me take my way,' he added, with frankness satisfactory to both.
Will entered into particulars of the accommodations, and Robina interposed warnings against his statements till verified by her sister's inspection. These two were really lovers of too long standing to be overwhelmingly engrossed, but were rather like beings lightened of a heavy load of suspense; and when the question between the two gentlemen began as to the books he should write for from home, he diversified it by saying to Robina—'I brought my father's letter. Would you like to see it?'
Probably he had meant to read selections, and gave it to her only because this was impossible, and he really wanted to justify his recent words.
Lord de la Poer fulfilled the assertion that he would not be displeased with his son's independence, provided he should persevere in exertion. There was a kindly expressed but not the less real warning, that the examination at Oxford would be the test whether this were a manly spirit or mere restive impatience. Full permission to read with Mr. Harewood, or any one he preferred, was given. Mr. Crichton had perceived that the system of study at home did not answer. 'When the class-list comes out,' wrote the Marquess, 'it will be time to consider of the future; but I promise that you shall not find yourself withheld from any suitable course, by any wishes that may have been prematurely expressed. That whole subject may be considered as closed. If your present plans are inspired by any other views, I trust to your treating me with confidence.'
That was the only sentence in which any suspicion could be detected. How Robina rejoiced that Felix had prevented the confession that would have been so ridiculous now! Of Lady Caergwent there was not a word. If Lord de la Poer knew of any grief at the defection, he regarded himself as in honour bound not to betray her.
Robina was waiting to restore the letter for a pause in the discussion of Greek plays and moral philosophy, which was the prelude to the licking into shape, though in externals the tutor looked by far the most in need of the process, when Amelia made another incursion, and this time announced, 'Miss Hepburn'—who proved to be two of the sisters—Bridget and Isabella; but introductions not being the prevailing custom at Repworth Towers, Robina did not feel called on to make any, and indeed William had been at Vale Leston as long as she had. But they had never met face to face before, and the ladies resented the omission, returned the bows stiffly, and when she said, 'My sisters are gone out to make morning visits,' the answer was, 'Yes, my sister Martha saw them, and we thought you would be alone.'
'Thank you. Will you come into the drawing-room, or do you like sitting out-of-doors?—Willie, please ring, and ask for some tea.'
'No, thank you! We will not disturb you. We did not know you were engaged!'
Will took the word technically, and started; Lord Ernest kept his countenance with difficulty; but Robina had sense enough to understand, and say, 'I only stayed at home to finish a sketch. These afternoon lights and shades are particularly becoming to the church.' And Lord Ernest, bringing some chairs to the rescue, applied himself with ready courtesy to make talk, though praise of the choir was hardly a happy subject to start. He did his best with Miss Isabella, while Robina faltered through ten minutes of cold commonplace with Miss Bridget.
About a quarter of an hour later, Major Harewood, who was working out the problem whether prudence would allow him to exchange military engineering for high farming as the Squire's agent, looked up at the sight of his wife in hat and parasol.
'Are you going out, my dear? Is it not too hot?'
'Only to the Priory.'
'There's nobody at home. Kit saw "Uncle Fee" and all the aunties going out in the carriage.'
'Not Robina. Miss Isabella Hepburn has just been here, to warn me that she found her sitting on the lawn, alone with two young men!'
'Bernard and Theodore?'
'No, no; of course she knows them by sight. I shall go down. I expect it is that young De la Poer; and either Robin does not know how to get rid of him, and will be glad to see me, or else she ought to be!'
'Those are the ladies that are said to have but one tooth,' said John, taking up hat and stick.
'There's no need to disturb you. Only I feel it the more expedient to be near. I am much vexed at this beginning. I never expected it from Robina. She is worse than Angel!'
'Poor Robin! There's been something amiss with her all the week, as well as with Bill. I wonder if there is anything in the Bailey joke about them?'
'Most certainly not,' said Wilmet; 'I am much more afraid of the other thing. I always thought her choosing to stay at Repworth suspicious!'
'I don't believe it! I saw them come up after she had been lost at Ewmouth, as innocent as lambs! Her manner was perfectly simple and natural.'
'I don't understand Robina's manner,' said Wilmet.
Walking down the hilly slope of the path, they presently were aware of a pair with arms and hands doubly interlaced, in the fashion peculiar to the circumstances.
'John!'
'Wilmet! Was there never a blackberry lane in our lives?'
'Not without—Robina!'
They turned, but without confusion, without loosing of arms, or if Robina had attempted it, it was checked.
'Oh! there you are, John!' exclaimed Will 'So you see we have settled it at last!'
'I do not know what you mean,' said Wilmet, gravely.
'O Wilmet!' said Robina. 'I told you all about it, long ago, at Barèges.'
'If you consider that as any intimation—' she began; but her husband interrupted her. 'I suppose Felix has yet to hear this?'
'Oh no!' both cried; Will adding, 'Felix created this vast solitude on our behalf!'
'Your father?' added Wilmet.
'He went away a day too soon; but there's no fear of him, is there, Jack?'
'You all seem to me demented!' said Wilmet aghast.
'Nay, Mettie, if you knew it at Barèges, you can't say a word!' said John, much amused.
'Always sending us up the mountains together!' added Will. 'No one ever gave me such a happy time of it!'
'Giving me leave to keep the brooch!' continued Robina, chiming in with their humour.
'Why, 'tis your doing,' summed up the Major; 'and I trust it is a good work for both!' he gravely proceeded. 'I wish you joy, with all my heart, though I fear I must wish you patience too!'
'And prudence!' put in Wilmet, but softening into sweetness. 'Dear Robin—dear Willie—don't think I don't care!' as she gave a sisterly kiss to each. 'It is because I do care so very much for both that I am anxious!'
'Anxiety was your meat and drink so early in life that you can't shake it off now!' said John, affectionately; 'and Harewood as I am, I should share it with you, if I didn't know that Bill's choice much resembles her elder sister!'
'You may say that!' observed Will. 'Why, she wants to go on in harness at Repworth!'
'That is wise!' responded Wilmet.
'But, halloo!' cried John, 'did your friend see double, Mettie?—or what have you done with your other young man, Robina?'
'Walked him to the little gate! He came to settle about reading with Willie.'
'I say!' cried William, laughing, 'did the Graiæ go and send Wilmet to put on her Gorgon's head, and charge down on us? I thought they were looking as sour as verjuice!'
'You see,' proceeded Wilmet, 'we must all be careful! It won't do to fancy one can do anything in the country. These old ladies don't do it out of ill-nature, like Lady Price, but they are almost worse!'
'However, Mettie, as these poor things have been subjected already to one Oxonian and two hags, I think you and I had better relieve them of our presence, and let them finish their walk in peace.'
Putting things together, Robina thought she had not wholly escaped doubt at Repworth, for she received no letter between the inquiry into the K T case, and the answers to her own communication, and these so overflowed with affection and cordiality, as to suggest that they were a reaction. Lady de la Poer wrote warm congratulations, and spoke of her eldest son's high opinion of Mr. Harewood; she was rejoiced at Miss Underwood's decision to return to her post, and she gave a few words of thanks for the explanation about the children's chatter: 'Susie has been well lectured on Russian scandal!' was her conclusion.
Lady Grace was rapturous enough to think she had seen the future dawning at the station. Poor Grace! she certainly was rather gushing, and probably it was the contrast that made her so devoted to the staid Robina. She let out that she was 'so glad to write again. Mamma had advised her not, for fear of more misunderstandings, till it was settled about Ernest; and now he must bring Mr. Harewood to Repworth for her to see. As to Kate, she was still at the Towers; the Wardours had the small-pox in their parish, and could not have her.' Grace had evidently been put under some reserve as to the Countess; but there was a note from herself—quaint and hearty, like all she did, and with a little sadness in it. There was no such intimacy as to render it necessary, and Robina interpreted the writing of it to mean that there had once been bitter feelings towards her, and that this was their recall.
MY DEAR MISS UNDERWOOD,Gracie tells me you have been well employed. I heartily wish you joy. A university tutor seems to me as mighty a power of influence as any in existence, but I suppose it is your mission to spoil him for that. Lucky girl that you are, to have work and brothers and all! You don't know how much it saves you from. One brother is all I would have asked, if only to prevent me from signing myself,Yours affectionately,CAERGWENT.
MY DEAR MISS UNDERWOOD,
Gracie tells me you have been well employed. I heartily wish you joy. A university tutor seems to me as mighty a power of influence as any in existence, but I suppose it is your mission to spoil him for that. Lucky girl that you are, to have work and brothers and all! You don't know how much it saves you from. One brother is all I would have asked, if only to prevent me from signing myself,
Yours affectionately,CAERGWENT.
The secret history must evidently wait for Robina's return, and before that there was a great deal of conscientious hard work at Penbeacon, the tutor resolutely refraining from walks to Vale Leston, except when, on Sunday, he and his whole party marched down to what he called 'prayers and provender,' at Vale Leston. Also there was one, only one, picnic given by the Penbeaconites to the Vale Lestonites, during the week when the Squire inexorably went to Bexley, and sent Lance to be the merriest of the merry on the last of August, and to make acquaintance with the hares and partridges on the 1st of September.
At the end of that week, in the early charms of September, with the sheaves glorifying the fields, the fruit glowing on the trees, the pears drooping in russet drops, the apples piled in red and golden heaps, the geraniums and verbenas flaming on the lawn, Felix brought Mr. and Mrs. Froggatt, for what was probably as happy and exultant a visit as ever they paid in their joint lives. To see Felix in his glory was almost as much to them as if he had been their own child, and they were intimate enough to make it possible to provide for their entertainment perfectly to their satisfaction. The home-farm, which was to be let to Major Harewood, with a tariff for the articles needed for family consumption, afforded Mrs. Froggatt great amusement in studying chickens and ducks; and the agent's house, a pretty cottage on the opposite bank, was being improved at John's expense, so as to be ready for occupation as soon as he could effect his retirement and break up from Woolwich; and every one knows the resource house-building is to the leisurely holiday-maker. Indeed, Mr. Froggatt wanted nothing but his book and newspaper, and a little talk and garden fancying; and the petting Cherry and Stella gave him. The tender reverent affection all the young people showed to both, as to their true friends and benefactors, warmed their hearts.
One state-dinner—in spite of his disavowal of dinner visiting—Felix had always resolved to give, chiefly for the sake of the satisfaction he knew Mrs. Froggatt would for ever feel in it. He had to pick the other guests, but he secured a sufficiency. Dr. May had promised himself and his two daughters. Of Mrs. Staples Cherry was afraid, but Mr. Staples came, and Mr. and Mrs. Welsh, which was the more amiable in him because there had been a time in his life when Mr. and Mrs. Froggatt would have been far above him. Lord Ernest came down from Penbeacon, and thus, with the Harewoods and the large home-party, the numbers were quite imposing; especially with the display of all the plate, champagne, ices, Krishnu, and even Cherry's abomination, a hired waiter in white gloves!
It was not thrown away. Mrs. Froggatt was indeed a little awed in the Bismarck brocade and blonde cap she would have been so sorry not to have aired; but Dr. May found the way to her heart, even before dinner, by admiring the testimonial inkstand which adorned the drawing-room writing-table, and its story and all it led to lasted more than half through dinner, and Gertrude caught echoes even while fraternizing with Major Harewood over her brother in the engineers. After dinner, good-natured little Mrs. Welsh, to the manner trained, took to entertaining the old lady, and though the style was too electioneering for Cherry's taste, it suited the purpose exactly, and made Mrs. Froggatt pronounce her a very pretty and affable young lady.
Even if there had been less enjoyment at the time, that dinner-party would have been one of the chief events of Mrs. Froggatt's life. She never wearied of dilating on it to all the friends who called on her, on her return. 'She should have thought it a privilege only to see that dear young gentleman in his proper sphere; but for him to treat the old people as he might any lord in the land, and show himself as attentive, as filial, she might say, as if he still had his bread to earn!' and there she always began to cry.
'One effect your dinner-party has had,' wrote Lance to Cherry, 'it has wholly destroyed the small remains of Madame Tanneguy's peace of mind. What she does not believe of the glories of the Priory it would be hard to say. She angled full two half-hours for an invitation last time the Squire was here, between her affection for you—and then poor little Achille's health. And the effect upon that stony-hearted old Giant was, that he sent two ten-pound notes to Miss Pearson, with a request to take lodgings for her and the children at Dearport for a month. Wherewith Miss Pearson trotted confidentially to me, to assure me that she could not use them, since nothing on earth ailed Achille. I advised her to keep and apply them; for not only do I know he would not take them back, but it is no bad form of intimating that she may change to any air save Vale Leston. And the absurd part of it is, that the more she aspires, the more poor Lamb casts his hopeless sheep's-eyes at her!'
'Yet there are some resting-places,Life's untroubled interludes;Times when neither past nor futureOn the soul's deep calm intrudes.'Jean Ingelow.
That Penbeacon pic-nic became an institution, and was one of the pleasantest annual events in what were on the whole very happy years.
Care, exertion, and self-denial, were indeed still needful; but the two latter were perhaps ingredients of happiness, and care would not have been avoided if the Underwood view of duty had been the world's views of what became Vale Leston Priory. A strenuous endeavour to keep up appearances, and compete with grand neighbours on an uncertain three thousand a year, would probably have been more wearing than living on twelve hundred—partly earned by honest labour—and improving the cottages, planting a school-chapel at Blackstone Gulley, hiring a house for the purpose at East Ewmouth, and restoring the church by degrees.
As for exertion, to be an Underwood of the late type would have been harder work to Felix than his hours of Pursuivant or days at the office, though in truth the labour was sometimes considerable. It was not immediately that the two young men at Bexley could get on without constant aid and superintendence in the business: he was always the working editor; besides which, he was already important at Bexley, and soon was found too good a man of business not to have a good deal of county administration devolved upon him. Trade and public affairs did so far clash as to be a strain, but not more than was compensated by sense of usefulness and consideration, and giving zest to the delightful snatches of leisure in his lovely and cheerful home.
Self-denial? Felix and Geraldine would have disputed that. They had grown up to a style that made simple plenty and moderate ease luxurious, and superfluities never even suggested themselves as needs. Perhaps the lack they were most concerned about was inability to 'keep up the place' in the trim and dainty order it seemed to call for. The smoothness of the grass in the park was dependent on the convenience of John Harewood's dairy farm; and though the garden between the house and river was always in beautiful order, in the shrubberies there was a fine struggle of natural selection; the kitchen-gardens were made to pay their way, and the ranges of conservatories were cold and empty, except one necessary refuge for tenderer plants, and one maintained at Clement's expense for Church-decorating flowers. Golightly was greatly distressed at having no underlings but one old woman, one small boy, and half the man who looked after the horse and pony, or sometimes—what was worse than none—some subject to whom the Vicar was applying the labour-test. The worthy gardener truly represented that three men was the minimum for such grounds, and gave warning when he found that justice could not be done them; but after Felix had found him a much superior place, he declined; he could not find it in his heart to leave the place to an untrained labourer, who would not even know how to help devastating it. This sense of what was the garden's due caused him to bestow an immense amount of personal toil on it; for indeed it was observable that whoever worked for Felix always did so with a will, stimulated no doubt by the master's example, as well as by his hearty appreciation and acknowledgment of good service. In this there was much real economy.
The farm did well in the hands of Major Harewood, who had adapted the agent's house to his own needs. It was just on the other side of the river and road; and a boat, commonly called 'Lord Ullin's Daughter,' brought it within five minutes' reach, going round by the bridge taking about three times that interval. The land was chiefly rich pasture; and John was growing learned in short-horns, and Wilmet upon butter and cheese, while Clement's wish was realized by a parish cow.
The calculations as to the scale of living were justified by the result. Lighter household tasks were natural to the young ladies. They kept their own rooms in order, dusted the books and ornaments, took care of the household linen, and performed delicate cookeries, so as to keep down the number of needful servants; and the occasions were few and far between when their hospitality extended beyond the addition of a few guests at their ordinary meals, or a garden-party, with its pretty and inexpensive refections.
People who restored their church and built schools, without begging for subscriptions either directly or through a bazaar, but continued in trade, and cut off superfluous luxuries—servants, horses, and dinner-parties—were a fertile subject for wonder and gossip in the neighbourhood. Society growled, contemned, and remonstrated, by the mouth of Mrs. Fulbert Underwood, and the defence of her misguided family was a heavy charge to Wilmet for the first year; but no one worth caring about really took umbrage, and after a time people accepted them on their own terms. A beautiful lawn, full of sprightly youth, of looks, spirits, and talents, above the average, could not fail to be popular, and an old county name went for something.
Cherry was proof against dinner-parties. Health was no longer an objection, for either Vale Leston had the virtues of native air, or the Bexley potteries had merited Alda's vituperation, for Cherry's ailments were more rare, and she had much advanced in strength and vigour. Felix declared she was growing quite handsome; and he, though not exactly the ideal squire, had acquired much more of the robustness of manhood, and had lost the appearance of fragility he had shown in earlier years, though he retained the fair youthful complexion which sometimes made people hardly credit that his tens were three. He sometimes dined out alone; but Cherry considered dress and reciprocity to settle the question of abstinence for her. Angela was, however, so wild about Ewmouth balls, that John victimized himself and his wife rather than create a grievance, but even his tolerance was sorely taxed.
Was the blame to be laid on prosperity for the difficulty of dealing with the two standing anxieties—Angela and Bernard? They had not been the most docile subjects in the days of comparative poverty, and their heads were certainly turned now. Bernard could not be convinced that expensiveness was not the proof of being a gentleman, and in three years at Harrow cost his brother more than Clement, Fulbert, and Lancelot, all put together, in their whole nonage, had ever done, besides the scrapes that Lance helped him out of. He had no sympathy with Felix's purpose in economy; not that he had reflection enough for a sceptical habit of mind like Edgar's, but he considered it a hardship that the whole family should be stinted and impoverished for what he was pleased to term Tina's maggots; nor could anything persuade him that he himself was no richer than before, and equally dependent on his brother's bounty. There was no positive harm in him, but as genius and taste alike lay in the line of cricket, he cared not for distinction of other kinds, but was content to scrape through the school without disgrace. His farther destiny was a moot point, while he scorned cheap colleges and halls, and Felix insisted that a distinguished one was only to be attained through a scholarship.
Angela was a greater puzzle. She was still much what she had been in childhood, alternating between the fast and the devotional. She was Clement's right hand in the parish, in the schools, Sunday, day, or night, and with even more than Wilmet's nursing instinct, the prime doctress of the village, and enjoying the cure of a broken chilblain as much as a waltz. To take a medical degree had become her ambition in turns with the dukedom, the opera, and the Sisterhood. Therewith she was the most saucy and idle of creatures. With less regular good looks than most of the family, she was more sought after. Figure did much, the hop-pole had become lithe and graceful, and her dress was always becoming, as well it might be, for her bills were never within bounds. She said she could not help it, and certainly her adventurous nature and rapid movements occasioned numerous catastrophes to her wardrobe, though not enough to account for the discrepancy between her accounts and her sisters'. Her charm lay in droll dash and audacity, and the irresistible glance of her eyes. Even Christopher and his little brother Edward preferred her to all their other aunts—the night-school was gathered by her as to a magnet, and better than all the Vicar's arguments and the Squire's influence had her coaxing prevailed to get the choir into surplices. She was by far the most formidable as well as the most unscrupulous adversary of the poor Miss Hepburns, who viewed her with pious pity and horror as the natural outcome of the system they deprecated. Indeed, whether she were Clement's greatest help or hindrance was doubtful. He could not have a friend to stay with him, or obtain the assistance of a curate, without furnishing prey for Angela. Fred Somers, after a six weeks' visit, went back to St Matthew's with his peace upset, and an understanding that the two friends must never meet again in the haunts of that dangerous siren. A few more such experiments convinced the Vicar that unless he wished the village girls to remark that 'Miss Angel was carrying on with another young man,' he must do all the work himself; and his present amount of services, Sunday and weekly, at the parish church, and Blackstone Gulley, were quite up to the mark of any one man's powers, besides his attempts at East Ewmouth. Here Felix had no property, and therefore could not check the eruption of small tenements, which broke forth on some fresh field every spring, containing independent, often surly inhabitants, always changing, and rapidly outrunning the powers of the undaunted young Vicar. The two parishes were so entangled that the difficulties as to territory were endless, and the endeavour at a week-day service was not encouraged or assisted by the incumbent of the nearest district, who feared Clement's 'views,' and had been staggered by Angela's ostentation of them.
Angela was the greater heartache to Clement, because she had been trained in the same system with himself, and was inclined to carry it to lengths that even he thought extravagant. There might have been some disadvantage in his inexperience when she came into his hands for direction only at the end of his first year of priesthood, and he would fain have kept her in Mr. Fulmort's keeping; but difficulties had prevented his insistence, and this he increasingly regretted. For in spite of all his efforts, his relations with her were lapsing into what he had always scouted as the popular notion of confession. It was technical, as far as he could see devoid of repentance. Angela contrived to separate the brother and the priest; she would go through any formula, accept any discipline, but mechanically; but she would not endure exhortation, and if he ever attempted to check her boisterous spirits, she scouted him as Tina. Sometimes he wondered whether she sought him only because the practice belonged to what she called an 'out-and-outer,' and Felix retained doubts of its universal expediency.
Did Angela suppress Stella? Never were sisters less alike. Princess Fair Star, as the brothers called her, was still very small, with a lovely little face, tinted like fine porcelain, and hair and eyes more deeply coloured than those of most of the family; hair still snooded and in shining curls, and pensive eyes shining with a lustre of their own. She was the help and handmaid of the whole house, especially of Geraldine, with whom she still did regular lessons; and she was very diligent in all her doings, turning out her handiwork with delicate finish; but she was not enterprising, the very pains she took rendering her slow to undertake, though she spent much time in finishing Angela's odds and ends. She still continued the family lexicon, for even if she could not answer a query off-hand, she could always hunt it down, and the reply was generally ready in the soft low musical voice. Her laugh was noiseless and not frequent, for though never fretful nor depressed, she was only gently merry, pensively gay; and though now and then a quaint remark would drop into the whirl of family fun—and she was no inconsiderable element in games—she was always as happy, if not happier, in the garden or the woods with Theodore, their pets and flowers. She was devoted to the garden, its trimness was in great part owing to her; and as Golightly said, 'The bookets for the 'ouse was Miss Stella's province, and them for the church Miss Hangela's;' and of live-stock the twins tended a curious variety—rabbits, doves, cats, dogs, canaries, dormice, and owls, besides wounded creatures, rescued, cured, and released. Stella's quietness was a great ingredient in taming them; John Harewood called her the only feminine creature devoid of propensity for making a noise, and Felix, their silent Star
'Up above the world so high,Like a diamond in the sky.'
Sometimes she would talk freely to Geraldine on any unusual excitement, but if she conversed with any one else, it was with Theodore. No one who watched the pair could doubt that they had more mutual understanding than the boy had with any other person—even Felix, for whom his love was like a dog's devotion to his master. The out-of-door life and country air had been beneficial both to mind and body, and Theodore was much healthier and stronger, made progress in the little that he could be taught; could utter a few words, comprehended more than he could pronounce, and improved in self-control. His conscience was developing in some degree, and his delight in the Church services and music less unintelligent.
Perhaps Stella was content to be the longer a child because each advance into life was further away from Theodore; and she had never yet shed such sorrowful tears as when Clement decided against presenting him for Confirmation, in the inability to trace whether the comprehension that Stella maintained, and Felix believed, were not an illusion of their loving imagination.
Yet strangely enough, Theodore was confirmed after all. He was as usual among the choir-boys, walking in procession with them, and materially aiding them by his perfectly true though wordless chant. His nearest companions were candidates, and he moved instinctively with them to the step; nor had either brother the heart to interfere as they saw him kneeling—for though he could not renew the vow, why might he not receive the Seal? The tickets had been previously taken, so there was no obstacle; and when explanation and apology were afterwards made, they were met with encouragement not to debar the innocent from his Christian privileges because of his lack of power of expression.
Indeed, the Bishop, who had been dismayed at the institution to the family living of another Underwood, and he such a young one, was not a little gratified and surprised at the changes he found going on in Vale Leston—no longer one of the dark hopeless spots of his diocese, though of course the work, both moral and material, was gradual. Felix had done nothing in advance of the means that the great tithes brought into his hands, and had begun with the needful repairs of the cottages on the Rectory property, and the crying needs of Blackstone Gulley; but the Church restoration was gradually going on—the Vicar, Marilda, and John Harewood, all claimed a right to assist, and another year or two of the great tithes would accomplish the full detail of the plan of restoration he had set out with.
Meantime he had made many real friends. The one whom he had reckoned had, however, been disappointing. Captain Audley had exerted himself to leave his cards, but when he had reason to believe no one at home. He was friendly when he encountered Felix, and sometimes on the spur of the moment asked him to dinner; but the ladies he ignored, except that once when Cherry and Angel were driving past his house in a shower, he rushed out and offered an umbrella.
His son, however, soon haunted the Priory, as affording all that home lacked. He was a nice lively lad, dark and brisk, and not the less welcome because there was much to recall the Charles Audley who was striving to bring light to the 'black fellows' of Carrigaboola. He was avowedly Bernard's friend, but he was regularly tame about the house, walking in at all times during his vacations, in a way that could not be grudged to one whose home was so dull. Certainly it was a pleasant house to young men; Wilmet sometimes murmured a little when all Will Harewood's pupils appeared there at luncheon every Sunday of the stay at Penbeacon; and the old ones invariably turned up again, especially Lord Ernest, who had taken a second class and got into a government office, and yet always managed to appear at each Penbeacon pic-nic.
The first shadow which came upon Vale Leston was good Mr. Froggatt's death, a grief really deep to those who owed so much to his kindness. It was a touching thing to see the four fine young men, who looked on him like a kinsman, gathered round his grave. Felix and Lance were far more to the widow than her own nephews; and when married nieces wanted to take her home, and single ones to live with her, she—not without misgivings as to the nature of the attraction—declined all, preferring to face her solitude at Marshlands, in the security that dear Mr. Lancelot would walk out to see her once or twice a week, and that still dearer Mr. Underwood would come out whenever he could.
It ended in Lance doing more than this. He had been a partner ever since he had come to years of discretion, and now found himself the legatee of all Mr. Froggatt's remaining interest in Pursuivant or business. Ernest Lamb had lately lost his father, and having come into possession of a slender capital, was in condition to become one of the house, as indeed he was excellent in whatever regarded the trade, though incapable of more than the most mechanical newspaper work.
The new arrangement of Underwood and Co. had hardly been made than the world was electrified by the announcement of Mr. Lamb's engagement. That Madame Tanneguy had been adored by him ever since her arrival was known to all; but hitherto she had only vouchsafed a distracting smile at long intervals, and had laughed at him with her intimates. Her opportunities were not extensive, but she was as pretty as ever; and she turned the heads of one or two brothers of her pupils, had at one time a promising little flirtation with a sentimental young partner of Mr. Rugg's, and never ceased to dream of an invitation to Vale Leston, which she was quite sure Geraldine alone withheld poor Mr. Underwood from giving. But Gustavus and Achilles were growing rather big for inmates of a young ladies' school, Madame Tanneguy was weary of the drudgery, and no such positive release as Ernest Lamb offered had come in her way. His mother's opposition could be set aside, between coaxing and unwillingness to quarrel; and though he was some years the younger, he did not look it, nor could there be any doubt that he would be the best of husbands, and a kind and conscientious father to the boys; and the aunts, though drawing up their necks a little when they spoke of it in private, could not deny that it was a subject of thankfulness—making their future retirement come within the bounds of possibility.
'Guess the proposal I have had,' quoth Felix, when next he returned from Bexley, and Cherry drove to meet him at the station with the pony she had named Master Ratton, in that sort of tender defiance of painful association found in those who own an exile.
'Eh! You don't look humbly cock-a-hoop, so I gather it wasnotto stand for the borough.'
'Why don't you say the county at once? No, it was of a less public nature.'
'Oh, then, I know! To give up the house to the happy pair. What? You don't mean that it really was? That beats everything!'
'Well—it is undeniable that those are large quarters for Lance, his cat, and his fiddle.'
'I do believe you have been and gone and consented! Well?' with a sigh, as if she did not know what might come next.
'As it was purely out of consideration for Lance, I referred it to him.'
'Oh! it was all for Lance's sake—was it?'
'Entirely!'
There was a dryness in the last two replies, that pacified Cherry a little.
'How Serious Mutton must be translated, to have the face—'
'He hadn't!'
'What? Alice did?'
'Yes. I believe that he had refused; but, you see, when Lance's comfort was at stake, she was not to be withholden by a scruple or two.'
'Come—tell me how she managed it. Did she write?'
'No; she chose her time. Lance was gone to that Minsterham affair, reporting—Lamb out of the way—when I heard a playful sort of little tap at the office door, and there she stood, smiling and blushing.'
'Blushing!!!'
'I'll not insist, but so it appeared to me. I assure you she did the thing to perfection—smiled and hesitated, and said she thought it was a pity to letmauvaise hontestand in the way of what would be so much better for Lance and all of us.'
'What, she wanted to have the house anddofor him?'
'As one of the family!' then, taking no notice of Cherry's 'Faugh!' he went on, 'It was curious to look at her as she sat there, and think of the difference she was able to make; yet in many ways she is superior to what she was then, and certainly prettier; but I own that my feelings for herthenseem an unaccountable infatuation.'
'Accountable only because you never spoke to anyone else, and did not rave about the customers, like Lance. I am glad you were in triple brass, though—and I can't help enjoying her having come to sue for the shop that she used to despise.'
'Fie, Cherry!'
'I declare! I believe you have gone and consented, after all that bravado!'
'I left it to Lance. Don't be furious, Cherry; the boy has had more loneliness than is good for him since Dick Graeme has been in London, and as he has his own notions about companionship, I was not sure that he might not catch at it.'
'I have a better opinion of Lance.'
'And justly. But what he wants to do is to leave the old house to Madame, and betake himself to Mrs. Froggatt. He says—truly enough—that every evening he has free of his choir-practice, penny readings, and all the rest of it, he should go out to look her up, and that this would simplify the matter, and nothing would do the poor old lady so much good as seeing him.'
'That's true; but to be going out there at all times, and in all weathers!'
'That is nuts to him! Don't you know he has got a velocipede fever? He has set up a thing that he calls Plato.'
'Un play toe, I should have thought.'
'It is Plato, because Mrs. Harewood announced that he and Bill had come all the way to Minsterham, each upon his own philosopher.'
'I declare they make up things for that poor woman.'
'Or she makes them on purpose for their diversion; but at any rate, Plato is lord of the ascendant just now, and demands exercise as if he were flesh and blood. I own I was glad to see the boy in a craze again.'
'And letting Pur alone. It was very droll that the passion for making that diurnal instead of weekly, set in with him just at the same age that it did with you.'
'Yes. I am much obliged to Alda for nipping my plans in the bud.'
'The dignified weekly purr is not to change into a little petulant daily mew!'
'No. It was a manifestation of restlessness, like his wanting new stops for his organ, or being annoyed when there is a murmur against over-elaborate music. I am afraid the fact is that he has outgrown the whole concern, Cherry!'
'You never did!'
'That's nothing to the purpose. He has done all he can do with his present means, and no doubt he is thrown away down there.'
'He never says so. And it is quite hard to get him here.'
'I wish I had not consented to leaving him there. That boyish coolness and audacity that used to rush into all kinds of society are quite gone, and there is no persuading him that he is not in a false position among our neighbours.'
'He gets more into society at Bexley than ever you did.'
'Oh yes, he has quite made his place there; but there's no denying that he has been left behind; and though he says not a word, there's no doubt that since he went up to Oxford he has felt it a good deal more. Well, in a couple of years at latest, the Rectory affair will be settled; and if I can get Blackstone Gulley into my own hands, I may be able to set him free.'
Lance had been to take a musical degree, and had spent a week with William Harewood at Christ Church; and it might be true that the vague spirit of enterprise for which Bexley afforded so little scope had become remarkable since that time. However, no more was heard of it during the preparations for installing the bride in the new home. Robina came for the first fortnight of her holidays to take her leave of the old rooms, and help in the removal of his belongings to Marshlands, where the arrangement was as great a pleasure as poor Mrs. Froggatt was capable of receiving. Moreover, Robina assisted in another great change. Miss Pearson had—by Felix's management in conjunction with some others interested in middle-class education—been enabled to retire; the house and good-will of the establishment being made over to the governing body of Miss Fulmort's school. Two ladies were provided from thence, who undertook to make a home both for young teachers and daily governesses, and were likely to raise the standard in Bexley. They were old friends of Robina, and she did much to settle them in, and pave their way. After this Robina went to Minsterham for one of the brief visits that were never satisfactory, for Grace Harewood had made a foolish marriage in the town, and Lucy did not improve, but became louder and more daring, her native cleverness only making her more unrefined and less simple than her mother. The Librarian never wondered that his son soon escaped to his pupils at Penbeacon, and the Vale Leston neighbourhood.
Before Robina had been many days at home, one Saturday forenoon when she was undergoing Cherry's third attempt to satisfy unreasonable Will with her portrait, while assisting Stella's German, Angela rushed in—'One to make ready, two to prepare—one, two, three, if not four swells—not away, but here—Hammonds, et cetera.'
'Here? Not imminent? Lady Hammond always sends notice.'
'Imminent? They are prancing up the drive! Only I cut across in "Miss Ullin" to give warning. Shall I administer any orders to the dinner, Cherry, before I make myself scarce?'
'No, thank you, there is quite enough. Just take my painting-apron, that's all,' said Cherry, as coolly as Lady de la Poer would have heard tidings of such an inroad; but when Amelia announced, 'Sir Vesey and Lady Hammond in the drawing-room—and two more ladies, Ma'am—shall I lay the table for them?' she quietly answered, 'Yes, I suppose so.—Stella my dear, will you see if there is fruit enough in?' And Stella stayed behind, while Cherry descended, aided by Robina's arm.
Felix was already in presence, and the moment the two sisters appeared, a slight, brown, hazel-eyed girl in mourning exclaimed, 'O Miss Underwood, this is just what I hoped!' and eagerly kissed her, while Lady Hammond introduced 'Lady Caergwent' and 'Mrs. Umfraville,' the latter a peculiarly sweet-looking elderly lady in widow's dress. There were apologies for this sudden descent, telling that, on hearing how near Vale Leston was, Lady Caergwent had been so eager to see the Priory, that she had wrought with Sir Vesey, and prevailed.
Yet she did not seem to be profiting by the opportunity, for she merely sat by Robina, looking, thought Cherry, neither like a Countess nor a woman of twenty-three, but much more like a girl of eighteen—petrified, all save her great eyes, by shyness; and Felix regarded her precedence as not only unnatural but unlucky, with so unconversible a subject, when he had to give her his arm, and seat her at his right hand for the mid-day meal. Be it observed, that the veal stewed with asparagus, and the pie that was to be cold for the morrow, as fully justified Cherry's calmness, as did the pile of strawberries and glasses of preserves her trust in Stella's handiwork.
Clement came in late and astonished, and with a very hazy idea who the strangers were, just as Sir Vesey was saying, 'Now, Lady Caergwent, Mr. Underwood will be able to answer your question.'
She coloured a little, and rather hastily asked whether there were any tradition of French architects having been employed in the church, for she had been struck with the foreign air of the tracery of the south window. Not a little surprised, Felix soon found himself in the midst of an architectural discussion, which taxed all his knowledge on the matter, and stirred Clement on the other side into the ecclesiastical aspect of the question; and all three fell into an eager talk, when suddenly there was a general lull, and the young lady's voice was heard saying, 'There is no heart or beauty in what is not symboli—' and there she came to a full stop, and looked at Mrs. Umfraville with a start of embarrassment, requited.
Appreciation of their church was no slight merit with any of the Underwoods; and in the lionizing that ensued, the guest had eyes and tongue full of architecture, romance, and history, even spying and identifying a heraldic badge that supplied a missing link in the history of the building. Angela thought it flagrant pedantry; but Clement was so struck with her keen interest in all his arrangements, and her real reverence, that he unlocked the grille of the chancel, offered her to try the tone of his organ, and in spite of her total ignorance on that head, he asked if 'Miss Umfraville' would not like to see the choice needlework from St. Faith's in the chest in his vestry. There she had no lack of ideas; she examined and asked questions evidently with practical views, and could be hardly got away to continue the tour, when she again satisfied him (and more) by indignation on behalf of the monks—not sentimental, but evidently straight out of Dean Hook's version of the dissolution of the abbeys; and yet there was a quaintness and originality in the way she put it, that amused Felix greatly.
In the painting-room an entreaty was preferred to see Miss Underwood's drawings, which were indeed more worth looking at than when Lord de Vigny had stirred her up. She always had at least one real work in hand, and a good many studies. She was finishing a water-colour of the scene in The Lord of the Isles, when Ronald's betrothal ring falls at the feet of Isabel Bruce in the convent.
Lady Caergwent stood before this as if it touched some responsive chord; but her aunt was busy with the portraits. Geraldine's emulation had been fired by the cluster of miniatures in the drawing-room, and she had undertaken to commemorate the present family in the same style. She had produced very fair likenesses of Felix and of Wilmet, besides her half-finished crayon of Robina, and a still better one of Mr. Froggatt, which she was copying for his widow. Mrs. Umfraville was delighted with these, and wished she could get anything as good of her Kate, whom photography always represented as a fury, and portraiture as a doll; but by this time Lady Caergwent had got Robina in the recess of a window, asking, 'Are you still at Repworth?'
'Oh yes.'
'And how are they all?'
'Quite well, except that Lady Susan does not get over the remains of measles.'
'Poor little Susie! What a monkey she was! but oh, I want to hear about Gracie, and if she is more eager than ever.'
'She is very much sobered and subdued by reality.'
'And what's he? I always thought Grace would marry a great block, and ripple and splash round him.'
'No, he is a little brisk satirical man, who laughs at her when she gushes.'
'What chance is there for them?'
'Not till he gets preferment.'
'How tiresome! Ah! I forgot! Is not Mr. Harewood here?'
'At Penbeacon, but he comes here every Sunday. He knows Mr. Pemberton very well.'
'Poor Gracie! Lady de la Poer wrote to Aunt Emily that she thought it well that her steadiness should be tested; but it must have been hard to see Addie go off with flying colours. How does Addie get on as a chieftainess?'
'I had a letter from Gracie this morning. Do you like to see it?'
'Is she there? Do tell me how to say the name. I see there must be a hideous roll in the bottom of one's throat.'
Robina gurgled. 'That was allowed to pass for it when we had a lesson in pronunciation on pain of not being allowed to be bridesmaids.'
'Not a creature have I seen to tell me about the wedding.'
'Kate, my dear,' said Lady Hammond. 'No, you need not look so blank; that is, if Robina will kindly let us take her home with us. Her brother and sister are so good as to come to dine and sleep on Monday.'
For so it had been settled during the colloquy in the window, Sir Vesey and his lady being no doubt very glad to find a play-fellow for his younger visitor.
Colonel Umfraville had died after a long illness, rather more than a year previously, and this was the first time his widow and niece had come from home. The Hammonds were very old friends, but Mrs. Umfraville still shrank from general society; so that when Felix and Cherry arrived they found themselves the only other guests besides the Harewoods, who had come earlier in the day.
No sooner had Cherry been conducted to the room, which, as usual, she shared with her sister, than Robina said, 'You are going to be asked to take Lady Caergwent's likeness.'
'My dear, I am not the sun, to do it in a minute!'
'And make a Brigand's Bride of her. No, you are to have her at the Priory.'
'Are you gone crazy, Bobbie?'
'Be conformable, and you shall hear.'
'I'll hear, but I don't promise conformity.'
'Now listen. Nobody can do her fit to be seen; and Mrs. Umfraville wants a nice water-colour like Mrs. Welsh's, which was exhibited. I said I did not see how it could be managed; and then she asked if she might not come to us for it; and Mrs. Umfraville let me know that she would be very glad, for she has to go on into Wales to some old maids, who would be horribly fussed if she brought Kate.'
'Well, we are old maids and old bachelors to boot. Why should not we be horribly fussed by a live Countess running about the house?'
'Because she would be tame; and because you have common sense.'
'Oh, I thought you would say, because you were used to act keeper to the species! In herself she may be inoffensive; but what sort of a tail does she bring after her?'
'Six running footmen, eh?'
'Don't be saucy, Cock-robin. One grand maid would be bad enough, scaring Theodore, and upsetting Sibby. No, no, Rob! leave countesses to those who can live as sich.'
'You need alter nothing. You may do as Bear says you do—eat boiled pork and greens every day at one o'clock—and she'll like it! She and her aunt always do dine early; and as to her maid, she is a little Repworth thing, just promoted from waiting on us in the school-room. I'll answer for her. The very attraction is, that you'll leave her in peace, and not beset her with dinner-parties.'
'She doesn't keep a duenna, then?'
'Duenna!'
'Well, heiresses in books always do. And in this case it seems to me that the article would be desirable.'
'Oh, we settled all that! Wilmet is equal to as many duennas as you like. She will come and do all the chaperoning.'
'Do you mean that she has undertaken it? Then I can only submit, provided the Squire does.'
The Squire made a few wry faces, but consented, with all a man's superior philosophy towards domestic disorganizations of which he does not feel the brunt. Besides, both he and Wilmet were proud of Cherry's talent, and the esteem in which Robina was held; and Mrs. Umfraville had been confidential with Wilmet, saying how glad she was to see her child willing to go among youth and brightness. The girl had, she said, never made young friends except the De la Poers, and her Wardour cousins, who had married, and gone out of reach. She had no suitable neighbours, and 'circumstances' had hindered her being much in London; and loss of her father-like uncle had not so much taken away her spirits—for she was always bright—as given her a distaste to society. She hated entertaining people or seeing strangers; cared for nothing but her aunt, her books, her walks, and her poor; was oppressed with the business of her property, and was altogether so studious and indefatigable at three-and-twenty, and so averse to gaieties, that her aunt feared she would never act up to her position, unless her habits of seclusion were broken, and had therefore forced herself to come on this journey with her. But there had been no real thaw till she heard of Vale Leston and met Robina. Wilmet was not a little gratified by hearing, at second-hand, Lady de la Poer's praise of the young governess as a valued friend; and it was plainly to her charge that the precious niece was committed.
When the visit took place, the Countess was soon forgotten in the companion. At first, Felix was a little ceremonious, and she a little shy, watching the family party as if they were acting a play; but as the strangeness wore off, she began by being diverted, though silent from long disuse of family chatter, and soon plunged in, with as droll and eager a tongue as ever wagged.
Then Cherry found her face quite unlike her first reading of it, and had to begin all over again. It was altogether, as Bernard said, a jolly time. That young gentleman was, for the first time, smitten. His devotion to himself and cricket had never before been disturbed; and he had reached his eighteenth year without regarding woman as intended for any purpose but to wait upon him. But bright eyes, merry smiles, genuine fun, and mayhap the rank that gratified his vanity, began to avenge the wrongs of the sex; and Bernard was enslaved enough to amuse and edify his brothers and sisters—all the more, that the simple-hearted Countess was perfectly unconscious, thought herself immeasurably older than the great, handsome, idle fellow—half an inch taller than the Vicar, by-the-by—stood on no conventionalities with him, and when released by her task-mistress, would run down-stairs to call him, nothing loth, to give her a row on the river, to blow away the fumes of the painting-room. Quite unawares, she effected a victory for Felix; for when she assumed that since he was going to Oxford it must be to Keble College, and he found that she regarded it as very stupid to do anything else, he entirely forgot all his former objections, and was only too happy to gratify her.
Even Clement expanded more than usual, for he had never met a more congenial spirit. Lady Caergwent's enthusiasm went much deeper than externals, for she was well read in Church history, and a practical worker in the present, being at Caergwent, that teacher, register office, manager, letter-writer, &c., which the lady-of-all-work to a parish must become, whether clerical or otherwise. 'There's Tina boring her with shop!' would Bernard mutter, in a paroxysm of jealousy.
'Quite the reverse,' said Angela. 'She is the most thorough Goody I ever came across, not excepting Clan Hepburn!'
It was not with any design of captivating sympathy, but because Lady Caergwent had an unusual number of interests, and was intensely eager about each in turn. Landlord cares were discussed with Felix, as Church matters were with his brother. She was too headlong and unguarded not often to say ridiculous things, but nobody more enjoyed having them caught up and laughed at; and when Felix had made gentle fun of some of her impetuous political economy, she looked up to him like an elder brother. With the sisters she was soon as much at ease as in the De la Poer schoolroom, making Robina her friendpar excellence, but apparently observing Angela, who, having no one to flirt with, was at her best, and was drawn out by the 'Goody' sympathies.
'Robina,' said Lady Caergwent, entering her friend's room at that confidential moment, near 11.0 p.m., 'you know all about everything!'
To which monstrous assertion Robina assented.
The next question was equally abrupt. 'Do you know that Angela wants to go into a Sisterhood?'
'Oh! I thought that had gone off.'
'No, indeed! It is to be a very strict nursing one;' and as Robina smiled a little, 'I cannot but believe I know the cause.'
'It always used to come on when she was going to be particularly naughty.'
'Robina, I can't understand it in you; you do not seem like an elder sister to pooh-pooh all higher aspirations in a younger one, or to have no sympathy with deeper feelings.'
'You will only think the worse of me for not believing in the deeper feelings,' said Robina; 'but indeed, I think I know Angela.'