Clement had to be the parental brother to lead the bride to the carriage. He kissed and blessed her in the porch, saying, 'Little one, you have had a sad beginning, but I am glad you were still one with us. We know you all the more.'
'We are glad,' said Stella. 'This is worth more than weeks of happiness.'
'She is right,' said Charlie. 'We would not but have staid for worlds! We ought always to be the better for it. It has made the world look so different to us!'
'But that difference is not gloom,' said his uncle; and the 'Oh no' on his lips, and the bright crystal tears in Stella's eyes were no more gloomy than her diamonds when Felix was musing over them.
So the others turned back into the house that felt so large and empty, and they so few. Clement tendered an arm to help Geraldine upstairs. Somehow, long as it was since she had leant on Felix, this action brought a great sense of change. Clement's aid was the careful bending tenderness of a very tall man towards a small woman; Felix had been more nearly on her level; and merry old boasts on this score came piteously to the minds of both. The brother, who had borne up so strongly through all these days of sorrow and suffering, and months of pain and suspense, found his effort at cheering turn to a sob as he said, 'Ah, Cherry, you must make the best of me. I will try to be all I can, but never, never——'
'You are not your own self?' said Cherry, just then the braver. 'Have not we two always hung together, Clem?'
'You are very good to say so,' he faltered.
'Good! when I just feel it,' and she pulled his arm round her. 'Dear Clem, don't you remember the time when our pillars were away before, and all you did for me then, when I was cross and ill? He is only gone for a little time, you know, and he never did tell you and me to take care of each other, because he knew it would come naturally. Dear, dear Clem, if you weren't Clem already, should not I love you for having been so much the nearest and most helpful to him all this time?'
'The joy of my life!' murmured Clement in a choked voice, most unlike joy, as he leant against the door-post quite overcome.
'You'll tell me all in our long evenings. We will live with him a great deal still, and keep him before the eyes of our dear little boy—our charge.'
'Charge! Everything is a charge!' said Clement, wearily. 'How to act or decide without that clear, cool, wise head! To fill his place is impossible!' Then rousing himself, 'I beg your pardon, Cherry, I thought I was going to do something to comfort you, instead of making a fool of myself.'
'Making a fool of yourself makes you a great deal dearer and nicer than if you set up for comforting,' said Cherry. 'You know as well as I do that nobody can ever do that. Poor, dear old Clem, you are quite worn out, and no wonder, everything has come harder on you than on any one else. Sit down and rest;' and as she seated herself she tried to pull him down on the sofa beside her, but he resisted. 'I wish I could, Cherry,' he said wistfully, 'but I ought to go up to the Rood to thank the mayor and all the rest.'
'Kind friends!' said Cherry; 'but can't Lance do it, when he goes back?'
'Less gracious; and I sent word by Lamb I was coming. There's no good in shrinking!' said Clement, resolutely rearing himself up, but coming back to kneel on one knee, take another embrace, and say, 'O Cherry, I am so sorry for you, and you are so good to me!'
The humility touched her deeply. 'Not good,' she said; 'I want you, you are my own home brother,' and he allowed his wearied head to repose for a few moments on her shoulder as she threw her arm round him. 'Just tell me,' she said, as he stirred again, 'does Mr. Fulmort stay?'
'Yes, over Sunday.'
'That is well. I thought so,'
'Why?'
'Because you never dare to give way but when he is at hand. Dear Clem, I did not mean to vex you. Where should we have been if you had not been brave and strong?'
'I can't say much for that now, Cherry,' he said, 'I must not stay. I shall not be fit for what has still to be done.'
She heard him walk across to that untenanted room, and her love for him was quickened. Trust in his highly principled kindness she had always had, but to find him crushed, oppressed, overwhelmed, gave her a fellow-feeling for him as she felt him leaning on her; and this was not indeed consolation, but something not entirely removed from it.
His resolute, evenly-balanced manner, guarding jealously against whatever could unnerve him, had however been kept up all along to all the rest, as perhaps was needed by the exigencies of his situation, and perhaps it helped to actuate Robina in the conversation she was holding as she paced the cloister with William.
'Should you very much mind my not earning that last two hundred?'
'I? You speak as if I had ever asked you to earn anything.'
'For don't you think it seems my duty to stay and look after poor Cherry? If Stella were left I should not mind, but no one can tell whether Angel may not be worse than nobody; or she might yet go to St. Faith's.'
'The best place for her.'
'So I cannot bear to leave Cherry alone with Clement and the child. There will be Wilmet when she gets about again; but as long as her boys are such little ruffians——'
'Not worse than we used to be to the little trebles.'
'The little trebles were not like Gerald, I should hope, and Cherry must not have everything thrust on her at once—she who has been always petted and madehisdarling. Clement will be substantially kind, but he has no petting in him, and no mercy on his tools for parish work. He will be attentive, but all in a grand grave way, not spontaneously, because he can't help it, and she will pine. That she will do any way, poor dear, but it ought not to be without a sister.'
'Precisely. I am very glad.' Which he sincerely was to see affection triumph over prudence.
'So I think of writing to Lady de la Poer and telling her not to wait for me. Indeed, I know who would suit her. I can go and wish them all good-bye when Wilmet is better, but I must give notice; so of course I told you first, and I suppose I must speak to Clement.'
'He will be very thankful. He is very anxious and unhappy about Cherry.'
'And the unhappier he is, the sterner.'
'You hardly do Clement justice,' said William, gravely. 'Think of the knowledge he has silently borne these six months. Both as brother and as priest, he has gone further down with Felix into the valley of the shadow of death than any one else could do, and if the chill of it has stiffened him, it may be that only so could he serve as a support. I assure you, Robina, I watched and wondered all last long vacation. I saw he was unhappy and uneasy about your brother, but only now that I understand it all do I fully appreciate his self-control and energy through it all.'
'Self-control and energy,' said Robina. 'Yes that's just what I mean. Don't look at me so, Willie. He is a model clergyman, I know, but I fancy that very perfection hinders him from being the brother poor Cherry needs. There! we are not going, of all things in the world, to quarrel about Clement.'
'Certainly not,' said Will, smiling, 'especially as this conviction of yours leads you in the very direction I wish, and will cure itself.'
'I know him so little,' added Robina, in excuse for herself, as she saw how she had wounded Will's enthusiastic admiration of the very qualities in which he felt himself the most deficient. 'You know I have never spent three months together at home since I was seven years old, so it is full time I learnt home-life.'
'To be domesticated,' said Will; 'but look here—why should not I go in for the curacy, and then——'
'That's the way I am to devote myself to Cherry, eh? No, Bill, we must be all the more staunch. Mind, the question is not whether you and I can be content in poverty, but whether we will be a drag on our brothers, and you a less efficient clergyman. Recollect my father.'
'I only recollect worn-out Dons.'
'Dons minus brains! You always wanted to do it all, and now you have your way. Two years more, and I really think we shall do!' (For Robina kept the account of the investments.)
'You miser! At least I shall know you are safe here, and of that I am heartily glad. I never could forgive the Repworth folk for being your masters.'
'Very ungrateful!' said Robina. 'I don't know how to think of not going back to my dear little girls, and their mother!'—and tears came to her eyes, for she could not but feel that home had lost all its brightness and much of its sweetness.
'I think,' said Bill, musingly, 'it is wonderful how, with such a set of strong wills as you Underwoods have, you should have all preserved such perfect union.'
'Have we such strong wills?'
'Do you ask a poor victim like me, whose only chance is in some slight confusion on your part which your own Will may be? Look at Clement, like a piece of iron when his mind is made up; look at Wilmet; look at Angel; look at Lance. Why, his power of resistance had changed the whole tone of us choir boys before he was thirteen. In fact, I believe it is that strength of character that keeps you harmonious. You don't worry about straws, or clash, or pother, but know when and to whom to give way with a good grace.'
'We did,' sighed Robina. 'We could not help it then. Ah! here comes Clement. I had better have it out with him at once.'
She was touched, perceiving the tokens of tears, and still more by his gratitude when he learnt her intention. 'Thank you,' he warmly said. 'I durst not ask it of you, but it is an immense relief to me on our dear Cherry's account.'
'Have you been with her? How is she?'
'Braver and sweeter than I dared hope,' he said, his eyes filling again. 'Surely the Communion of saints is beginning to bring her refreshment and strength! She put me so much in mind ofhim—'
He passed on, for he was on his way to the Rood, but meant to calm himself by a few moments in the Church. There, however, he was surprised by a low sound of voices, and noiselessly following it up, he beheld, unseen himself, Mr. Fulmort and Angela in the Lady Chapel, and went on his way with a heart disburthened of one of its loads.
Yes. This had been the effect of Sister Constance's words: 'Commune with your own heart.' In the hope, nay, purpose, of at least going to Bexley with Lance on the Monday, and laying her case before Mr. Willoughby, Angela had gone to her room to prepare her confession, using the methods of self-examination taught her in old times, and in a mood to enhance rather than slur over anything she detected. Behold, as she tried herself by the questions so long laid aside, they assumed new force and meaning! The once blunted probes had acquired a sharpness they had never had before, and among her many discoveries was that her extreme dislike to having recourse to the Vicar of St Matthew's was, first, because it was Clement's desire, secondly, because, instead of an interesting penitent with a tragic crime on her hands, she should only come as the naughty girl he had known all her life; and thirdly, not because of his mismanagement, but because he understood her all too well, and had warned her of the very errors that had eaten into her life. It was only pride and love of excitement that impelled her to seek a fresh director; and it was the turning point of her life that when the conviction dawned on her she did not turn her back on it, but it so wrought with her as to take her to the Lady Chapel with her first and most parental spiritual guide on that winter afternoon of mourning.
At the end of the long interview, as the young moon shone into the twilight church, while Angela knelt on, humbled, softened, the turbid waters of her spirit quelled, and a more peaceful sorrow than she had ever known resting on her, there stole along the aisles the notes of—
'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and say unto her,That her warfare is accomplished,That her iniquity is pardoned.'
It was like a welcome from the heavenly choir to the one sinner that repenteth.
Of course it was Lance, after his duty by his fellow-mourners had been done, and he had seen them off to Bexley. He had no one to pace the cloister with, and the organ had been the chief solace and exponent of his sorrows and his yearnings. Poor Lance, who must henceforth work for himself instead of his brother, and turn out Pursuivants, for which at present he only cared because any deterioration therein would be treason to that Editor who had worked at them with loving conscientious might. The whole bequest, so justly earned as all felt it to be, was heartless and distasteful; he was disgusted to find himself a man of substance, and not only his fellow-citizens, but Fulbert had distressed him by congratulations. Fulbert had employed his time at Bexley in falling in love with Lizzie Bruce, and had therefore kept close to her father all this time, and finally driven him to the station in the dog-cart; and it was rather an effort to Lance to listen amiably to the raptures of prosperous love; above all, when he had just missed the glance, hand-pressure and farewell, which however mournful and indifferent this would have probably been, his heart and soul hungered and thirsted after. He had fancied Dr. May and his daughter would stay for luncheon, and had missed their departure by exhibiting little Gerald to some of Edgar's old friends, and the loss of the one moment he had anticipated with a throb of pleasure depressed him more than was reasonable. And yet!—There was nothing for it but to try to soothe his spirit with the harmonies that often seemed to him all he cared to live for, and fortunately there was a musical pupil teacher always looking about in the hope that Mr. Lancelot would want his services to blow for him.
He played till the bell began for even-song, and, one after another, an unusually full congregation began to drop in, including even two of the Miss Hepburns. The service was shared between old Mr. Harewood and Mr. Fulmort, only glad to relieve the three overwrought clergy who had borne the brunt of this Epiphany tide. Clement's paleness and depression were evident enough now, though still against his will.
'Angela, my dear,' he said, overtaking her in the hall, as she was going upstairs, 'Wilmet has asked for you to come and help Sister Constance in Alda's place. If you can fetch what you want at once, I will put you over.'
'O, thank you!' she cried, flushing with colour at the unexpected boon, as well as at the soft gentleness of his tone, which had of late in their hours of nursing been apt to be quick, stern, and decisive towards her, partly from his own repressed grief, partly from her habit of repelling his advances.
'You had better let me,' said Lance, as she ran upstairs. 'You are pretty well what Gerald calls used up.'
'Thank you, I wish to do this,' said Clement. 'O Lance, Dr. May and his daughter asked especially after you, and told me to give you their good-byes. And here,' lowering his voice, 'here is something I was bidden to give you.'
Lance looked at the address, and carried it quickly upstairs. It was one of Felix's neat envelopes with the crest and motto, and the address to L.O. Underwood Esq., in the familiar writing, just such as those which he had been wont to receive by hundreds. Within was a note with a still fragrant spray of dried myrtle. The contents were:
August 20th, 1872.MY DEAREST LANCEY BOY,I do not want to make the business a burthen and a tie to you. You have slaved enough at uncongenial and solitary drudgery for my sake. I would not ask you to go on with it on any account. I only beg you to wait one half year, and if by that time you see no prospect of what would sweeten your labours, then do as you judge best about disposing of it, and using the proceeds as you please. I know you will provide against my poor Pur falling into hands that might sully or pervert such testimony as it is able to bear. For the rest, let it be as your judgment and wishes guide you. But be patient and not discouraged. I have ascertained that there will be no opposition from the father, and I am mistaken if you do not succeed at last. I dare not pray for any earthly boon, the sense of ignorance in asking becomes so much deepened, but if I prayed for anything definite it would be for that reward for you. As it is, I venture only to ask that joys and blessings the highest and the sweetest may be showered on you, my very dear brother; you who came to help me in the time of greatest need, and whose whole life has been a continual sacrifice of taste, enterprise, and ambition for my sake. If Clement is my chief aid in this present pass, it is you to whom I have owed the most through life, and I cannot believe I shall ever become insensible to it. Perhaps there will be no leave-taking. If not, take this as mine, and believe, as I do, that we shall still join our voices with Angels and Archangels, and all the company of Heaven; and look on to the day when for the sake of the Lamb who was slain our praise may be perfected. God bless you, my dear Lance, and bring us both to meet in that everlasting Home where there is no parting.My love to dear old Mrs. Froggatt.Give your Daisy this myrtle spray when she is yours, and with it a brother's love from me.Believe me everYour grateful and loving brother,F.C. UNDERWOOD.
August 20th, 1872.MY DEAREST LANCEY BOY,
I do not want to make the business a burthen and a tie to you. You have slaved enough at uncongenial and solitary drudgery for my sake. I would not ask you to go on with it on any account. I only beg you to wait one half year, and if by that time you see no prospect of what would sweeten your labours, then do as you judge best about disposing of it, and using the proceeds as you please. I know you will provide against my poor Pur falling into hands that might sully or pervert such testimony as it is able to bear. For the rest, let it be as your judgment and wishes guide you. But be patient and not discouraged. I have ascertained that there will be no opposition from the father, and I am mistaken if you do not succeed at last. I dare not pray for any earthly boon, the sense of ignorance in asking becomes so much deepened, but if I prayed for anything definite it would be for that reward for you. As it is, I venture only to ask that joys and blessings the highest and the sweetest may be showered on you, my very dear brother; you who came to help me in the time of greatest need, and whose whole life has been a continual sacrifice of taste, enterprise, and ambition for my sake. If Clement is my chief aid in this present pass, it is you to whom I have owed the most through life, and I cannot believe I shall ever become insensible to it. Perhaps there will be no leave-taking. If not, take this as mine, and believe, as I do, that we shall still join our voices with Angels and Archangels, and all the company of Heaven; and look on to the day when for the sake of the Lamb who was slain our praise may be perfected. God bless you, my dear Lance, and bring us both to meet in that everlasting Home where there is no parting.
My love to dear old Mrs. Froggatt.
Give your Daisy this myrtle spray when she is yours, and with it a brother's love from me.
Believe me everYour grateful and loving brother,F.C. UNDERWOOD.
And while Lance stood in his room, drinking in with his eyes these words of affection, Angela upon the moonlit river was craving Clement's pardon for all her manifold transgressions against him.
'My dear,' he answered in a deep, sad, but sweet voice, 'I have quite as many errors against you for which to reproach myself.'
Then as they landed on the narrow sward, he put his arm round her and kissed her, and she found his tears raining on her face.
'My child, I have not done well by you,' he said, 'but I believe our dear brother has turned your face right again, and I am thankful for it. I think we shall begin a new life towards one another now. Good night, and may His blessing be with you.'
'Save that from yonder ivy-mantled towerThe moping owl doth to the moon complainOf such as, wandering near her haunted tower,Molest her ancient solitary reign.'Gray.
'Poor caterpillars, with our web broken, trying to gather it close round us,' said Geraldine, with a sort of playful melancholy, when old Squire Underwood's little table was produced, that so vast and sad a tract of table-cloth might not divide the four who met at meals.
For Sister Constance and Mr. Fulmort had won back for Angela permission to make a visit at St Faith's, certainly during Lent, and probably for a longer time, that she might be regularly instructed in nursing. The wild spirit craved for discipline as by a sort of instinct, and this the orphaned family had never been able to supply, and her affections had really been wounded enough to render nothing so welcome as shelter and protection against herself. Fulbert's English visit soon came to an end. Australia was his element, he was weary of the old country; declared there was no room to move, and having been refused by Lizzie Bruce, only wanted to get back as soon as he could. He looked Bernard all over, and pronounced that there were too many of his sort out there already, and he had rather help him to the University.
Bernard might in fact have been sent thither by subscription from the family, but he surprised them all by showing Cherry his letter to accept an under-clerkship in the house of Kedge and Underwood. It was the consequence of a consultation with Mr. Travis on means of living, though the lad had kept his own counsel till all was settled, and, he added, 'I know I've been an idle dog, but I do mean to work now;' the hitherto obstinately childish face showed manhood and self-reliance. Felix had done quite right to knock all his supports away, and that he knew it was shown by his acting at once instead of grumbling. The fate of many a comrade had taught him to rejoice that his post was not the prize of a competitive examination, and if his features and bearing perilously reminded Spooner of his brother Edgar, the absence of Edgar's tastes and talents exempted him from some of the same temptations; nor did Miss Underwood show any symptoms of spoiling him, only settling him in respectable lodgings, and making her house no more than a friendly cousinly resort. His public school-life had likewise given him a less dangerous set of acquaintance than Edgar's had been, and there were wholesome opportunities of gratifying his love of athletics. Lady Caergwent, too, on coming to town for the Session, did not forget the solitary Vale Lestonite, but requited his botanical exertions with friendly invitations for gay evenings and for quiet Sundays, both of which did much to keep up what was good, both outwardly and inwardly, in the youth.
'Kedge and Underwood' in all its branches was intensely elated at its approaching union with the great Mr. Travis of Peter Brown and Co., who was to take the style and arms of Underwood, well pleased to appropriate the rood, and bear the name of those whom he had always regarded with a true family love. The wedding was to be soon after Easter, and the pair were then to go out and make arrangements for the future welfare of the American property. Ferdinand had in jest asked Gerald if he would go back, and the child had drawn back into his aunt's arms, and answered, 'Not without Chérie.'
Wilmet had soon come downstairs again, but with the first visible signs of departing youth, the first dimming of the freshness of complexion, the first marring of the perfect oval contour of face, and with a heart heavy as much for the living sister as for the dead brother, and with the sad grieving which only mothers know for the babe whom she had never seen. John was anxious to take her from home. The last old Miss Oglandby had died suddenly during her recovery, and as all three had left him half their portions, he was now a man of considerable means, rather disproportioned to his cottage at Vale Leston. There however he meant to remain, for the sake of attending to the estate, but he hastened the preliminary business in order to proceed to that in Buckinghamshire, so soon as Wilmet should be capable of the journey. And he found the less to do, that never man had set his house in order more thoroughly than Felix. Every paper and letter was sorted, and so marked that there was not an instant's doubt whether it concerned the estate or the business; every account was clearly brought down to Christmas, and nothing left that could complicate or perplex: in many cases, especially with regard to the farms and Blackstone Gulley, there were notes of conversations, promises, or intentions. The executors had little but formal work to do.
Wilmet was only once able to come to the Priory before she left home, and she could hardly bear it, breaking down with showers of tears, as if the grief were fresh; while Geraldine went about, calm, dry-eyed, occupied, attending to Gerald, receiving callers, writing letters, and consulting with her brothers, or even helping Lance with work for the Pursuivant, but all as if the taste and flavour had gone out of her life, and nothing could interest her, except Gerald and one other employment.
She had copied her miniature of Felix for Stella, and the wistful admiration of some of the others had made her volunteer to give one to each of the family, and she spent many hours over the square open brow, clear, fearless, stedfast, well-opened grey eyes and firm sweet mouth. Wilmet, discovering what she was about, thought it so bad for her as to call for a scolding to Clement and Robina for having permitted her to undertake what must injure her eyes and feed her sorrow.
'No, don't stop me, Mettie,' said Cherry, 'Icando them now, perhaps I could not later.'
'You need not do them. Photographs would do quite as well, and save you.'
'I don't want to be saved. It is my great pleasure.'
'A morbid pleasure, I fear, my dear. At any rate I will not be the cause of your hurting yourself. Iwillhave a photograph.'
'Don't take it now at least,' implored Cherry as the white resolute fingers closed on the original. 'Please! I cannot quite bear to let him go. Besides,' with a smile of entreaty, 'I don't think you perceive. It is not morbid. It does me good. It is like getting Clement to talk in the evening. I go over those dear lines and curves, and every touch brings back some look or word, so that it is living with him, and learning him over again, and I get to giving thanks for him best that way.'
'Well! I couldn't,' said Wilmet, not even able to look at the picture, and cautioning Robina to interfere at the first symptom of damage to eyes or spirits.
No one could be more tenderly cherished and watched over than Geraldine. Clement's devotion was more genuine and less dutiful, more loving and less compassionate than Robina had expected, for it had that essential though involuntary quality of dependence. Never before had his life given him the personal experience of affliction, and it had softened him into gentleness. He had almost erected Cherry into the place of Felix as well as her own, and leant on her for advice and sympathy. Whatever approaches to relaxation or amusement he allowed himself were to lure her to be pleased, and if she tried to be lured, it was only because she thought he needed the relief.
Robina meantime was highly effective. She took Gerald's lessons, made herself acceptable in cottages, worked hard at the schools, and got on well with Clan Hepburn, who were unusually conformable, and thoroughly considerate. Moreover, if Robin could not be the idol of the lads, she took in hand the farmers' daughters. She allured them with a German class, got up some Mission working parties—and great victory of all—persuaded a selection not only to teach in the Sunday School but to meet beforehand to have instruction for this purpose from the Rector, without imputing to them the full extent of their ignorance. Clement might well own that Lent that there were some things Robina did better than anyone else.
He had a very youthful Curate at last, lodged at the farm, and he was also assisted by Mr. Audley, who was still living with his brother, frequently going up to his oculist, but devoting himself chiefly to the care of his future district at East Ewmouth. He had accepted the offer of the incumbency willingly, for between his private income and the endowment he would be able to keep up such a staff of Curates as would compensate for his defect of eyesight, and the Mission work of the little post needed an experienced head more than good eyes.
After a few weeks it became known that on his refusal of the Bishopric of Albertstown, the offer had been transferred to the Vicar of St. Matthew's, Whittingtonia, probably at his suggestion, for he was very anxious for its acceptance, and Clement listened to him with a divided mind, for St Matthew's was still the young Rector's first love, and he loved it a good deal more than either settlers or black fellows at the antipodes. As he mournfully observed to Cherry, they would go and get some married man who would not live at the clergy-house, and would spoil the whole spirit of the place. It scarcely consoled him to be reminded that Mr. Fulmort having founded and endowed the living, had the patronage, and that being elected by the Synod in Australia, would not have to leave the appointment to the Crown.
'Ah! the Vicar!' he proclaimed as he unlocked the post-bag, and distributed the letters at the breakfast-table in the austere sunshine of March.
Next came a sort of gasping grunt.
'Well?' said Cherry.
No answer, but to lay down the letter and begin cutting bread, but in an absent way, going on as if instead of four he had the original number to cut for.
The sisters saw that no more questions were to be asked in the publicity of the breakfast-table, limited as it was. Self-contained man! Any one of his brothers would have had it out in that gasp. Robina, aware that the world consisted of herself and Gerald, would have removed it quickly, but that Gerald prolonged the consumption of his egg so unreasonably that his uncle had time to eat, drink, and look over the letter again, open the others, and even grow impatient enough to say, 'We can't wait for you all the morning, Gerald.' Then he said Grace, gave an arm to Cherry, with 'Can you spare me a few minutes?' and took her into the library.
'Does he go?'
'He says he hardly can, unless I will take St Matthew's.'
'You!'
'I can't understand it; but he says none of our old set are available. Don't be frightened, Cherry, I am not going to do anything to overthrow such comfort as is left you.'
'You can't mean that!'
'I do. This is not the kind of call that should disturb the claims of what is closest to me on earth. Nor have you been forgotten, as you will see,' as he gave her the letter.
The first thing she remarked was how differently the six years' priest was rated from the deacon who had been hunted down to the country parish. Mr. Fulmort reviewed the difficulty of finding a successor, for his most trustworthyélèveswere all either engaged elsewhere, or else ineligible on account of health, voice, or families. Fred Somers was admirable as senior curate, but could not take the lead where both familiarity with the place was needed and experience of parsonic authority. Thus Clement Underwood, loving Whittingtonia and beloved there, full of ardour and devotion, gifted with a fine voice, facility of preaching, and musical talent, as well as a growing dignity of presence and address, together with a strong and resolute temper, powers of judgment trained under his brother, and a constitution matured in pure country air to a considerable capacity and aptitude for work, seemed to combine most of the requisites for a City parish. 'More especially,' wrote the Vicar, 'if your sister could be induced to come with you. Her quickness, ready judgment, and especially her sense of the absurd, are just what would be valuable. Mind, I don't think of her as a worker, only as an Egeria to the clergy-house, and I can even provide her with a grove, where my dear old friend Miss Charlecote, as you may remember, did the like for us.'
He explained that Miss Charlecote now entirely resided at Hiltonbury with his sister and her husband, and had made over her beautiful old house to his disposal, not to be sold or broken up, but used as a residence for some of the clergy or Church helpers. Was it possible that Miss Underwood would come and live there with her brother, while Fred Somers would act as prior to the clergy-house? Mr. Fulmort however was most guarded in not pressing his plan, and aware of the possibility of strong objections, marking his desire that Clement should not feel himself bound by what must only be considered as a feeler, since his work at Vale Leston was thoroughly valuable. Mr. Fulmort added that the endowment of St. Matthew's, with four curates and sixteen choir boys always in the clergy-house, was £600,[1]whereas the Rectory of Vale Leston, needing only one assistant at the utmost, was now reckoned as above £800.
'What do you wish, Clement?'
'Don't talk of what I wish.'
'Then what do you think right?'
'What is best for you and Gerald?' he answered, with the hardness of tone that was only pain; 'you are my trust.'
'Never so as to fetter a priest from higher duties,' said Cherry. 'Suppose this was Albertstown.'
Somehow her odd tone of consternation was a pleasure to Clement; he smiled and said, 'Never mind, that's not the question; though I suppose this is a more perplexing one, as it leaves a choice, or the semblance of one,' and he sighed.
'You know Dr. May said Gerald ought to have constant attention from a London surgeon. Would the house be healthy for him? Do you know it?'
'O yes! We choir boys used often to be entertained there. We could play at cricket in the garden, and thought it paradise. It is an island of the old London before the fire, in a quiet street all warehouses; nothing newer than Queen Anne's time; delightful to us, but I don't know how it would seem to you after this place.'
'This place! I liked it whenhewas here, but now it is only a vast desolation. Everything is that indeed; but you see, I never had roots here, like him. What should you do with it?'
'I don't see why Bill Harewood should not take the living. He is older than I was when first I came here; he makes good way with the people—better than I do with many—and he ought to have a parish that would leave him a margin of leisure—besides Robina.'
Cherry clapped her hands. 'Well done, Bobbie! She has actually earned her promotion. Even you, reluctantly as it came out, allow that she is cut out for a clergyman's wife.'
He smiled. 'Well, I allow that she is worth the most to the parish of all of you, and that it would be a cruel pity to take her away.'
'And Bill will be twice the man, and half the March hare, with her, instead of without her.'
'Yes. Granting married clergy, they are the very people for it.'
'That's right! Dear Bob! Good old Will! It is enough to decide us at once after all their patience! They would have the Rectory, but how about this house?'
'Probably John would rent it. What?'
'Only naughtiness! A little jealousy of Kester running rampant over poor Gerald's house as if he were master and more.'
'Gerald will find out who is master only too soon.'
'Ah! he sometimes asks who this and that belongs to, poor boy, and why they call him the young Squire. It may be well for him not to hear too much of that, or to begin to lord it.'
'Besides, you would bring him down in summer, and if he spends his holidays here, he would see as much of the place as boys ever do of home.'
'Ah!' cried Cherry eagerly. 'We can have poor Bear to live with us. How delightful!'
'A great consideration,' said Clement 'You really think you can stand the City?'
'As well as any place! Oh, Clem! as long as you don't want to leave us behind I am glad.'
'I was so much afraid of your sending me away alone that I begin to fear you are making home too dear.'
'Nay,' with a sobbing laugh, 'if your Vicar told you to bring me, you need not mind. I do believe those dingy streets are more to you than all that cloister and river.'
'I can't help it, Cherry. I came here solely because my brother wanted me, and am heartily thankful for it; but, as you say, I have not rooted. We could not have his love from old association, and comparatively only cared for it through him. No doubt there is much that I love and prize, and any cure of souls must be most important; but now that East Ewmouth is to be separated and Blackstone Gulley is in a manner tamed, I can't get rid of the sense that it is too highly paid and too easy a life for a strong man of thirty, good for nothing but sheer work. Nor wouldhethink it desertion. He told me on that last day, when the Rectory was transferred, that the purpose was fulfilled, and I need not be hindered.'
'Too little work! Yet you are often on the point of being overdone.'
'I have been, but that was from East Ewmouth and other things that are over now. A curate there must be, because one can't be in two places at once, but except at special times of pressure, the work is hardly enough for two. It is just the thing for a man who has a brain and a pen like Will's. I never saw anything more telling than his pamphlet on godless education.'
'So we leave it to them.'
'Not so fast. I must be sure this consent is not the restlessness of grief, Cherry. Besides, we must ascertain that John approves on Gerald's account, and in the meantime, we had better say nothing to Robina.'
The proposal was too advantageous to his family for John not to look at it on all sides, indeed he would scarcely hear of it till he had met Clement and Mr. Fulmort in Whittingtonia, and looked over the house; but the inspection made him listen more favourably, and so did an interview with Gerald's doctor, and a correspondence with Cherry. Taking into account the child's incapacity for out-door sports, and Cherry's artistic and literary tastes, he saw advantages in the scheme. The Priory was too large for the reduced numbers, and all its interests and enjoyments had hinged on its loving master; but Cherry's London associations were disconnected from him, and the inducements to cultivate her art would save it from being dropped for want of the stimulus he had given; nor was the benefit of the family home for Bernard to be by any means forgotten. To be sure, Wilmet believed that Cherry could never be well or happy there, but then her rooms should be kept intact for her return when Clement might betake himself to his congeners in the clergy-house, and Wilmet was secular woman enough to think £800 a year wasted on him and his subscriptions, when it might be making Will and Robina happy.
So one spring afternoon, as Robina was trudging homewards, basket in hand, from a distant hamlet, pausing on the topmost point of the bridge to look at the swelling of the river, and the swirling eddies that rushed out of sight, she heard herself hailed, and on the Ewmouth road beheld a broad clerical undress hat, surmounting a black figure, with a bag over his shoulder. To run down the bridge and meet in the middle of a miry pool was the work of a very few seconds.
'Willie! How delightful! You're come for Easter?'
'I thought you were looking out for me.'
'Do you think I always am? for I didn't expect you. You said you were going home first.'
'So I thought till yesterday evening, but I thought—here, give me that.'
'You haven't a hand, unless you prefer it to me,' said Robina. 'No, you can't sling it up with your bag. You aren't to be trusted. There's a basin in it.'
'A regular goody basket. Eh, Bobbie, ain't you a born parson's wife? You've never asked what brought me.'
'You've not heard of a school.'
'No. What do you think of a living?'
'Oh, Willie! And is it enough?'
'That's as people may think.'
'How much is it?'
'Nearly £800.'
'Bill! You don't mean it. There must be some drawback. Who offers it?'
'Oh! just a friend.'
'A Christchurch friend? A pupil?'
'The reverse. He's a Cambridge man, and has rather been my master.'
'Your master? Not the Dean of Minsterham. Didn't I hear something about a chapter living?'
'Nothing that concerns us.'
'Do tell me, Will. You've got me on the tenterhooks. I'm sure there's something against it. It's not St Matthew's.'
'St. Matthew's! They would about as soon give it to the Walrus and the Carpenter.'
'I'm glad it is not that. What sort of a place is it? In the country?'
'Beautiful country, splendid church, freshly done up, tip-top schools and all the rest of it, that a lazy dog like me might never have hatched, but he may just manage to keep stirring.'
'Nonsense! you know better than that. What population?'
'Six hundred, or thereabouts.'
'Just the same as this. It is too good to be true. There must be some great drawback to come. Let me hear it.'
'Well, if you will have it,' said William, with appalling gravity, 'it is much the same drawback as exists in the Russian Church, where preferment goes by the petticoat. The fellow offers it to me on an understanding you mayn't approve.'
'What?'
'That I should marry his sister.'
'Oh!' with equal gravity, 'did he really make that stipulation?'
'Not in so many words, but there's such a thing as an honourable understanding.'
'And pray, what does the sister say?'
'That remains to be proved. What does she say? Come, darling Bird, had you really no notion?'
'I knew Mr. Fulmort wanted Clement to take St Matthew's, but I did not think he would.'
'He said he left me to tell you, but I did not think he could have kept it so entirely back.'
'But what is to become of Cherry?'
Will told her the designs as far as they had been unfolded to him, and her eyes glistened with tears.
'Dear Willie,' she said, 'it is not that I am not thankful and glad, but it comes so suddenly after all these long years, and it is so like turning them out.'
'Not if we set up in the Vicarage—Rectory—I beg its pardon. Besides, they'll be down here pretty often, and I shall never feel like anything but Clement's curate. It is the most wholesome thing for me, that his mode of coming up to breathe will be running down here to take note of my shortcomings.'
'As if you meant to short come.'
'I don't mean, but I shall—if ever man needed whipper-in. So you see I've taken care to provide myself. Seriously, I don't think I should ever have worked up this place as Clement has done, but having worked under him, and with you all about me, I trust not to let it down. It is too good for me, that's a fact; but then it is not too good for you.'
Robina was forced to hear, though she viewed her Will as far superior to Clement, as indeed he was in intellect and largeness of mind, though not in energy and power of work.
Earnestness and devotion were, as she well knew, deep and true in him, though native indolence and carelessness were at continual strife with them, and he was a man fitter for a small parish than a large one, since study was his happiness, and he could make the results beneficial to a wide circle, while Clement had no natural turn for books, or for anything but downright practical ministerial labour.
The change could not be made quickly, William could not resign his tutorship till the long vacation and Clement was to retain the incumbency till the new church at East Ewmouth was consecrated and the district separate, while an answer from Albertstown to Mr. Fulmort's acceptance of the diocese must precede his resignation of St Matthew's. So if restlessness had prompted Cherry's assent, she had time to find it out. The outlook however seemed to lessen her sense of dreariness, since it made her go through each sweet spring pleasure as if storing up precious memories of him who had prized them all, and as if this restored the power of feeling all things new. She talked freely and affectionately of Robina's prospects, encouraging the girl who felt her happiness rising out of the family sorrow, and grew quite shame-faced about taking the measurements of the Rectory, which she was to have the pleasure of furnishing out of her own savings. Little had been heard of Lance since he had seen Fulbert off on his second voyage. Postal cards and hurried notes kept up intercourse with Cherry and the Harewoods, but chiefly on the Pursuivant's behoof, and when he had met John in London, about the executorship, he was reported looking thin but well, and intensely busy.
In effect, he had set himself to master and estimate his business, sadly enough, but there had been hope in his brother's farewell letter, and to patient Lance a very small spark sufficed for a long time.
He found himself fully capable of maintaining the level of the Pursuivant. Not only did both Harewoods supply him with able writings, but payment and circulation were such as to attract and secure other contributors, and he, though he might not write fully up to the mark of his more scholarly and better-read brother, had all the requisites of an excellent editor, in trained facility, sagacity, common sense, humour and power of arrangement. The paper showed no tokens of declension, and the business flourished, Lance still spending part of the day in the shop, and enjoying the intercourse with his friendly customers all the more for the strong feeling they had shown for his brother. His place as gentleman had long been established, and he could always have had more society than he had time for. He was invited to fill his brother's place in almost all his capacities as citizen of Bexley, but to what could bind him permanently, he showed some doubt about immediately pledging himself. Moreover, Mrs. Froggatt was anxious to give up Marshlands to him 'whenever he should settle.'
By Lady-day he was able to make an estimate of his situation and prospects, and having done this, he wrote to Dr. May, laying the statement before him, and begging to be told whether there were any insuperable objection to his presuming to declare his attachment to Miss Gertrude May. The letter was just in the formal style for which Felix used to laugh at himself, but as the Doctor said, when showing it to Ethel, it was thoroughly manly and straightforward, without the least palaver about his position.
'No, I think he feels that his brother has ennobled it, so that he would be ashamed to apologize for it.'
'What will the child say? She has been drooping ever since poor Felix's death.'
'Long before! She flags the moment you are out of sight. I hate to see her without her little spirts of naughtiness, and my heart aches to think I ever wished to see her softened.'
'Poor Daisy-bud! It says much for her that her heart should have gone out to such a man as that. Heigh-ho! those were good old times, when one disposed of one's daughters without so much as saying, "by your leave, miss."'
'Should you ever have done it?'
'Well,' said the Doctor, not choosing to answer the question, 'you may tell him to come for Easter. I suppose that is his only time. He would have been wiser to wait a bit longer—may be till this foreign trip is over—that is if the child goes, and I don't believe she will.'
The Mays themselves had had a winter of sorrow. That living death—for it had long hardly been life—of poor little Margaret Rivers had come to an end in February. It was scarcely to be mourned. The poor girl had, since her conscience had awakened, grieved so bitterly over every outbreak of her own unhappy temper, and had suffered so sadly from depression of spirits, that the peace of her final decay had been an untold blessing. Even her mother, when she thought of the dreary lot of a sickly, suffering, almost deformed heiress, could not but resign herself to feel that 'it was well with the child.' Her father, however, who had been spared much realisation of the distress of body and mind, was restlessly unhappy at the loss, and fancied he should cure his wife's sore heart by taking her to Switzerland and the Tyrol; and Flora, in the desire to make the journey a pleasure to somebody, and noticing Gertrude's pale cheeks, proposed to take her. That whole last year, ever since her Christmas at Vale Leston, Gertrude's whole treatment of her poor little niece had been reversed; and she had changed from the somewhat hard deportment to which young aunts are prone, to a kindness which, being a late and unexpected boon, had been valued by poor capricious Margaret beyond all the steady tenderness of her grandfather and elder aunt. It had endeared Gertrude greatly to Flora, and the benefit to the girl's spirits influenced her quite as much as the advantage it would be to George to have some one to conduct to the sights, which for his own part he did not care for.
Daisy herself gave no consent. 'To be lionised by George! Rather worse than an excursion of Cook's,' she said; 'and fancy the evenings!'
'It would be a kindness to George and Flora,' said Ethel.
'You horrid creature! That's to set my conscience worrying.'
'At least, there would be the coming home again.'
'That's the way you look on travelling!' said Gertrude, laughing a little, but returning to her weary attitude, and Ethel abstained from persuasion. She had not sufficient experience of change of scene to believe greatly in its advantages, and though she was in favour of the project, it was rather with a view to the fresh start it would make for her sister at home than with the belief that either pictures or mountains could be enjoyed under George Rivers's lumbering escort. She expected that poor Lancelot Underwood's attempt would precipitate the decision, when, in answer to her brief note of invitation, he replied that he would arrive on Easter Eve.
'That's all right,' quoth the Doctor. 'He knows better than to come a-courting on Good Friday.'
The day was not, however, exempt from a visitor; Dr. and Mrs. Cheviot were away for the holidays, and the Mays were the more surprised to see Mr. Rupert Cheviot, with his dapper little umbrella, issue from the professor's door to join them on their way to church. Except that they would have preferred not to talk at all on such a day, there was no fault to find with him; he was subdued and proper behaved, and had a good deal to say about Ammergau. He had not been so much at Stoneborough within the last few months, and Ethel suspected that he had been warned by Tom to give his sister time to recover from her winter's grief. To her, he was amusing, he was a candid, lively, pleasant person, and rated her more highly than she was used to from her sister's lovers, and seldom came in her way without holding a lively tournament in the language of jest, but with a good deal of earnest in it, and she saw enough stuff in him to make his self-complacency not so obnoxious to her as it was to her juniors. She was not sorry that Gertrude's aversion to him was so strong, but she thought it rather instinctive than reasonable. He was a man whose opinions and disposition would right themselves in process of time, but the having Daisy bound to him during the process was quite another thing.
So when Gertrude proposed walking to Abbotstoke Church in the afternoon she readily agreed, perceiving that it was far more because Cocksmoor was too obvious a resort than for the sake either of Flora, flowers for decoration, or even of Dickie, who could not be refused to his uncle for this sorrowful holiday.
And when George Rivers returned to the charge, and again promised to show the Alps through the Mont Cenis tunnel, Gertrude accepted—accepted definitively! Yes, she would go, and she talked fast and eagerly of the pleasures she anticipated.
But when walking home with Ethel, she did not utter one voluntary word.
'What time did you say young Underwood was coming?' asked the Doctor at breakfast next morning.
'He did not say the time,' said Ethel.
'Which?' asked Gertrude.
'Lancelot,' said Ethel, who had put off the announcement in hopes of doing it naturally till she had grown absolutely nervous about it.
'Not for advice?' in a startled voice.
'Can no one come here but for advice?'
'He was ill last year.'
'Aye,' muttered the Doctor, 'and got advice that he has taken pretty effectually.'
Whereupon Ethel, feeling horribly and ridiculously conscious, jumped up and talked of Cocksmoor decorations. Gertrude had insisted on making them up at Cocksmoor instead of at home. It would be a little further out of reach of 'the enemy,' and in the parsonage the sisters and Richard worked unmolested all the morning, but in the afternoon, while they were putting up their wreaths, there drove up to the lych-gate Mrs. Thomas May in her donkey chair, bringing her choice manufacture of crosses and devices, escorted by her sister Ella Ward and Rupert Cheviot. It was too cold and damp for her to venture into church, but Richard hastened out to beguile her into his parlour, and refresh her with tea, while Mr. Cheviot helped to carry in her contributions, the very crown and glory of the whole, looking about with the critical suggestive patronage of a man who had seen the world, and making recommendations which Ella eagerly seconded, and Ethel did not disapprove, but Gertrude combatted vehemently: 'It had never been so! Richard would not like it!' and out she hurried to appeal to him and call him to the rescue.
Rupert Cheviot moved to the door, perhaps in hopes of mitigating her, but as she reached the lych-gate, a young man in deep black came up on the other side, and their hands met with something in the manner that made Mr. Cheviot turn to Ella Ward and ask, 'Who is that fellow?'
'That? Oh! one of the Underwoods. The one in the business.'
'What business?'
'Oh! he's a printer, a bookseller rather. Those Underwoods pretend to be county people, but they are nothingreallybut tradesmen.'
'Mr. Cheviot is not so behindhand with the world as to think that a reproach,' said Ethel, as she caught the words, while coming forward, and over her spectacles she gave Ella one of the repressive glances which the young lady felt in her backbone. She was not at all a bad sort of girl, but the ingrain likeness to her brother Henry grew with her growth, and she had just come to the age when to get any sort of notice from any young gentleman was the prime object of her desires. Rupert Cheviot, of course, at Ethel's words went forward, and on being introduced to Mr. Lancelot Underwood, shook hands with him with rather unnecessaryempressement.
Gertrude at once appealed to Lance's taste, 'Was it notthe thingto have the festoons hanging loose and natural, not in stiff lines?'
'It is our way at St. Oswald's,' said Lance, 'but at Vale Leston Clement holds to following the architectural lines.'
'Ah! Vale Leston. Is not that a remarkable specimen of the later Early Pointed? I must run over some day and see it.'
'It is a very fine tower. Aren't there plenty of owls' nests in it?' said Gertrude, with a perfectly grave voice, but which brought an odd thrill of mingled amusement, pleasure, and pain, as the conviction crossed him that this was the rival owl of the academy, and he recognised the likeness to the photograph. Perhaps Gertrude was only too strongly reminded of Cherry's sketch of himself, for between grief, hard work, and anxiety, he was very thin-cheeked and large eyed, and she was by no means clear that he had not come to consult her father professionally, and that the odd answer she had received in the morning had not been an evasion.
Richard came in with a casting vote in favour of the architectural style, at which Gertrude shrugged her shoulders but submitted. Ere long a messenger appeared with the candlesticks adorned by Mrs. May, and a message that she could not stay later; and Richard, going to see after her, brought back her urgent desire that Gertrude would return at the same time. Tom said she had not been strong, and must not be out after sunset.
'O, I dare say,' said Gertrude.
'There's no more than I can easily finish alone,' said Richard.
'Indeed! Look at the font!'
'The wreaths are all ready. She really ought not to stay,' he added to Ethel; 'you know there is always a sudden chill when you come down the hill late, and as Ave says, the child is not in health to take liberties.'
Ethel went up to Gertrude and whispered, 'We must give in, Daisy, we shall have a fuss if we don't.'
She had almost said she did not care, but it was in church, and she abstained, only adding, 'You'll come too.'
Ethel assented, though it was the ruin of the quiet Easter Eventide walk her father must have meant them to have when he sent Lance to meet them there. All that could be done was to keep together. In general Rupert Cheviot was content to get up a discussion with the elder sister, but he must have scented a rival, for whether Gertrude walked fast or slow, she still found him by her side, preventing all the inquiries she was burning to make about Geraldine, and the reported changes, things that could not brook discussion before a stranger. She did manage, while Rupert was tucking in a loosened fold of Averil's cloak, to say, 'I suppose Geraldine has no picture for the exhibition this year. She has not finished her Academies.'
'No. They are nearly done, but she has not touched them for a long time now. There is a very pretty little group of some of the village children that she did last summer, but I don't think she will send it up.'
'What became of the Maid of Lorn?'
'Of course, Lady Caergwent bought it.'
There Rupert Cheviot swooped down. 'Are you any relation of Miss Underwood who painted that capital likeness of Lady Caergwent? Then I congratulate you. But is it not a great pity she does not paint in oils? There is so much more satisfaction in them.'
And no more was possible than walking five abreast, close in the rear of the donkey chair; a desultory, almost mechanical skirmish going on between Ethel and Rupert Cheviot, interspersed with occasional pert remarks from Ella and tart ones from Gertrude.
When presently Rupert began to talk of some lectures which were to be given in May, she made quick answer, 'I shan't be here. I am going abroad with the Riverses.'
This of course started the experienced vacation tourist, an Alpine clubbist, into all kinds of counsels and inquiries, evidently with a view to meeting the party on their route; but though Gertrude took care to assure him that she should be at home long before his free time, the tidings of her intended journey were, as Ethel could hear, in his very footsteps, reducing Lance to the brink of despair.
He had not recovered it when they came home, and was besides in the embarrassed state of a man who had made his purpose only too well known to the spectators; but that quality which had been audacity in his boyish days, enabled him to revive and return free and grateful answers to Dr. May's inquiries into the family plans and welfare.
But when the evening meals in the two houses were over there was nothing to prevent Tom May and his friend from strolling up the garden to the elder house, whence sounds of music were audible.
It was from the 'Messiah,' for Dr. May had asked for 'He was despised and rejected of men,' unwitting that a Sunday evening a year and a quarter ago it had rung on Gertrude's ears in a voice that, in such a passage as this, Lance's reproduced with startling, thrilling exactness.
Gertrude sat in a dark corner, with streaming eyes and heaving sobs. It was almost more than she could bear, till her tears were dried by vexation at hearing a connoisseur kind of compliment, while Dr. May observed, 'I did not know what an instrument it was you thought you were losing when you asked me about it, Lance.'
'I have seldom heard it surpassed, except by first professionals!' said Mr. Cheviot. 'May I ask what teaching you had?'
'I was a choir boy at Minsterham,' said Lance, in his straightforward way.
'Oh! I did not know cathedrals gave such advantages. Ah! I see you have "My Queen" here, Gertrude. May we not have it?'
It would have been an utter impossibility even if it had not been as the Doctor said, speaking up for her. 'We do not have that style of thing this week.'
'Quite right, sir; one forgets.'
What! was he going to patronise Dr. May? And then he began to talk of the choruses at Ammergau.
'I do believe,' exclaimed Gertrude, as she parted with her sister at night, 'that he has primed himself with it on purpose.'
'I think he was really impressed there, and that it has done him good.'
'I believe you have a turn for him! I should not mind if he would only not come here bothering poor Lance. How worn he looks! Mind, Ethel, you tell me if Papa says anything about him. I could not bear for poor Geraldine to have any more troubles.'
'Very well,' said Ethel, 'but I do not think there is anything amiss with his health.'
'He has with his spirits though, and spirits tell on health; his especially. Now, Ethel, I know Rupert Cheviot always was a hero of yours.'
'A most unjustifiable interpretation of my not hating the poor man as much as you do,' said Ethel, much amused.
'I will say for him you are the one person he never patronizes. But I want you to look at the contrast, Ethel, between the two owls—simplicity and self-complacency; and whenonereally has such a splendid talent.'
'Yes, a double first class man,' said Ethel, in wilful mischief, exceedingly tickled at Lance's unconscious auxiliary, though sorry for him.
'Who cares for a first class?' exclaimed contemptuous Daisy. 'It only makes people intolerable.'
Nevertheless Lance did not spend by any means the happy Easter Sunday he had figured to himself, and many times felt that he would have done better to have deferred the crisis of his hopes and anxieties till the great feast day was at an end. For the May family were beset by Rupert Cheviot from morning till night, and Lance was tormented at moments when he most desired to free himself from the whole subject, by instinctive perception of his rivalry, and sense of the small chance that he, the half-educated tradesman, could have beside the brilliant, successful scholar, in a gentleman's position, and rising fast.
That Gertrude was cross was plain enough, and much more so to the Owl of the Academy than to the Owl of the Church tower; but Lance was sufficiently aware of the wayward nature of the damsel to ascribe her contradictoriness to the rampant coyness of inclination, and her civility to himself to kindness to her father's guest, Felix's brother and a manifest inferior, like the chemist at Ewmouth. Then her foreign tour was so often mentioned that it seemed to him that her father must have intended it as a diversion after all the agitations she had undergone, and that his coming had only been encouraged in order to put an end to the whole affair, and dispose of him and his presumption as soon as possible. So that all the kindness he received from the Doctor and Ethel only went for compassion, and he tossed about all night—true owl as he was for sleeplessness—meditating on the coming death-blow to his hopes, and whether it would be better to resign them in a conference with her father, or to put his fate to the touch in person, since he had gone so far that he could not hang back and do nothing.
The wan heavy-eyed countenance that came down in the morning moved the Doctor to the observation to his elder daughter, 'Daisy has got a fellow there more finely strung than most men. I hope she will comport herself accordingly. Tantrums won't do with that sort of organization.'
Ethel most decidedly put herself out of the way that morning, resolved not to make the holiday serve as a plea from absenting herself from the Monday care she bestowed on sundry charities, and declining the aid Gertrude offered, as a refuge from possible inroads from the Cheviot.
'You had better not waste your opportunities,' said Ethel; 'I dare say Mr. Underwood would show you the way through that thing of Mozart's that you have been despairing over.'
'O no, Ethel,' with a glance at the pale face, but it suddenly grew vividly bright as Lance said, 'If you are so kind as to be thinking of my headache, I do assure you it is nothing at all—just what this would be the best cure for.'
'Are you sure?' asked Gertrude solicitously.
'Quite,' he said, smiling. 'I should make no difference at all at home. It is the sort that is defeated by taking no notice of them; and music, and with you——'
'Would drive such ears as yours distracted, I should think,' said Gertrude, nevertheless consenting. 'You see I have tried to follow your advice, but what I have never heard, and have no one to interpret, becomes a mere wilderness to me.'
Lance knew that in his native language of melody he should, birdlike, win courage, but hardly was his finger on the keys before Daisy leapt up in a kind of fury. 'There's that eternal Owl coming down the garden! Come this way,' and she rushed away, beckoning him to follow her into the schoolroom. 'There, the windows look out the other way! It is too intolerable to be taken in the rear! I'll not stand it any longer! The Moss troopers in the morning indeed!'
Both were full of that odd sort of exhilaration always inspired by hide and seek with a visitor, and Lance looked about and recognised the room. 'I have been here before,' he said, 'when you showed me your aquarium.'
'Ah! the Daisiana. You were the hero of that watery adventure, though we little thought that small boy Charlie was to come forth in such colours! What an age ago it seems! I should like to see the Kitten's tail again.'
'Should you? I am sure Cherry would manage it! It would be——'
'Only too full of recollections,' said Gertrude, with a little shudder. 'It was the first time I ever saw——'
Instead of answering, Lance took a miniature from his breast and put it into her hand. She drew in her breath with a gasp. 'How beautiful!' she said, and gazed on through one of the tear mists that can almost convert a portrait into a presence. It was a long time before she said, 'This is better than the first.'
'Each that Cherry has finished has brought out some fresh expression. You like it?'
'O, so much!'
'Will you keep it?'
'She was only to do one for each of you.'
'Don't you remember whathecalled you?'
Gertrude held the picture to her lips for a moment, wiped a tear from the glass and said, 'That dear Cherry hasn't been doing it for me.'
'N-no, not exactly.'
'Then it is yours! Oh! that is not right. Only let me have a photograph.'
'I had rather you kept this.'
'I could not! I must not! I ought not,' putting it from her like a temptation.
'Nay, it is yours by every right. By that which makes it unspeakably precious to me to give you my very best and dearest, and by a better right of your own, of affection,' he said, eagerly.
She gave a little cry.
'Don't start,' he said. 'Perhaps I ought not to have said so, but when one watches with feelings such as mine, one sees——.'
She leant back, hiding her face, and crying quietly but unreservedly.
'If he had been like most men,' said Lance, 'if he had not made his whole life a sacrifice and had ever let himself out, I fully believe he would have given you the right. I felt and knew he had never been so near caring for any one.'
She looked up with glowing face, and moist eyes, and tried to say something, but could only utter 'No! It would be too—too much to dare to think so.'
And as she thought of that interview, she wept more than before, though they were scarcely sad tears. Lance longed for the right to soothe her, but only durst lay his hand on the back of her chair. 'If anything could make you more dear to me,' he said, bending over her, 'it would be this! Nobody else so revered that great heart. I thought I knew him best, but every day at Bexley brings up so many tokens of what he was that I seem to have only known him by half.'
'Tell me.'
And Lance told many an instance of the doings of Felix's right hand unknown to his left, and she listened with all her soul. It was more than half an hour before she said, 'Then are you all alone?'
'With Mrs. Froggatt for the present, but I have decided on nothing permanently. My dear brother told me I need not hold on, nor do I think I can without a ray of hope.'
'What would you do?' she said, a thrill or two having half but indefinitely revealed to her his drift.
'I don't know yet! Nor care! Most likely, try what music in Germany or Italy would do for me.'
'O, don't go!' cried Gertrude, 'don't!'
'Do you tell me not?'
'I don't know, but oh! my heart has ached, ached, ached, all this time, and somehow it aches rather less when you are here!'
'Dearest!' he exclaimed.
'Stay,' she said, pushing back her hair, and looking scared. 'I don't think it fair. You know I never could, if—if——-.'
'Of course not; I understand that,' said Lance; 'but is not that what I love you ten thousand times more for?'
'But I shall always care most for him!'
'Yes, yes, I know you must; but now I know that some day you may care a little for me, I can wait patiently, any time you please.'
'And not hate it all, nor go away?'
'Never, while you bid me stay.'
He broke off as steps came along the passage, and a maid's knock, and 'Mr. Rupert Cheviot is in the drawing-room, ma'am.'
'Miss May isout,' said Gertrude emphatically.
The maid had sentiment enough to abstain from saying he had asked for both sisters, but the next moment she returned to say he had asked for Miss Gertrude.
'Tell him I am particularly engaged,' she said, leaping up indignantly. 'Aye!' she exclaimed, 'I will be delivered from that prig of Tom's. He shall never pester me more.'