'Very likely,' said Wilmet, 'his impression varies according to whether he is well, or tired and feverish.'
'I never thought of that!' said Fernan, 'I believe it is so—for when he is pretty well, he is the smartest little thing I ever saw, always asking questions, and reading! I believe he read every book on board! And he was very funny there, ready to talk to any one, provided it was not woman.'
'Has he any religious feeling?' asked Clement.
'Yes. He said his little prayers—poor Edgar had taught him that—and, and I thought you would like me to tell him what I could.'
'No one has so much right,' said Felix. 'Fernan, I have been remembering the time when I was angry with Mr. Audley for taking you into our house—as I thought to corrupt Lance.'
'Well, I did my best, or worst, to corrupt Fulbert,' he said smiling; 'and if you and Lance had not been what you were, you would have seen me in much truer colours. I had no training like what Edgar gave his boy. You will find him a wonderfully good little fellow, marvellously shielded from evil.'
'You think he may safely play with our boys?' asked Wilmet.
Fernan smiled sadly. 'Play, poor little fellow, he is a long way from their play as yet! But he is a far safer companion for them than I was for your brothers. He has hardly ever spoken to a child of his own age; I believe there was one black baby and one half-caste papoose in the Ranch, but childhood was not otherwise represented, and he was afraid of the few we had in the steamer.'
'He must have been a most incessant charge,' said Felix.
'But I don't think I ever enjoyed anything so much,' said Fernan. 'I wish you didn't want him!'
'You see how little Cherry could spare him,' said Felix. 'But you will make us a long visit, till he is quite at home.'
'I thank you; Icouldn'tgo till he has grown happy with you—happier, I hope, than he has been with me, poor little man; but as soon as I can, I shall run up to London, and there's a matter I must go to Spain about before I return far West.'
'At any rate this is your home in England, Fernan. You know we can't thank you, but you are more than ever one of ourselves.' And Felix held out his hand for a tremulous grasp of Ferdinand's.
Gerald did seem in great need of his friend when he awoke. He recoiled in dismay at the stairs. 'Oh! those dreadful things are here too!'
For he had never seen a staircase till he was carried down that of the hotel at Sacramento, and his limbs had so far been affected by the spinal damage that he could only as yet move with difficulty on a level surface, and needed to be carried down with his eyes shut, that he might not see the giddy height. He consented to sit by Chérie at the evening meal, and was not ungracious to the other members of the family, comporting himself discreetly, gazing out of those enormous eyes at the novel scene, and fraternising with Scamp, who adopted him at once as an Underwood.
He had made up his mind as to his eldest uncle, and when they rose, crept up to him and, putting his frail little lizard's hand into his, said tentatively, 'Blunderbore!' and as Felix started, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry, he added, 'I want to see the Pursuivant,' uttering all the syllables with great clearness and deliberation.
Much delighted, Felix took him into his study, when he examined the last roll of proof with profound sagacity, and said eagerly, 'I can fix off a sheet for you,' accepting his uncle much more as editor than as squire.
The introduction to Sibby was tolerably successful, he detected that she talked like 'Kerry Micksey,' his chief playmate at the Ranch, and she was the only person he accepted as an aunt. Felix was too glad to be dubbed Blunderbore again to object to the familiarity; they taught him to term Clement the Vicar, and the others went by their unadorned names. It was remarkable that Bernard, though growing up into a fine manly beauty much resembling Edgar's, did not seem to recall any association; but on the Saturday afternoon, when Cherry was sitting with him under the cedar-tree, a low sweet whistle made him start, scramble to his feet, and as Lance came forward, he threw himself upon him with an ecstatic shout of 'Daddy, daddy.' And as Lance stooped down and gathered him into his arms tenderly, saying 'Poor little chap,' no doubt the tone and gesture kept up the delusion, for he clung in a rapture that it seemed cruel to disturb. 'What shall I do, Cherry?' said Lance, much distressed. 'Oh! my poor little fellow, if I could but change myself!'
By that time doubt had wakened, the arms were unwound from his neck, and Gerald, after a moment's contemplation, gave a sad low cry, struggled down, and hid his face on Cherry's lap, then lay passively against her while she fondled him with her hand, taking no notice in word, except by distinctly letting him hear his uncle's name. 'Lance! how came you so early, and where's Robina? Felix is gone to Ewmouth, thinking to meet you by the express.'
'We got off from town earlier than we expected; and walked from Church Ewe, and meeting Bill in the village, of course I stepped out and left them to their bliss.'
Lance looked well, and spoke as if he had attained to steady if not high spirits. In fact, though asking anxiously after Felix, he was plainly gratified by the entire trust and satisfaction shown in himself as a substitute; some of his articles in the Pursuivant had been a success in the circle that cared for them, and one on an important subject had actually been copied into a London paper, a distinction that had not so often befallen even Felix as not to make it exhilarating. What made far more difference to him, Mr. Bevan had finally resigned, and the new rector had a bright young wife, who had been a school friend of Robina's, and both had accepted Lance on terms of equality, so that he had more access to society than had ever been his lot before, and found himself treated as an important ally in all matters for the benefit of the parish. His life was evidently far more cheerful than in the previous year, and he had done what he had declared he should do—'got over' his fit of depression, i.e. resigned himself, and therefore recovered a certain power of enjoyment as well as interest in his work. Cherry reproached him with never having come home since Whitsuntide.
'No possibility of getting away,' he said.
'Not with Mutton as apièce de resistance.'
'Mutton's Madame requires recruiting at Dearport and the frequent solace of her cosset.'
'O Lance! what a boy you are for being put upon.'
'Don't row me, Cherry, I get enough of that from Mrs. Frog. By-the-by, she's going to let Marshlands for a year to the squire while he is enlarging his house, and we are to have Prothero's rooms. The dear old Croak says she'll not have me catching my death on that nasty velocipede another winter.'
'Ah! if you had but brought her back to our old quarters! You should never have allowed the Giant to let Madame in! But tell me, Lance,' she added in a different tone, 'has she shown any feeling?'
'Lamb was in a state of mind about telling her, and wanted me to do it, which I declined, so he fetched Miss Pearson, and came down quite proud to tell me she had had hysterics. What a sheep it is, to be sure! He adores whatever she does! And then her spirits and health required the parade at Dearport.'
'You don't believe in it?'
'I only know that whenever I had to go to Dearport I always saw her best bonnets bobbing about among the ladies, or met her on the parade with Gussy and Killy looking like princes. I called to see Sister Constance one day, I thought she would like to hear about you all. And, Cherry, did you know that Angel had sent back her medal as an associate, and without a word?'
'Just what I should have expected.'
'They did not like to write about it till they knew more. Now I believe the chaplain has.'
'She has said nothing about it. In fact, she is much more with the Hepburns than at home, and they have really done her some good. She was quite meek when we fell in with all the Walshes' guests the other day. I wonder whether she will thaw to Robina! Ah! here they come!'
William and Robina were walking arm-in-arm, deeply content to be together, but grave and subdued.
'How still it all sounds!' was Robina's exclamation, and though the others smiled, it was with a sigh at the thought of the low humming that they all missed.
The hush over the house struck her more than anything. When last she had been at home the whole place seemed vocal with unrestrained life and mirth, all the brothers and some of the sisters went about whistling or singing, every one was always shouting to every one, Stella's doves cooing, the clock chiming, Theodore a continual musical-box, but now, though chimes and doves had not ceased, the soft undercurrent was gone, and so was the gay ring of mirth.
'It is as if there were something quelled,' she said, pausing for the word, when she went out for a turn with Will in the light of the broad harvest moon, rising red over the woods.
'So we are,' said he. 'There is something about the place that reminds me of going into the garden when everything is lying broken and weighed down by a storm, the sunshine making diamonds of the drops, but rain-drops still.'
'Angel is so different,' said Robin, 'and Felix's looks appal me: and yet Cherry seems easy about him.'
'So would you be if you had seen him two months ago,' said Will. 'I don't think any one is really anxious about him but Clement.'
'Oh! if it is only Clement, I don't care.'
'Working under Clement gives a very different notion of him,' said Will; 'you can't think how much I find I have to learn now I come to the real practical thing, among simple folk. It humbles me as much as it refreshes me, after the forcing-house at Oxford. I say, Robin, how long is this to go on?
'How long?' echoed Robina sadly.
'Nay, listen: Clement is going to set up a curate in the new house, as is to be, and £200 a year. I am sure of pupils.'
'Please don't ask me, Will. It is so very hard, and my better sense won't let me.'
'Then put away that better sense, as you call it, I don't.'
'I can't put away the recollection of my father dying of toil and privation. I should feel it killing you to consent.'
He felt rather than saw she was crying as she leant against him, but he tried to laugh and say, 'I am a tougher subject, Bobbie; we've neither of us been tenderly reared. Besides, here it would be different.'
'Yes, because we should prey on our families. No, Willie, I made a solemn resolution never to drag you down, and I will keep it.'
'You're far too wise for me,' he began, displeased.
'Don't be foolish, and break my heart over it! Oh! Willie, if you get angry, I can't bear it now, it is all so sad.'
The mute caress answered, but each was a little relieved to say 'Hark,' as the silence was broken by the sharp wail of Edgar's violin, which Lance was handling to ascertain in what condition it had arrived.
'Is your voice all right, Lancey?' asked Felix, as he spoke of the choral meetings.
'Just what I want to know. I've not sung to any one I could trust to tell me the sound of it. Miss Grey likes it well enough, but then she never heard it before, and I don't know whether the best high notes have not thickened.'
'What will you try? said Clement 'I'm not sure that "Chloe's disdain" did not show you off as well as any.'
'Then Angel—where is she?'
'Angel anathematises light and profane songs on the eve of the honourable sabbath,' said Bernard; 'I wish she was here to have her ears pulled.'
'No, it is not so much that,' said Cherry, 'as that she cannot bear secular music since that unlucky song. But here's Stella, the universal stop-gap, to be Chloe.'
It was a fine old seventeenth-century dialogue song, a sort of heir-loom in the family—the lady's part full of the pert coy disdain that passed for maidenliness, the swain's of a pathetic steadfast constancy, and there was a variety in the expression that had always given scope for the peculiar beauties of Lance's voice. But as he sang it now, it was not only as a musical exercise or 'crack song,' the manly melancholy stirred the depths of a sad but resolute heart that could hardly have otherwise poured itself out. So two of the hearers understood it, and Cherry, clasping Felix's hand, found the pressure returned.
It was only Clement who, as the last sweet quiver died away, was disengaged enough to say, 'You seem to me to have gained instead of lost.'
He muttered something about a German air left upstairs, and ran away.
'I'm afraid it is Philomel against the thorn,' murmured Felix in his sister's ear.
And Clement, in an undertone, uttered the two words 'whosoever hath,' and Stella, of course mentally supplying the continuation, perceived that he was thinking how the voice treated as a means of praising divine glory had survived in its purity and freshness under the same danger that had been fatal to the gift that had been the temptation and ruin of its owner—a thought better suited to Clement's stern sad nature than to his little sister; and instead of answering, she began to play Mozart's requiem.
It was long before Lance returned. 'It was that poor little Gerald,' he said. 'I wish I had thought of it—when he heard the violin, he thought his Daddy was really come at last. I nearly tumbled over the little white bundle in the gallery. Poor morsel, I suppose he was almost asleep, for when I picked him up, feeling like just nothing at all without his clothes, he firmly believed I was Edgar masquerading; and the more I coaxed him in the dark, the more he implored me, "Oh! Daddy, don't go on, be Daddy, I know you, I do! 'Tisn't play," till he almost broke one's heart—I thought I should have to call Fernan.'
'And how did you manage him, poor darling?'
'It was curious. One of those shouts that they give in the harvest when they clear the last sheaf in a field came in, and made him shudder in horror. "The Indians," he said, and then, after I had told him what it was, I said, "Yes, you heard the Indians once, didn't you?" and he answered, "Oh! yes, Daddy told me, 'Never mind, my brave boy, it can't last long. Shut your eyes, and say your prayers!' and he held me tight, tight."'
'Then that is the last recollection he has of his father! A noble one!' said Felix, with a sound of thankfulness.
'So I told him,' pursued Lance, 'that Daddy was right, and it hadn't lasted long. I just told him the real story, and how his father gave him to Mr. Travis to bring to us. I told him how poor Edgar used to teach me to play on his fiddle, and I think he really was relieved to lose the confusion about identity, and he knew me at last for the Lance who used to sing "Jim Crow." I told him all I could, and looked at the marks on his poor little back and breast. How did he live, Fernan?'
'I can hardly tell; I suppose life is very strong in a healthy child, and that torpor of benumbed nerves saved him much pain.'
'I fancy poor Edgar had told him a good many stories about us, for he asked me all manner of odd questions about home, and I am to take him there when he is well. Meantime I had to sing him to sleep—"like that," he said, poor little fellow; and he started Sibby's old croon that used to be Baby's name for her.'
'The child has adopted you, Lance,' said Felix, when he saw Gerald riding down to breakfast in the new uncle's arms, with an arm round his neck and his head on his shoulder. 'Should you not like him to be your godfather, Gerald?'
'No, Gerald, that can only belong to Mr. Travis, and your uncle Felix.'
'Travis, of course,' said Felix; 'but for me, it would be too like a parent, and—' he paused, but went on: 'You ought to have that tie—you who brought out that final saying from his father. Never let him forget it. It is so perfectly the spirit in which to meet the unavoidable.'
He certainly had a power of transmuting into comfort all he heard of this beloved brother. It had been decided that the boy should be admitted into the church on this, his first Sunday. Ferdinand was anxious that it should be, like his own baptism, his first sight of the interior of a church, and had been preparing him for it all the way home, so that he knew a good deal more than had yet been made to adhere to his cousin Kester, and his replies had a flavour of St. Matthew's that delighted Clement. It did not seem right that the thing should be done in a corner, and in the first strangeness numbers would make less difference than after he had learnt to know the faces round him; so they resolved to face the full congregation at once, large as it was apt to be in the afternoon; for there had of late arisen among the young men of Ewmouth a fashion of walking out to church at Vale Leston, attracted partly by the choir and partly by the preaching.
It was too long for Gerald's feeble limbs to be kept standing, and though he was tall for his age, Ferdinand Travis took him in his arms where the questions and replies startled the unprepared. 'Who baptized this child?' when the answer, 'I did,' came from the jet-black beard of the great American merchant, more like a Spanish grandee than ever; and 'With what matter was this child baptized?' was responded to 'With water'—there was a thought of the blood that had oozed forth and mingled with the 'lucid flood,' and Clement's voice trembled with emotion as he certified that all waswelldone, and as he signed the cross, it was where, in anticipation, Ferdinand had marked the rood, and as Geraldine's eye traced the little coronal that the cruel knife had scored, her whole heart went into the thought.
'Thus outwardly and visiblyWe seal thee for His own;And may the brow that bears the crossHereafter bear the crown.'
Strange was the entry in the parish register regarding the child whom his uncle treated as heir of his house and name, but at whom every one looked with compassionate misgiving, so weird were his great pensive dark eyes, so thin his cheeks, so feeble his movements, so complete the contrast to his sturdy cousin Christopher, the one all mind and the other all body.
Felix wished for London advice for him, and, as there was to be a clerical meeting on Tuesday at Richard May's, proposed to drive with Clement as far as Stoneborough to ask the two physicians what they would recommend. Lancelot only discovered this intention just as he was stepping into the boat in which Bernard was going to take him to Ewmouth to meet the train—probably he fancied his face quite impassive, but it was far too transparent for him, and there was a curious gust of expression passing over it when Felix asked whether he had any commands for Stoneborough. 'N-not—at least, my—my—remember me to them. That's all! good-bye.'
Then he expended his energies on the oars, and snubbed Bernard into silent smoking, meanwhile he was calculating the increase of means that had accrued to Felix, and would surely render marriage possible.
Felix found his call happily timed, for Dr. May received him with, 'That's right. Just as the last patient has made his exit. Nay—not the last. I fear your side does not seem to have mended.'
'Not much, thank you.'
'So I see, but wait a bit. You are Tom's concern, and I shall get into disgrace if I go into it without him. You can stay?'
'Yes, I ventured to think you would house me while Clement is sitting in council.'
'That is well. I need not go out till after dinner. Gertrude is at home, but Ethel is gone to Cocksmoor to see after feeding the divines. Don't you find that an uncommon excitement to the clergywomen? Well, have you got the poor little boy?'
'Yes, a sweet little fellow, but in an anxious state. The spine seems affected still, and I want to know to whom you would advise me to show him—I must get some one while Travis is with us to tell what the American surgeons said.'
'That's another matter for Tom. He knows the present leading men better than I do. I'll send up word to him to look in when he gets back from the hospital.'
'There is a third matter,' said Felix, with a blushing smile, when the message had been despatched, 'not so professional.'
'Eh?' said the doctor with arrested attention.
'It is this,' said Felix in the deliberate manner of one who had long conned his part. 'Should you regard it as intolerable presumption in my brother Lancelot to raise his eyes to your daughter Gertrude?'
'Your brother!!!'
'Yes, sir. Lancelot. I could release him from the retail business and make over the Pursuivant to him. He would have rather more than £500 a year, and if—'
'Lance!' again exclaimed the doctor. 'So it is Lance! I beg your pardon, I had been hoping it was yourself.'
'You will hardly hope that long, sir.'
'What do you mean? That hurt? What has been——'
'That will wait. Do not let me lose this opportunity,' said Felix, rather breathlessly. 'It is not only my health. For all essentials, whatever you are kind enough to think of me, Lance isthatand a great deal more, and he is deeply smitten, poor fellow, and needs affection and happiness so much,' he continued, a little hurt at the smile that played on the doctor's features, and broadened into a laugh.
'Well, I've no right to complain after setting the lad on.'
'You, sir?'
'Ay. When he was brooding and moping in the winter, fancying no girl would look at him, I told him, by way of shaking him up, that I should be ashamed of one who stuck at his occupation. It is like giving a boy a gun, and wondering when he brings down your tame jackdaw. One ought to have experience by the time it comes to one's youngest, but I suppose I should never get it if I were the father of the fifty Danaides.'
'May I gather that you would not think the disadvantages insurmountable? I know it does not sound well, but Lance is in a better position than mine was. He is a good deal thought of in the town; is intimate at the Rectory; and if he lived in the country, and dropped the retail, I can answer for it that there would be plenty of society such as your daughter would care to have. If I foresaw mortification, it would not be right to expose her to it.'
'Somehow my girls care rather too little than too much about society,' said the doctor. 'I shall be the sufferer. How I shall catch it from Tom and the rest!'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Not so fast. Stay a bit. How far has it gone? The boy has not spoken to her?'
'Not in so many words. He does not dare, and I could not venture to encourage him till I knew what you thought. Indeed he has been chained to Bexley ever since I have been laid up.'
'He is a thoroughly nice fellow,' allowed the doctor; 'he let out a good deal of his inner self to me last winter. If worth were to have it——'
'He would stand first,' said Felix eagerly. 'To tell you what he has been to all of us these——'
'Hush, here comes our professor. He was fuming like quicklime at Daisy's escapade the morning after your accident. A wholesome preparation.'
About an hour later the dinner bell brought down Gertrude and her nephew Dickie. She started, and a thrill of colour passed over her face as she met Mr. Underwood at the table, and, laughing rather nervously, begged him to excuse deficiencies, as Ethel, the cook, the parlour-maid, and all the best knives and forks were gone to Cocksmoor.
It struck her that her father was grave and silent, but her heart was, as usual, full of Vale Leston and Cherry, and she catechised him next on all the ins and outs with which her visit had made her familiar, he replying in detail with his natural quiet humour, though whenever Lance's name came up, he could not help colouring a little. He delighted and excited Dickie with Bernard's cricketing feats, and the doctor waked into interest from his abstraction. He had to go out directly after, taking with him Dickie, who now held the holiday privilege of being his charioteer.
'You had better take a rest after your drive,' said the doctor to Felix. 'Nobody will disturb you in the drawing-room.'
Felix willingly reclined in the great easy chair, only begging Gertrude not to think it necessary to leave him, and as she wished nothing better than to stay, she took her work and sat down. At first all was still; he had put his head back, with closed eyes, in the relaxation of complete lassitude, but his countenance did not give the impression of sleep. It was weary and exhausted, though placid, and gradually an expression of reflection came over it, deepening into anxiety and perplexity, until after about twenty minutes he opened his eyes, and looked at her with a pleasant smile.
'I hope you are rested,' she said.
'A good deal, thank you;' then, after a pause, 'Did I tell you that Lance has quite recovered his voice?'
'I am glad; I have never heard him.'
'You must, then. Cherry shall manage it next time he comes home. He has been kept much too close this summer, but we must make a different arrangement.'
'Not your changing places!' cried Gertrude, 'you don't look fit!'
'I am afraid not,' he answered with weary acquiescence. 'Your father and brother have been overhauling me, and I believe my effective days are over for some time.'
'Oh!' she started, and said in an imploring tone, 'Cherry said the sprain was almost gone.'
'The sprain is,' said Felix, 'but there's something beyond. It may go on for some time, but the result is very doubtful.'
She rested her chin on her hand, her eyes dilated by the shock.
'So, you see,' he proceeded, 'I am anxious to lose no time in getting matters into order, both as regards Vale Leston and Bexley.'
'Oh!' she burst out with a cry; 'don't, don't, don't go on like that—just as if it were somebody else.'
The sound of misery convinced him that he was acting for the best in killing at once any embryo aspiration directed towards himself; more especially as he felt her more capable than any one he had met since Alice Knevett of stirring what he was resolved never to allow to be stirred. Never would he have risked thistête-à-têtebut for his recent interview with the two physicians; and her sorrow touched and warmed the inmost recesses of his heart. He leant forward, saying, 'There is so little actual suffering that perhaps I feel as if it were somebody else. I have been expecting this, and there have been a weight and weariness about me which make the thought of rest not unwelcome.'
'Oh, no, no! You are quite young. Papa and Tom couldn't have said it was so bad. There can't be no hope.'
'No, there is just a chance of things taking a different turn.'
'Oh! they will! I know they will! Please don't give yourself up. That's the worst thing for any one.'
'I don't do that;' and as she came and stood by him he looked up in her face, saying, 'there is so much kindness in the world that one would gladly not leave it, if only not to grieve one's friends.'
'I wish,' with a half-angry sob, 'you wouldn't talk in that horrid resigned way.'
'This will not do, indeed, my dear.' Her weeping made the word slip out as in reasoning with one of his sisters, but it brought her colour, and the tint was reflected in his own as he said, 'I beg your pardon.'
'Oh! please, I do like it so.'
He found himself on perilous ground, for he was exceedingly drawn towards the girl, whose warmth gave him a greater sense of sweetness than ever had Alice's most gracious moments; and it was with strong effort that he preserved a sort of fatherly tone.
'Sit down again; there is a great deal I should like to tell you, if you have patience to listen.'
Patience! She would fain have listened for ever. He told her the more slowly, in order to give time to rally, the history of the family struggles, dwelling at each turn on Lance's manful part in them, and resolute sacrifice of taste and ambition, and coming down to his own inheritance at Vale Leston, with all that it had involved. The fact was that it was needful to let her perceive that he had never had it in his power to marry, and never intended it; that the only mode in which he could both do his duty by his brothers and sisters, and make restitution of the church property, was by continuing his business, being economical, and raising up no fresh claims on the estate.
Probably she did not at the moment take in the idea of this affecting any relations with her, for she exclaimed, with that hot petulance which in her was never unbecoming, 'I see, it's too late; you've spent everything on everybody else, and lived for everyone but yourself.'
'I wish I had.'
'I don't think it fair!' she passionately exclaimed. 'Why should everything come on you?'
'Perhaps, when one's forefathers have done a great wrong—ignorantly, may be—it must come on some one. I have been struck by seeing how seldom the lay rectory has gone in the direct line, and I am glad to prevent it from being bound about that poor child's unconscious neck.'
'I was wrong,' she whispered under her breath, in a sudden change of mood, as the simple-heartedness of his manner impressed her. 'You are as devoted as any of those old people.'
'Not I,' he answered. 'I have had a particularly prosaic, prosperous, comfortable life of it;' and then, thinking the scene had lasted long enough, he said, 'I should like to call on Mrs. Thomas May. Is it permissible to go through the garden?'
'How can you?' she exclaimed.
'Thank you, I am quite rested' (he might have said, as much as he ever was).
'I meant, how can you go and make trumpery trivial calls.'
'It did not answer in the year one thousand to sow no corn, in expectation of the end of the world,' he answered. 'Spiritually, as little as materially.'
He tried for his dry gentle manner, but was too much moved by her grief to make it natural.
'I'll come with you,' said Gertrude, leaping up.
He took his hat, and she a parasol, and they crossed the garden in silence till, almost at Tom's door, she exclaimed, with a choking gasp:
'Oh dear! oh dear! if there were anything I could do for you!'
'Thank you,' he answered affectionately, with a smiling trembling lip. 'One wish is very strong with me. Things may not be prepared for its fulfilment while I am here—but when it comes before you—you will remember what you say, and I think it will be granted.'
She turned, half petulantly, and plucked off the myrtle leaves.
'Are you going to give me a piece of that?' he said, smiling.
She broke off a spray in full flower.
'Thank you,' as he put it in his buttonhole. 'Perhaps some day you will see this again. Then remember.'
'Hast thou forgot the dayWhen my father found thee first in places far away?Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wast owned by none.'Wordsworth's 'Pet Lamb.'
The London surgeon met Tom May and Page, and gave every hope of little Gerald's ultimate recovery, though for the present there was not much to be done except watching him, and encouraging such exertion as did not excite or fatigue. Cherry was so anxious about the examination, its result and the directions she received, that she never perceived that the doctor spent a much longer time in the study with her brothers than was needed on the little boy's account.
This, her preoccupation and bliss of ignorance, was a relief to both Felix and Clement. They believed there would be ample preparation, and not only were willing to defer paining her, but would have missed her cheerfulness, and wished to spare her the protracted suspense that might undermine her health and power of meeting a crisis that might be deferred for weeks, months, nay years, or possibly might never come at all; for there was a chance that treatment might disperse the evil. The suffering did not increase, and was not constant, but only brought on by sudden movements or in certain attitudes, and any token of it was always laid to the credit of the strain. No one could fail to perceive that Felix was more inert, more grave, and, if possible, more gentle, but the acknowledged injury, as well as the loss of his two brothers, might account both for this and his disinclination to the ordinary summer gaieties. No one indeed, wished for them, now that Angela professed to have broken with the world, and Geraldine's whole mind was absorbed in the anxious tendance of the little nephew, who preferred her to all others, and was continually needing to be soothed or amused, with a precocious intellect stimulated by all he had undergone, and at the same time with spirits and nerves too much shattered to bear the least strain on mind or body. Edgar's child she must have loved, but this little tender, fitful, dependent creature, used to be the half-comprehending recipient of his sad memories and confidences, was inexpressibly dear to her.
There was hardly any visiting that summer, except the calls of a few friends, and in September Felix decided on asking the two Lambs to the Priory. He had business affairs to arrange with his partner, and thought it would be unforgiving to mortify the wife by excluding her from the invitation, so he braved Cherry's absolute indignation. Poor Cherry! had she known all, she would not have exploded as she had hardly done since her girlish contentions with Alda. 'It is really weak to give that woman her wish, and at such a time.'
'I am sorry for the infliction on you, Cherry.'
'You know very well that is not what I care for. It is the insult to dear Edgar's memory to have her here pranking herself off.'
'I cannot quite see it in that light.'
'No, you always had some infatuation about her: you sacrificed Lance to her when you let her into the house at Bexley, and now you are letting her fulfil her aim of coming gossiping here.'
'One can only try to do what one feels to be right, Cherry. I am very sorry, but I cannot be guilty of a marked slight.'
'The more marked the better, I should say.'
'Hush, Geraldine,' sternly interposed Clement; 'you forget yourself.'
She was greatly startled, for she had thought him entirely on her side.
'I understand her,' said Felix, as usual unable to bear reproof to his sister. 'No one can be more fully aware than myself of poor Mrs. Lamb's undeserts, but Cherry will one day perceive that this is the very reason I do not choose to treat her with mortifying neglect. If it be a foolish fancy of mine, my dear, please bear with it.'
She was entirely disarmed, burst into tears, undertook to do whatever he wished, and apologised for her crossness, but in private with Clement, she could not help expressing her wonder and annoyance.
'You had better say no more about it,' he answered, 'or you will be sorry.'
'I shall say no more, but it is impossible that you should not think this a great pity and mistake.'
'No, I don't.'
'I know I was wrong in flying out in my old way,' said Cherry, humbly. 'Perhaps there was more female spite in it than I know, and I am thankful to you for catching me up. Of course this is Felix's house; he invites whom he pleases, and I shall make them welcome; but still I think this is a very unnecessary attention, and if you had seen as much of her as we have, I think you would have enforced my opinion.'
He smiled a little sadly, and let it pass, and Cherry inferred that even a cassock could not guard the male sex from weak toleration of a pretty woman. Yet her loyalty was so strong that, when Wilmet's surprise and aversion were expressed with equal plainness, she maintained her brother's right to practise romantic generosity in his own house, especially since his prudence had abstained as long as any speculations could be thereby encouraged.
The visit was to last from Saturday to Monday, and in due time Mrs. Lamb made her appearance, pretty, youthful, and charmingly dressed, with her husband looking so proud of her as almost to overpower his bashfulness.
They were a great contrast, he so honestly simple and affectionate, adoring every word she uttered, however alien to his nature, and she with the claws full grown that poor Edgar had detected in the kitten. Indeed she was not unlike a handsome sleek cat or managing wife, an excellent and tender mother, dainty and demure, but not by any means indisposed to give a sharp scratch with her velvet paw.
When she exclaimed with playful surprise, 'Oh! what a queer old place. So different from what I expected!' or, 'Looking into the churchyard! It would give me the horrors in a week! Such a melancholy noise from the river!' Cherry might conclude that the grapes were sour, but the admirable Lamb was solaced by his wife's sweet preference for her humble home. Such scratches as would have been patent to that good man were reserved for his absence, as when she bewailed the low tastes of such a promising young man as Lance—Cherry made some effort to discover what she could possibly mean, and found that the low tastes signified his preference for Mrs. Froggatt's company, and his assiduity at the Shakespeare Club and Penny Readings.
Of course she commiserated Wilmet for her children's red hair—predicted that Gerald would be a cripple for life, and lamented Angela's being 'sadly gone off.' Angela did in fact avoid the lady as much as possible, and on the Sunday afternoon went off to what she had in her unconverted days been wont to term the Hepburn Methody Meeting, i.e., a Bible class with exposition and prayer held by the good ladies in their own dining-room, an institution dating from the darkest ages of the parish.
Their green-shuttered house looked out upon a space shaped like a triangle, grassy, and formed by the divergence of the Blackstone lane, the nearest approach to a village-green possessed by Vale Leston. Angela was lingering after the dismissal of the class, discussing Will Harewood's sermon, which by-the-by, the clever Miss Isabella much preferred to the Vicar's, probably because Will, a far larger-minded and more intellectual man, was a great deal the most metaphysical, and had more points of contact with her, when the sound of a bawling voice, interspersed with the singing of a hymn, became audible through the open window, and a procession consisting of a pale-faced young man, one old one, three able-bodied women, and four little girls came from the Ewmouth road, and having arrived at the triangle, the young man mounted a log of timber and began to preach. Sounds ensued which made the invalid Miss Hepburn exclaim: 'Oh! there are those people again! There will be an uproar! Oh! my dear, shut the window, and come into the other room!'
'What for?' demanded Angela, who was trying to hear.
'My dear, you can't think how dreadful it was. Such a noise, and that terrible Timins set his big dog at the preacher, and the poor old Squire said it served him right, and would not commit him.'
'Such a thing might be stopped in a moment,' cried Angela. 'Couldn't you, Miss Isabel?'
'My dear, I did not feel free when it was the message of the Gospel.'
'I didn't mean the preacher, but the persecutors. You could stop them directly.'
'Go out there! A lady, my dear Angela!' cried Miss Bridget
'One does not stick at trifles in such cases!' cried Angela.
'Trifles!' was echoed round her.
At that moment a coarse derisive laugh made Miss Hepburn scream and Miss Martha fly to shut the window, while Angela caught up her bonnet saying, 'I'll soon put an end to it.'
'My dearest Angela, you are not going out; your brother would not like it.'
'Lydia never asked what her brother liked by the river-side,' said Angela, hastily fastening her head gear.
'Oh! don't let her go. Isa—Bridget—they'll hurt her. My dear! Stop her,' entreated the sick sister.
'Miss Underwood going out to a Ranter!' cried Miss Bridget.
'Your brothers will never forgive us,' sobbed Miss Martha. And Miss Isabella laid hands on her. 'It is not proper, Angela, I cannot suffer it.'
'I cannot suffer violence to be done to one who is preaching that Name for petty scruples of worldly propriety.'
'They'll throw stones—She'll be hurt,' sobbed Miss Hepburn.
'You know better, dear Miss Hepburn,' said Angela, turning with a smile.
In another moment she was gone, out into the road.
There was a hush at once. The boys all turned round, and the nearest, a lively mischievous fellow, accosted her with a touch of his hat, and evident sense of high desert. 'Us aint a bin listening to that there chap, ma'am. Us be going to send he off faster than he came. Us don't want none of his sort.'
'How do you know that, George?' responded Angela, to his great amazement. 'How do you know he has not the very message you have been wanting so long.'
The boy opened the roundest eyes. If any opinion was strongly established, it was the ill savour of ranters in the nostrils of the gentry.
'Squire'd be against it, ma'am,' said an older man, 'and Mr. Eddard! Us knows our dooty better than to hearken to such like trash.'
'For shame, Brand,' returned the young lady. 'How dare you speak so of a man who comes in that Name. Now! Here I mean you to stand and listen. Who can tell what good he may do us?'
'Miss Angela' was the universal favorite with the village youth, having fascinated them from the first; and if they had of late remarked any change in her, it was set down to 'taking on' about her brothers, and her defence was undisputed quite as much from attachment as from sheer amazement. The preacher had, on the apparition of the tall lady in black with the lightly waving crape streamers and mantle, expected a rescue from insult and violence, but a warning to depart; and his amazement was great when she took a position in advance of the rabble rout, and signed to him to go on.
He was a man above the average of his class, and his discourse was considerably affecting Angela, when down the lane from Blackstone Gulley came Robina, Stella, Bernard, and Will Harewood, showing Mr. and Mrs. Lamb the beauties of the country.
'Holloa, what's the row? A fellow jawing away somewhere!' quoth Bernard.
'I thought you had no dissenters here, Robina,' said Mrs. Lamb.
'No more we have,' stoutly affirmed Robina, in spite of the strange voices on the blast.
'What's that?'
'An obliging mission from our neighbour.'
'Soon to be refuted by our boys,' added Bernard, 'most likely a cricket ball is flying at his bumptious head by this time! Hollo there!'
For he turned the corner and stood in blank amaze.
Alice tittered.
Robina and Stella were prepared for anything from Angela.
Even Will only perpetrated a long whistle, and the observation 'This is coming it strong.'
Bernard's measures were more decisive. After the first shock he marched forward with the peremptory admonition, 'Come, my man, be off with you, we allow none of this here.'
The young man stood his ground. 'By what authority Sir?'
'I'll soon show you—I say—You here, little Pryde, run down and tell the policeman to step up.'
'Stay Bernard,' exclaimed Will, 'this is nothing the police can interfere with.'
'Don't tell me that, canting and ranting here on our ground,' cried Bernard, with a fine development of the insolence of the lord of the soil. 'Pity you're a parson, Bill (and Lamb a sheep),' he added under his breath, 'or we'd have a jolly good shindy. All you're good for is to walk off the ladies. Here, Angel, you mad party, go with him, I say, the joke has lasted long enough.'
'I shall not move, Bernard, I am here to protect this good man from insult.'
'I tell you 'tis the very way to make me insult the impudent scoundrel to see you standing there among the rabble, making a spectacle of yourself.'
'Neither you nor any one else will touch him while I am here,' said Angela, heroically moving nearer the preacher, and further from her brother. 'He is giving us the message that is too much obscured, and I will not have him silenced. I only wish you would listen! Go on, if you please.'
But the unwonted style of this interruption had disconcerted the ardent missionary more than unlimited rotten eggs could have done. The young lady's presence, though embarrassing, had been stimulating; but when three gentlemen, including a clergyman, were added to the audience, all his confidence in his mission could not bring back his eloquence, and, addressing himself to Angela, his only attentive hearer, he said, 'The tenor of our discourse has been interrupted; thank you, Miss, we will resume on a more favourable occasion.'
'When I'll bring down the garden engine,' muttered Bernard, clutching in vain at his sister as she stepped forward to shake hands with the preacher and say, 'We are greatly obliged to you, and I am sorry you should have been so interfered with.'
William, premising that he was not the parish priest, turned to walk with the amateur in his own profession, as much because he was curious about this phase of life as to see him courteously off the ground—while Bernard was scolding and deriding Angela on what he deemed her most monstrous aberration of all, and Angela marching on, impervious alike to displeasure and ridicule. Mrs. Lamb was trying to condole with Robina, and Robina was coolly stating that Angela was quite justified in using her influence to prevent the man from being assaulted.
The fame of Mr. Froggatt's state-dinner party and of another on behalf of Mr. Bruce had reached Mrs. Lamb, and, on the strength of it, she had freshly trimmed her wedding dress, and was greatly aggrieved to find her labour lost; disregarding her husband's representations of the recent bereavements and Mr. Underwood's state of health, and insisting on attributing the slight by turns to Geraldine's spite, and to the meanness that hindered the family from enjoying their fortune when they had got it.
Though Geraldine had withheld this indulgence, aware that a long late dinner would be a great fatigue to Felix, she believed in dilution, and had arranged to gratify her guest so far as to take this opportunity of inviting one or two Ewmouth families who hardly ever had a day in the country except what they spent at Vale Leston, and whom it would have been almost unkind to deprive of their summer treat.
So on Monday afternoon there was a gathering on the lawn large enough to be a formidable spectacle to at least one pair of eyes in the Kittiwake's gig as she came up the river, and to evoke a strong expletive from a mouth whose fringes were grizzled enough for it to have learnt to be less impulsive.
'Can't be helped, skipper. Come on,' laughed the joyous youth at the prow in the ease of summer attire. 'What, hasn't your domestication proceeded further? One would think you were the one newly caught from the bush.'
'I shall set you ashore and come back at dark when the bear fight is over.'
'Not a bit of it! See here she comes, the little darling Star, bless her,' as over the wire netting, that guarded the croquet balls from the river, sprang the little figure attracted by the well-known boat.
'Oh! I'm so sorry,' was her apologetic cry to the captain, then stopping short, the bright colour flew to her cheeks.
'Well you may, to have such a mob to receive what I've brought you, my pretty. Yes, yes, no mistake about him,' as Charlie bounded to her side; 'but what's this? who's this big fellow in the yellow beard? Did you ever see anybody like him? He looks as much astounded as you.'
'You didn't say it was Stella!' ejaculated the tall, powerful personage designated. 'She was just toddling when I went out.'
'You're Fulbert then!' she said, looking up as she was folded in a big brotherly embrace.
'Yes, to be sure, you pretty little thing. I declare you are a beauty after all! And who's this?'
'I can't expect to be remembered,' said the white-whiskered sunburnt clergyman in a broad shady hat and green shade over his eyes.
'But I think I remember your voice,' said Stella, 'Oh how glad my brother will be!'
'And Lance, is he here?' cried Fulbert, eagerly.
'No, but every one else is at home.'
'At home! I believe so,' grumbled Captain Audley. 'I thought myself secure from launchings out this year.'
'It is only the Colmans and Strachans and Parkers, just to amuse Mrs. Lamb. I did not warn you, for I thought you were yachting to-day.'
'I was on board, going to sail this morning, when I got a telegram from Charlie, and just as I expected him to turn up, who should drop in but these two, fresh from Liverpool. Charles, this one, I mean, notours, thought it best not to startle my mother, and came here first, so I brought them over as soon as they had eaten a mouthful, and now I'll take a cruise up the river till it is all quiet.'
'O no, please don't be so unkind,' pleaded Stella. 'I'll take you to my brother in his study without coming across anybody. He went in as soon as we began to play at croquet. Here, through the laburnum path.'
She led him by the hand in a passive condition, highly amusing to his son and brother, and Fulbert followed in a state of bewilderment.
'What an exquisite place!' exclaimed the elder Charles, catching sight of the cloister through the trees. 'What a treat to see old walls! It is like Oxford.'
'Pretty?' said Fulbert, 'I can't think how any one can stand being cramped up by all these walks and enclosures!' and indeed his great robust swinging step seemed to spurn them. 'All well?' he asked.
'Doesn't he know?' said Stella, pausing and touching her crape.
'Yes, yes, my dear,' said Captain Audley, 'they understand all that.'
'But Fulbert is more than half lost,' said the uncle, 'and for my own part I can't realise this as your home.'
'I shall be glad to get to Bexley,' sighed Fulbert. 'However the elder ones can't be so altered! I should know old Fee anywhere!'
They had reached the house, and Stella left them in the hall, saying she would find Felix. Fulbert would have followed her, but was detained by the captain, with the words, 'She knows best. I told you he had never been quite the thing since.'
Fulbert stood still gazing in amaze at the lofty dark oak hall and broad staircase so utterly unlike the narrow entry that had been home to him, but the study door opened and forth came a figure with outstretched hands, bright face, and glad welcome. 'Ful! Dear old boy, come at last!' and the boyish handclasp of departure was an eager kiss of greeting between the men. 'Mr. Audley! My great wish! Do the others know? Have you seen Cherry?'
'I'll send her in,' quoth the captain, and rushing off in his excitement and hatred of scenes, he marched into the thick of the fray, where Cherry, amid mammas and Hepburns under the cedar, was astonished by a voice in her ear, 'Your brother and mine are in the study, go to them. I'll take the teapot.'
'Your brother?'
'Charles. Eyes brought him home—Fulbert with him. Good morning; you'll excuse Miss Underwood: her brother from Australia.'
Cherry could only gasp something about pardon, relinquish her teapot to the valiant skipper, snatch up Lord Gerald and hurry off at her swiftest pace, finding, under the appropriate shade of the orange-tree at the conservatory door, Charlie and Stella. 'Oh! it was not you he meant,' was her inhospitable greeting.
'No, no. The Charles worth havingishere, and Fulbert. We are gone to look up the rest.'
This did not look much like it, but Cherry stumped on, and came in sight of the three in the hall, still silent in the first wonder, Felix with one hand on the table, gazing at the new comers in silent extasy, while they looked as if scarcely able to speak under the shock of his appearance—those wasted enlarged features, that transparent pallor with the grey shades round mouth, eyes and temples, the figure that lost elastic slenderness without gaining strength, and the hair thinned though still shining. Cherry was used to it, but she saw how it had startled them, and that all three were like men in a dream, which she broke by her cry of—'Fulbert, Fulbert! Mr. Audley! Oh! Felix, is not this joy?'
Fulbert started round, relieved at his first real recognition, and his big arms were round her, his great beard sweeping her cheeks. 'Cherry! you at last! Little Cherry! But you've not got a proper crutch.'
'So much the better,' said Mr. Audley, amused at the complaint, 'she is a stronger little body than when you left her.'
'And where did you drop from?' Felix was the first to ask.
All was quickly explained, Fulbert keeping hold of his sister all the time. Mr. Audley's eyes had suddenly failed him, and the doctor had urged his going home at once if he hoped to save them. Fulbert, who had long been meditating a run home, resolved to see him safe through the voyage, and thus they had set forth suddenly, preceding their own letters. The inflammation of the eyes had subsided, and they were somewhat better. 'Though,' said the owner, 'I hope it is their fault that you look so altered, Felix.'
'He will soon get back his looks,' said Cherry. 'He is ever so much better. You heard.'
'Yes,' said Fulbert, 'Captain Audley told us. Poor little Theodore. The only wonder is that he lived so long—Who comes there?'
'You know me, Fulbert.'
'Wilmet? Yes, only grown grander than ever. But bless me! I thought they told me. No—Lance isn't here, and couldn't have got like that. Who is it, I say?'
'Have you forgotten little Bear?'
'Great Bear, rather,' said Mr. Audley. 'You've made good use of your time, Bernard!'
'Oh! here'sthelong lad,' said Felix. 'You'll not mistake him.'
'Aye! I should know Tina,' said Fulbert. 'He always did look the parson. Who's missing now—Robina?'
'Robin is here! Oh Ful, Ful, you're very big, but your face is just like the old times when you used to clamber up the timbers in the yard!'
'That's right, Bob! Now I begin to believe I'm come home. You're as jolly as ever.'
Just then a shout of 'Mother!' and a vigorous patter of boots ended in the bouncing in of two red curly mops of hair, whose owners were pursuing a squabble of 'I will' and 'I won't,' and pulling at the opposite ends of a string as they charged against Wilmet, in loud appeal and protest. 'Softly, softly, Kester, Eddy, look at your uncle!' was the motherly unperturbed rebuke, a hand on each shoulder, 'There's your uncle Fulbert. Oh Kester, right hands.'
'Never mind,' said Fulbert, not more eager for the greeting than the two nephews, who began again, 'Mother, make Eddy'—'Mother, Kester won't'—and reeled out of the room still twisted up in the string, Wilmet after them. 'Like a pair of puppies in leash,' said Felix.
'How many are there?'
'These two, and a little girl.'
Then came a sound, not without sweetness, though still a whine—'Chérie! I want Chérie, O Chérie, they've got my lasso,' and tottering and shuffling in came the little black figure with the white face and clung to her. Both travellers started. 'I thought they said Theodore—No, he'd be bigger,' exclaimed Fulbert.
'It is Gerald, poor Edgar's boy,' said Felix. 'Here, Gerald, here is another brother of your father—and here's a dear old friend.'
The delicate hand held out by Gerald was as unlike as possible to the brown puggy paws of his cousins, but he entreated still 'Don't let them have my lasso, Chérie. It's grass, and Fernan gave it me!'
'I'll come, Gerald dear, I'll get them some whipcord—I must go back to the people; I hope they'll soon be merciful and go—Oh! the heart's joy of having seen those two!—Yes, dear boy, I'm coming, I'll take care they don't take it away.'
'Cherry and her master!' said Bernard.
'Blissful bondage,' said Felix. 'Have you seen them all yet, Fulbert? No—where's Angel?'
'Little Pryde has chopped his finger with a reap-hook, and she's gone off with Miss Bridget to see about it,' returned Clement. 'Suppose we walk and meet them, Ful—Felix will have his talk with Mr. Audley.'
And Robina and Bernard departed to the game, while Felix led his friend into the study, saying in exultation, 'Our Cherry looks a heartier woman than ever we expected, does she not?'
'Wonderfully improved. I only wish I could say the same of you! Is this the effect of the accident?' as Felix, having placed an arm-chair for Mr. Audley, subsided into his manifestly invalid resting place.
'I believe so. But how about your eyes?'
'That is what I cannot tell. They have mended since I have given up reading or writing, but I durst not accept the Bishopric till I knew whether they would be serviceable.'
'Albertstown?'
'Yes, I've been offered it. Any way, I should have had to come home; and it was very good in Fulbert to come and take care of me.'
'An unspeakable delight and gift to have you both!' said Felix, 'Most thankworthy!' he added almost to himself, 'how good in you to have come to us!'
'More pleasure than goodness. My mother hates surprises and shocks, so I had the day to spare, and I longed to see your domains. What a delicious place! Not even Cherry's sketches made me understand the charm.'
'We have so much to show you! You will think me absurd about it, but I own I never see anything comparable to it.'
'I shan't think you absurd! Imagine what this room, with its air of age and quaintness of carving, is to a man who has seen nothing venerable these thirteen years.'
'And our church. But that you must not see without our Vicar.'
'I hope to give thanks for our return there. Robert said he would give us all the evening here. How much good you have done him. I think his adoration of little Stella is quite equal to Charlie's.'
Felix smiled faintly. 'Ah! you seem to have come to help us anent that affair! I am very glad to be able to put it into your hands.'
'I'm afraid they are not very influential.'
'At least they belong to a head that can be trusted,' said Felix, smiling. 'I'm not sure the poor lad ought to be here to-day.'
'I fancy he gathered hopes from Lady Liddesdale which he thinks justify him,' said the uncle. 'Should you consent if he got a secretaryship at the Embassy?'
'I should feel as if one of my greatest cares was relieved! I have tried to do right in the matter, but it is a hard one. I should be thankful indeed to see my little one cleared from this perplexity, and I begin to trust I shall. Everything seems to be so remarkably smoothing itself, as it were winding itself up.'
'Felix, I don't understand your tone. I can't see you distinctly, but I am sure more is amiss with you than Robert told me.'
'I was on the verge of bleeding to death after the accident,' said Felix, 'and I fancy the treatment I am going through keeps me low.'
'Treatment, what for?'
In a few technical words he repeated what he had told Gertrude.
'You speak with certainty!' exclaimed his friend.
'No, it is too much out of reach. They are trying to disperse it, and if that cannot be done, there would be a fight of strength of constitution. It seems to me hardly to get better or worse since the mere muscular strain passed off, only paining me on provocation, and telling chiefly in weakness and lassitude. It is curious how everything in my life seems drawing to a point, so that somehow I feel as if I were permitted to bind up my sheaves. Here is poor Edgar's fate certain so as to enable me to make arrangements about the property, and his child to be Cherry's object, making me far happier about her. And here you are; I have longed to pray for your being here to help us both when the crisis comes. You will?'
'I will! I will. So far as I dare to promise!'
'Remember. She knows nothing of this, only Clement. I could not get along without him. Poor Clem! Do you remember how we used to laugh at him? You will marvel at the strength and wisdom that have grown up in him. I rejoice to have come to such dependence on the brother I understood and perhaps liked least, and it is the same with Cherry. She has learnt to lean on him.'
'More than on Lance?'
'Lance, our lark and our sunshine! Dear Lance, I think he may have a home of his own, but his affairs are not yet susceptible of discussion,' said Felix, smiling. 'Altogether, I have been strangely blessed in these brothers and sisters of mine. The love and affection I have had from them, the willing loyalty that has been the spirit of them all, strike me as wonderful.'
'Wonderful, because those who do most are generally the worst requited.'
'And now, the dear little fellow is taken whom I could least have borne to leave,' added Felix. 'The missing him was very sore to me at first, but I am glad now. All were good to him, but it was effort to all but Stella and myself, and even with Stella it could not have gone on. There are only two for whom I have real anxieties, and there is good stuff in both.'
'Alda?'
'I was not thinking of her. She never seemed my charge like the rest. No, Angela and Bernard, but so much has righted itself that I have the more faith. I believe Bear may be all the better for losing his dependence on me. He wants to be forced into manhood.'
'Felix, I wonder whether you are right in thus giving yourself up. It makes me doubt if I ought to have left you alone to the charge. It must have gone very hard with you.'
'Not at all. I have had my full share of happiness. A most happy, peaceful family, and latterly in this delightful place! my first, dearest home, the spot I must always have loved best! and Cherry! Truly, too, both here and at Bexley, I have had that blessing of Joseph, whatever I have done, the Lord hath made it to prosper. You left me Mr. Froggatt's assistant, I think, and each step since has been no small enjoyment in itself.'
'Yet you are content that all this should end! Your father was, but his had been a sadder, more laborious, unsuccessful life, and I own I marvel at you, so fresh in this position, with life before you—You are—?'
'Thirty-four this last July.'
'That is early youth to most men.'
'No doubt something is due to the perpetual weariness and "do nothingness" that belong to the complaint, and make me feel getting done with it all. Soon I shall free myself of being rector here, the endowment of East Ewmouth is settled, the building begins in the spring. A long minority will right the estate, and work off its burthens, and I have had unexpected opportunities of putting things in train; but if I go on, the task of making both ends meet must continue hard. I suppose recovery would bring back zest and vigour, but as I am now, it is like a lame horse at grass, shrinking from a return to the load, the mire and the ruts, and the assurances of rest acquire a sweetness they never had before. If I had only done my part fully, and could say to my father, 'Behold me and the children thou hast given me!' but when I count my hundred thousand errors, and remember what makes up for them, it seems little if the last passage should be a hard one, as I suppose it will. Oh!' breaking off short, 'I should not have run on like this. It must be the worst thing for your eyes.'
'This is an odd way of helping you,' said Mr Audley, struggling for composure. 'I ought to be thankful to see you like this, but I am selfishly disappointed. I had reckoned on seeing you in the prime of your usefulness and honors, and happiness.'
'Here's plenty of happiness,' returned Felix, with his brightest smile; 'and I've not yet given up the uses nor the honors of Squire Underwood. In fact, I hear the carriages coming, and must go and see the people off. Will that serve for honors? it would have seemed like them twelve years ago.'
Uneasy about the eyes that had been swimming in perilous tears, he continued, changing his tone from the thoughtful to the lively: 'It is our only entertainment this year, of course, but I was forced to have Lamb here on business, and we thought it would please his wife.'
'Is she?'
'Yes, Alice Knevett. Prettier than ever,' he answered. 'Will you come out, or shall I leave you for these few minutes?'
The longing to watch him prompted Mr. Audley to follow him, though with little mind to face any one, and in a few moments it hardly seemed credible that the man who had been speaking of carrying the sentence of death within himself was the same who was so cheerfully and easily going through the friendly courtesies of a host—pausing with a face full of quiet humour to point out Captain Audley acting beneficent rover, though it was his first time of touching a mallet since he had been a guardsman, and croquet a novelty of high life.
Here too came the introduction to Major Harewood, never seen before, and the Reverend William, last seen as Lance's shock-headed friend, a terror to Wilmet and Cherry, and frightening the babies with his mesmerism.
It was still light enough for the grand tour, and Felix, though leaning and resting at every pause, would not be denied the going through the whole, showing it off with a kind of affectionate exultation rather increased than diminished since the day of taking possession. The character of the place had altered a good deal since that day when he had first seen it. It must be owned that some of the perfect trimness of turf and shrubbery had gone, and that some stable windows were broken, and their yard grass-grown, and the Vicarage Sunday school had an aspect which thirteen colonial years could not prevent the baronet's son from feeling at first sight a little disreputable. The half-finished Rectory of the future, where the Curate for whom Clement was advertising was to live, was on the glebe land on the other side of the church. Altogether, the house and grounds might be in less dainty order; but there was a look of life about every window, and the lawn was glowing with the bright tints of geraniums and verbenas, while dog, cat, kittens, and doves, to say nothing of the human creatures, imparted an air of gladness and animation, and the Virginian creeper on the cloister hung like a magnificent purple curtain over the scene. The dreary deserted aspect of church and churchyard which had at first so disheartened Clement was entirely gone, and the last September lights and shades showed themselves on tower and pinnacle, and gleamed on stained glass as somehow sunshinedoesseem to fall on what is loved and prized, as if inanimate things responded to affection.
In the part of the cloister wall that lay within the churchyard precincts were two or three memorials of Underwoods who did not lie buried there, and to these Felix had added a brass cross with an inscription bearing the names of Edward Underwood and Mary Wilmet his wife. Mr. Audley looked at these earnestly, marvelling all the more at his friend's resolute content in his exclusion from this lovely spot, and from thence he was led to the little grave, now marked with a white marble cross, bearing on the foot the word 'Ephphatha.' What better could have been wished for that little helpless being? Fulbert was of course more interested in the willow tree. He swung himself over the bank and calculated the height with wonder, demanding of Felix how the feat had been possible to him. 'I can't tell,' answered he, 'I have wondered since. It was very foolish of me not to have done like Charlie. He was the hero.'
'Ah! Charlie is a regular fish, at home in the water or out,' said his father, well pleased.
And they looked at the 'fish,' who was standing a little way off, with Stella beside him, with down-cast eyes. He had made two attempts already to pour out his plans on Felix, who had cruelly answered that he could listen to nothing till the examination was over, and consent gained, and ruthlessly cut him off from all private interviews, not choosing to give anything that could be construed into the most tacit encouragement—but not able to find it in his heart to interfere with the present enjoyment, though it was not in the bond.