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General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts

by G. J. Whyte-Melville · English · Gutenberg #41828 · 826,772 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts

Author: G. J. Whyte-Melville

Illustrator: Frances Ewan


        
Release date: January 12, 2013 [eBook #41828]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENERAL BOUNCE; OR, THE LADY AND THE LOCUSTS ***

GENERAL BOUNCE


[Illustration: “‘Where have you been all day? You promised to
 drive me out--you know you did!’”

 _Page 77_]


GENERAL BOUNCE

or

The Lady and the Locusts

by

G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE

Author of “Katerfelto,” “The Interpreter,” “Market Harborough,” etc.

Illustrated by Frances E. Ewan







London
Ward, Lock & Co., Limited
New York and Melbourne




PREFACE


Where the rose blushes in the garden, there will the bee and the
butterfly be found, humming and fluttering around. So is it in the
world; the fair girl, whose sweetness is enhanced by the fictitious
advantages of wealth and position, will ever have lovers and admirers
enough and to spare.

Burns was no bad judge of human nature; and he has a stanza on this
subject, combining the reflection of the philosopher with the _canny_
discrimination of the Scot.

    “Away with your follies of beauty’s alarms,
    The _slender_ bit beauty you clasp in your arms;
    But gi’e me the lass that has acres of charms,
    Oh, gi’e me the lass with the _weel-plenished_ farms.”

Should the following pages afford such attractive young ladies matter
for a few moments’ reflection, the author will not have written in
vain.

May he hope they will choose well and wisely; and that the withered
rose, when she has lost her fragrance, may be fondly prized and gently
tended by the hand that plucked her in her dewy morning prime.




    CONTENTS


      CHAP.                                 PAGE

         I. My Cousin                          9

        II. The Abigail                       26

       III. The Handsome Governess            41

        IV. “Libitina”                        58

         V. Uncle Baldwin                     72

        VI. The Blind Boy                     85

       VII. Boot and Saddle                  101

      VIII. The Ball                         116

        IX. Want                             130

         X. Superfluity                      146

        XI. Campaigning Abroad               161

       XII. Campaigning at Home              177

      XIII. The World                        194

       XIV. To Persons about to Marry        204

        XV. Penelope and her Suitors         212

       XVI. Forgery                          225

      XVII. Club Law                         236

     XVIII. The Strictest Confidence         247

       XIX. Dispatches                       259

        XX. Dawn in the East                 276

       XXI. Hospital                         292

      XXII. The Widow                        303

     XXIII. “Stop her”                       309

      XXIV. King Crack                       323

       XXV. “Dulce Domum”                    333

      XXVI. “Eudæmon”                        347

     XXVII. Flood and Field                  360

    XXVIII. “The Sad Sea Wave”               374




GENERAL BOUNCE

_OR, THE LADY AND THE LOCUSTS_




CHAPTER I

MY COUSIN

     AN ENGLISHMAN’S HOLIDAY--ST. SWITHIN’S IN A CALM--THE
     MERCHANT’S AMBITION--“MON BEAU COUSIN”--CASTLES IN THE AIR--A
     LIVELY CRAFT--“HAIRBLOWER” AND HIS COLD BATH


Much as we think of ourselves, and with all our boasted civilisation,
we Anglo-Saxons are but a half-barbarian race after all. Nomadic,
decidedly nomadic in our tastes, feelings, and pursuits, it is but the
moisture of our climate that keeps us in our own houses at all, and
like our Scandinavian ancestors (for in turf parlance we have several
crosses of the old Norse blood in our veins), we delight
periodically--that is, whenever we have a fortnight’s dry weather--to
migrate from our dwellings, and peopling the whole of our own
sea-board, push our invading hordes over the greater part of Europe,
nor refrain from thrusting our outposts even into the heart of Asia,
till the astonished Mussulman, aghast at our vagaries, strokes his
placid beard, and with a blessing on his Prophet that he is not as we
are, soothes his disgust with a sentiment, so often repeated that in
the East it has become a proverb--viz. that “There is one devil, and
there are many devils; but there is _no_ devil like a Frank in a round
hat!”

It was but last autumn that, stepping painfully into our tailor’s
shop--for, alas! a course of London dinners cannot be persisted in,
season after season, without producing a decided tendency to gout in
the extremities--hobbling, then, into our tailor’s warehouse, as he
calls it, we were measured by an unfledged jackanapes, whose voice we
had previously heard warning his brother fractions that “an old gent
was a waitin’ inside,” instead of that spruce foreman who, for more
years than it is necessary to specify, has known our girth to an inch,
and our weight to a pound. Fearful that in place of the grave habit of
broadcloth which we affect as most suitable to our age and manner, we
might find ourselves equipped in one of the many grotesque disguises
in which young gentlemen now-a-days deem it becoming to hide
themselves, and described by the jackanapes, aforesaid, who stepped
round us in ill-concealed admiration of our corpulence, as “a walking
coat, a riding coat, a smoking coat, or a coat _to go to the stable
in_!” we ventured to inquire for “the person we usually saw,” and were
informed that “the gent as waited on us last year had gone for a few
months’ holiday to the Heast.” Heavens and earth, Mr. Bobstitch was
even then in Syria! What a Scandinavian! rather degenerate to be sure
in size and ferocity--though Bobstitch, being a little man, is
probably very terrible when roused--but yet no slight contrast to one
of those gaunt, grim, russet-bearded giants that made the despot of
the Lower Empire quake upon his throne. And yet Bobstitch was but
obeying the instinct which he inherits from the sea-kings his
ancestors, an instinct which in less adventurous souls than a tailor’s
fills our watering-places to overflowing, and pours the wealth, while
it introduces the manners, of the capital into every bight and bay
that indents the shores of Britain.

Doubtless the citizens are right. Let us, while we are in Scandinavian
vein, make use of an old Norse metaphor, and pressing into our service
the two Ravens of Odin, named Mind and Will, with these annihilate
time and space, so as to be, like the Irish orator’s bird, “in two
places at once.” Let us first of all take a retrospective glance at
Mrs. Kettering’s house in Grosvenor Square, one of the best houses, by
the way, to be had in London for love or money. We recollect it well,
not so many years ago, lit up for one of those great solemnities which
novelists call “a rout,” but which people in real life, equally
martially as well as metaphorically, designate “a drum.” To us
creeping home along the pavement outside the _fête_, it seemed the
realisation of fairyland. Row upon row, glaring carriage-lamps, like
the fabulous monsters keeping watch, illuminated the square and
adjoining streets, even to the public-house round the corner, that
night driving a highly remunerative trade; whilst on a nearer
inspection magnificent horses (horses, like ladies, look most
beautiful by candle-light), gorgeous carriages--none of your Broughams
and Clarences, but large, roomy, well-hung family coaches, with
cartoons of heraldry on the panels--gigantic footmen, and fat
coachmen, struck the beholder with admiration not totally unmixed with
awe. Then the awning that was to admit the privileged to the inner
realms of this earthly paradise, of which the uninitiated might know
but the exterior; what a gauzy, gaudy transparency it was, no
unfitting portal to that upper storey, from which the golden light was
hardly veiled by jalousies and window-blinds. Ever and anon, much
lashing of bay, brown, or chestnut sufferers, and the interference of
a tall policeman, with a hat made on purpose to be assaulted by
bludgeons, betokened the arrival of a fresh party, and angelic beings
in white robes, with glossy hair, tripped daintily up the steps over a
cloth, not of gold exactly, but of horse-hair, amongst a phalanx of
unwashed faces, gazing half enviously at such loveliness in full
dress. How beautiful we used to think these apparitions as we plodded
home to our quiet chambers! but young Bareface, our connecting link
with the great world, who goes to all the _best_ places, through the
influence of his aunt, Lady Champfront, assures us they don’t look
half so beautiful inside, and that he sees quite as pretty faces, and
hair quite as nicely done, at the little gatherings in Russell Square
and Bloomsbury, to which even we might go if we liked. A radical dog!
we don’t believe a word of it. Never mind, let us look at that house
in the dead time of year. Without and within, from attics to basement,
from the balcony facing the square to the empty bird-cage overlooking
a precipice of offices at the back, Repose and Ennui reign supreme.
Were it not for the knocking of the workmen next door, we might as
well be in the Great Desert. There _is_, we presume, a woman in
possession, but she has gone to “get the beer,” and if you have ever
sighed for a town-house, now is the time to be satisfied with your
rustic lot, and to hug yourself that you are not paying ground-rent
and taxes, church-rate, poor’s-rate, and water-rate, drainage,
lighting, and paving, for that ghastly palace of soot and cobwebs,
dust, dreariness, and decay. There is a scaffolding up in every third
house in the square; and workmen in paper caps, with foot-rules
sticking out of their fustian trousers, and complexions ingrained with
lime-dust, and guiltless of fresh water, seem to be the only
inhabitants of this deserted region, and even they are “between earth
and heaven.” Brown and parched are the unfortunate shrubs in those
gardens of which discontented householders “round the corner” covet so
to possess a key; and the very birds, sparrows, every feather of ’em,
hop about in dirty suits of plumage that can only be described as of
that colour unknown to naturalists, which other people call “grimy.”
Who would be in London in the autumn? Not Mrs. Kettering, certainly,
if she might be elsewhere; and although she had possessed this
excellent and commodious family mansion, with all its boudoirs,
retreats, and appurtenances, so well described in the advertisement,
but a short time, and was not the giver of that “reunion of
fashionables” we have depicted above (indeed, the hostess of that
evening has since been economising up two pair of stairs at Antwerp);
yet Mrs. Kettering having plenty of money, and being able to do what
she liked, had wisely moved herself, her fancies, her imperials, and
her family to the coast, where, obeying the instinct for freedom that
has driven Bobstitch to the desert, she was idly inhaling the salt
breezes of the Channel, and dazzling her eyes with the sun-glint that
sparkled over its dancing waves.

Some few years have elapsed since the events took place which we shall
endeavour to describe; but the white cliffs of our island change
little with the lapse of time, though the sea does make its
encroachments ever and anon when the wind has been blowing pretty
steady from the south-west for a fortnight or so, and the same scene
may be witnessed any fine day towards the middle of August as that
which we are about to contrast with the dulness, closeness, and
confinement of the great town-house in Grosvenor Square.

First, we must imagine a real summer’s day, such a day as in our
island we seldom enjoy till summer has well-nigh given place to
autumn, but which, when it does come, is worth waiting for. Talk of
climate! a real fine day in England, like a really handsome
Englishwoman, beats creation. Well, we must imagine one of these
bright, hot, hay-making days, almost too warm and dusty ashore, but
enjoyable beyond conception on the calm and oily waves, unruffled by
the breeze, and literally as smooth as glass. A sea-bird occasionally
dips her wing on the surface, and then flaps lazily away, as if she
too was as much inclined to go to sleep as yonder moveless fleet of
lugger, brig, bark, and schooner, with their empty sails, and their
heads all round the compass. There is a warm haze towards the land,
and the white houses of St. Swithin’s seem to glow and sparkle in the
heat, whilst to seaward a modified sort of mirage would make one fancy
one could plainly distinguish the distant coast of France.

Ashore, in those great houses, people are panting, and gasping, and
creating thorough draughts that fill their rooms with a small white
dust of a destructive tendency to all personal property. The children
up-stairs are running about in linen under-garments, somewhat more
troublesome than usual, with a settled flush on their little
peach-like cheeks, and the shining streets are deserted, save by the
perspiring pot-boy, and the fly-men drinking beer in their shirt
sleeves. Only afloat is there a chance of being cool; and
sailing-boat, gig, dinghy, and cobble, all are in requisition for the
throng of amateur mariners, rushing like ducklings to the refreshing
element.

It was on just such a day as this that Mrs. Kettering found it
extremely difficult to “trim the boat.” A mile or so from the shore,
that boat was slowly progressing, impelled by the unequal strength of
her nephew Charles, commonly called “Cousin Charlie,” and its worthy
proprietor, a fine specimen of the genus “seaman,” who certainly had
a Christian name, and probably a patronymic, but had sunk both
distinctions under the sobriquet of “Hairblower,” by which appellation
alone he was acknowledged by gentle and simple, bold and timid,
delicate ladies and bluff fishermen, along many a mile of sea-board,
up and down from St. Swithin’s.

“The least thing further, Master Charles,” said Hairblower, ever and
anon pulling the stripling’s efforts round with one hand. “Don’t ye
disturb, madam--don’t ye move, Miss Blanche; it’s not _your_ weight
that makes her roll.” And again he moistened the large, strong hand,
and turned to look out ahead.

In vain Mrs. Kettering shut up her parasol, and shifted her seat; in
vain she disposed her ample figure, first in one uncomfortable
position, then in another; she could _not_ “trim the boat,” and the
reason was simple enough. Mrs. Kettering’s weight was that of a lady
who had all her life been “a fine woman,” and was now somewhat past
maturity; whilst her daughter and only child, “Blanche,” the occupant
of the same bench, had but just arrived at that period when the girl
begins to lengthen out into the woman, and the slight, lanky figure,
not without a grace peculiar to itself, is nevertheless as delicate as
a gossamer, and as thin as its own gauzy French bonnet.

Mother and daughter were but little alike, save in their sweet and
rather languid tone of voice--no trifling charm in that sex which is
somewhat prone, especially under excitement, to pitch its organ in too
high a key. Mrs. Kettering was dark and brown of complexion, with
sparkling black eyes, and a rich colour, much heightened by the heat.
Not very tall in stature, but large and square of frame, well-filled
out besides by a good appetite, a good digestion, and, though nervous
and excitable, a good temper. Blanche, on the contrary, with her long
violet eyes, her curving dark eyelashes, and golden-brown hair, was so
slight of frame and delicate of tint as to warrant her mother’s
constant alarm for her health; not that there was any real cause for
anxiety, but mamma loved to fidget, if not about “dear Blanche,” about
something belonging to her; and failing these, had a constant fund of
worry in the exploits and escapades of graceless “Cousin Charlie.”

“Now, Charlie, my own dear boy” (Mrs. K. was very fond of Charlie), “I
know you must be over-heating yourself--nothing so bad for growing
lads. Mr. Hairblower, _pray_ don’t let him row so hard.”

“Gammon, aunt,” was Charlie’s irreverent reply. “Wait till we get her
head round with the flood; we’ll make her speak to it, won’t we,
Hairblower?”

“Well, Master Charles,” said the jolly tar, “I think as you and me
could pull her head under, pretty nigh,--howsoever, we be fairish off
for time, and the day’s young yet.”

“Blanche, Blanche!” suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Kettering, “look at the
weed just beyond that buoy--the alga, what’s its name, we were reading
about yesterday. Charlie, of course _you_ have forgotten. I shall soon
be obliged to get a finishing governess for you, Blanche.”

“Oh no, dearest mamma,” said the young girl, in her soft, sweet voice,
which always drew Hairblower’s eyes, in speechless admiration, to her
gentle countenance. “I could never learn with any one but you; and
then she might be cross, mamma, and I should hate her so after you!”
And Blanche took her mother’s plump, tightly-gloved hand between her
own, and looked up in her face with such a fond, bewitching
expression, that it was no wonder mamma doted on her, and Hairblower
and “Cousin Charlie” too.

Mrs. Kettering was one of those people whose superabundant energy must
have a certain number of objects whereon to expend itself. Though a
pleasant, cheerful woman, she was decidedly _blue_--that is to say,
besides being a good musician, linguist, draughtswoman, and worsted
worker, she had a few ideas, not very correct, upon ancient history, a
superficial knowledge of modern literature, thought Shakespeare
_vulgar_ and Milton _dry_, with a smattering of the ’ologies, and
certain theories concerning chemistry, which, if reduced to practice,
would have made her a most unsafe occupant for a ground-floor. With
these advantages, and her sunny, pleasant temper, she taught Blanche
_everything_ herself; and if the young lady was not quite so learned
as some of her associates, she had at least the advantage of a
mother’s companionship and tuition, and was as far removed as possible
from that most amusing specimen of affectation, an English girl who
has formed her manner on that of a French governess.

Mrs. Kettering had gone through her share of troubles in her youth,
and being of a disposition by no means despondent, was rather happy
under difficulties than otherwise. We do not suppose she married her
first love: we doubt if women often do, except in novels; and the late
Mr. K. was a gentleman of an exterior certainly more respectable than
romantic. His manners were abrupt and commercial, but his name at the
back of a bill was undeniable. The lady whom he wooed and won was old
enough to know her own mind; nor have we reason to suppose but that in
pleasing him she pleased herself. Many a long year they toiled and
amassed, and old Kettering attended closely to business, though he
never showed his books to his wife; and Mrs. Kettering exercised her
diplomacy in migrating once every five years further and further
towards “the West End.” Their last house but one was in Tyburnia, and
then old Kettering put a finishing stroke to his business, made a shot
at indigo which landed him more thousands than our modest ideas can
take in, and enabling him to occupy that mansion in Grosvenor Square
which looked so dull in the autumn, placed Mrs. Kettering at once on
the pedestal she had all her life been sighing to attain;--perhaps she
was disappointed when she got there. However that may be, the
enterprising merchant himself obtained little by his new residence,
save a commodious vault belonging to it in a neighbouring church, in
which his remains were soon after deposited, and a tablet, pure and
unblemished as his own commercial fame, erected to his memory by his
disconsolate widow. How disconsolate she was, poor woman! for a time,
with her affectionate nature: but then her greatest treasure, Blanche,
was left; and her late husband, as the most appropriate mark of his
confidence and esteem, bequeathed the whole of his property, personal
and otherwise, to his well-beloved wife, so the blow was to a certain
degree softened, and Mrs. Kettering looked uncommonly radiant and
prosperous even in her weeds.

Now, it is very pleasant and convenient to have a large property left
you at your own disposal, more especially when you are blessed with a
child on whom you dote, to succeed you when you have no further
occasion for earthly treasure; and, in the eyes of the world, this was
Mrs. Kettering’s agreeable lot. The eyes of the world, as usual, could
not look into the cupboard where the skeleton was; but our poor widow,
or rather our rich widow, was much hampered by the shape which no one
else knew to exist.

The fact is, old Mr. Kettering had a crotchet. Being a rich man, he
had a right to a dozen; but he was a sensible, quiet old fellow, and
he contented himself with one. Now, this crotchet was the invincible
belief that he, John Kettering, was the lineal male representative of
one of the oldest families in England. How he came to have lost the
old Norman features and appearance, or how it happened that such a
lofty descent should have merged in his own person as junior clerk to
a large City counting-house, he never troubled himself to inquire; he
was satisfied that the oldest blood in Europe coursed through his
veins, and with the pedigree he supposed himself to possess (though
its traces were unfortunately extinct), he might marry whom he
pleased. As we have seen, he did marry a very personable lady; but,
alas! she gave him no male heir. Under a female succession, all his
toil, all his astuteness, all his money, would not raise the family
name to the proud position he believed its due. He could not bear the
idea of it; and he never really loved poor Blanche half so much as
that engaging child deserved. When all chance of a son was hopeless,
he resolved to bring up and educate his only brother’s orphan child, a
handsome little boy, whose open brow and aristocratic lineaments won
the old man’s favour from the first.

“Cousin Charlie,” in consequence, became an inmate of the Kettering
family, and was usually supposed by strangers to be the elder brother
of pretty little Blanche.

These intentions, however, were kept a dead secret; and the children
knew as little as children generally do of their future prospects, or
the path chalked out for them through life. With all his fancied
importance, old Kettering was a good, right-feeling man; and although
it is our belief that he revoked and destroyed several testamentary
documents, he ended by leaving everything to his wife, in her own
power, as he worded it, “in testimony of his esteem for her character,
and confidence in her affection,”--previously exacting from her a
solemn promise that she would eventually bequeath the bulk of her
wealth to his nephew, should the lad continue to behave well, and
_like a gentleman_--making a provision for Blanche at her own
discretion, but not exceeding one-eighth of the whole available
property.

The testator did not long survive his final arrangements. And though
her promise cost his widow many a sleepless night, she never dreamed
of breaking it, nor of enriching her darling child at the expense of
her nephew.

Mrs. Kettering was a woman all over, and we will not say the idea of
uniting the two cousins had not entered her mind; on the contrary,
brought up together as they were, she constantly anticipated this
consummation as a delightful release from her conflicts between duty
and inclination. She was, besides, very fond of “Cousin Charlie,” and
looked eagerly forward to the day when she might see this “charming
couple,” as she called them, fairly married and settled. With all
these distractions, it is no wonder that Mrs. Kettering, who, though a
bustling, was an undecided woman, could never quite make up her mind
to complete her will. It was a matter of the greatest importance; so
first she made it, and then tore it up, and then constructed a fresh
one, which she omitted to sign until things were more certain, and
eventually mislaid; while, in the meantime, Blanche and “Cousin
Charlie” were growing up to that age at which young people, more
especially in matters of love-making, are pretty resolutely determined
to have a will of their own.

The bridegroom presumptive, however, was one of those young gentlemen
in whose heads or hearts the idea of marriage is only contemplated as
a remote possibility, and a dreaded termination to a life of
enjoyment--in much the same light as that in which the pickpocket
views transportation beyond the seas. He believes it to be the common
lot of mankind, but that it may be indefinitely postponed with a
little circumspection, and in some cases of rare good fortune even
eluded altogether.

It is curious to observe at what an early age the different instincts
of the sexes develop themselves in children. Little Miss can scarcely
waddle before she shoulders a doll, which she calls her baby, and on
which she lavishes much maternal care, not without certain wholesome
correction. From her earliest youth, the abstract idea of wife and
motherhood is familiar to her mind; and to be married, though she
knows not what it is, as natural and inevitable a destiny as to learn
music and have a governess. Young Master, on the contrary, has no idea
of being a “pater familias.” His notion of being grown up is totally
unconnected with housekeeping. When “he is a man, he means to be a
soldier, or a sailor, or a pastry-cook--he will have a gun and
hunters, and go all day to the stable, and eat as much as he chooses,
and drink port wine like papa;” but to bring up children of his own,
and live in one place, is the very last thing he dreams of. “Cousin
Charlie” entertained the usual notions of his kind. Although an
orphan, he had never known the want of a parent--uncle and aunt
Kettering supplying him with as kind and indulgent a father and mother
as a spoilt little boy could desire. And although he had his childish
sorrows, such as parting from Blanche, going to school, being whipped
according to his deserts when there, and thus smuggled through that
amusing work, the Latin Grammar; yet, altogether, his life was as
happy as any other child’s of his own age, on whom health, and love,
and plenty had shone from the day of its birth.

Of course, old John Kettering sent him to Eton, that most aristocratic
of schools, where Charlie learnt to swim--no mean accomplishment;
arrived at much perfection in his “wicket-keeping” and “hitting to the
leg,” as, indeed, he deserved, for the powers of application he
evinced in the study of cricket; was taught to “feather an oar” in a
method which the London watermen pronounced extremely inefficient; and
acquired a knack of construing Horace into moderately bad English,
with a total disregard for the ideas, habits, prejudices, and
intentions of that courtly bard. Of course, too, he was destined for
the army. With _his_ prospects, in what other profession could he get
through his allowance, and acquire gentlemanlike habits of
extravagance in what is termed good society? Old Kettering wanted to
make his nephew a gentleman--that was it. When asked how Charlie was
getting on at Eton, and what he learnt there, the uncle invariably
replied, “Learn, sir! why, he’ll learn to be a gentleman.”

It is a matter for conjecture whether the worthy merchant was capable
of forming an opinion as to the boy’s progress in this particular
study, or whether he was himself a very good judge of the variety he
so much admired. Our own idea is, that neither birth, nor riches, nor
education, nor manner, suffice to constitute a gentleman; and that
specimens are to be found at the plough, the loom, and the
forge, in the ranks, and before the mast, as well as in the
officers’ mess-room, the learned professions, and the Upper House
itself. To our fancy, a gentleman is courteous, kindly, brave, and
high-principled--considerate towards the weak, and self-possessed
amongst the strong. High-minded and unselfish, “he does to others as
he would they should do unto him,” and shrinks from the meanness of
taking advantage of his neighbour, man or woman, friend or foe, as he
would from the contamination of cowardice, duplicity, tyranny, or any
other blackguardism. “_Sans peur et sans reproche_”--he has a “lion’s
courage with a woman’s heart”; and such a one, be he in a peer’s robes
or a ploughman’s smock--backing before his sovereign or delving for
his bread--we deem a very Bayard for chivalry--a very Chesterfield for
good breeding and good sense. We are old-fashioned though in our
ideas, and doubtless our sentiments may be dubbed slow by the young,
and vulgar by the great. Still, even these dissentients would, we
think, have been satisfied with “Cousin Charlie’s” claims to be
considered a “gentleman.”

Nature had been beforehand with old Kettering, and had made him one of
her own mould. Not all the schools in Europe could have spoiled or
improved him in that particular. And his private tutor’s lady
discovered this quality, with all a woman’s intuitive tact, the very
first evening he spent at the vicarage of that reverend Crichton, who
prepared young gentlemen of fifteen years and upwards for _both_ the
universities and _all_ the professions.

“What do you think of the new pupil, my dear?” said Mr. Nobottle to
his wife--a dean’s daughter, no less!--as he drew up the connubial
counterpane to meet the edge of his night-cap. “He was a wild lad, I
hear, at Eton. I am afraid we shall have some trouble with him.”

“Not a bit of it,” was the reply; “he is a gentleman every inch of
him. I saw it at once by the way he helped Tim in with his
portmanteau. Binks, of course, was out of the way,--and that reminds
me, Mr. Nobottle, you never _will_ speak to that man,--what’s the use
of having a butler? And then, he’s such a remarkably good-looking
boy--but I daresay you’re half asleep already.”

And, sure enough, patient Joseph Nobottle was executing a prolonged
and marital snore.

Mrs. Nobottle found no occasion to recant her predictions; and Charlie
was now spending his summer vacation with Mrs. Kettering at St.
Swithin’s.

We have left the party so long in their boat, that they have had ample
time to “trim” or sink her. Neither of these events, however, took
place; and after pulling round a Swedish brig, an enormous tub, very
_wholesome_-looking, as Hairblower said, and holding a polyglot
conversation with an individual in a red night-cap, who grinned at the
ladies, and offered them “schnapps,” they turned the little craft’s
head towards the shore, and taking “the flood,” as Charlie had
previously threatened, bent themselves to their work, and laid out
upon their oars in a style that satisfied even the seaman, and
enraptured the lad.

“What a dear boy it is!” thought Mrs. Kettering, as she looked at
Charlie’s open countenance, and his fair golden curls, blowing about
his face, browned by the weather to a rich manly hue, and lit up with
the excitement and exercise of his work. Many qualms of conscience
crossed Mrs. Kettering’s mind, in the transit of that mile and a half
of blue water which sparkled between “the Swede” and the shore. Much
she regretted her want of decision and habits of delay in not
completing the important document that should at once make that
handsome boy the head of his family; and firmly she resolved that not
another week should pass without a proper consultation of the
universal refuge, “her family man-of-business,” and a further legal
drawing-up of her last will and testament. Then she remembered she had
left one unfinished, that would make an excellent rough draft for the
future document; then she wondered where she had put it; and then she
thought what a husband the handsome cousin would make for her own
beautiful girl; and rapidly her ideas followed each other, till, in
her mind’s eye, she saw the wedding--the bridesmaids--the
procession--the breakfast--and, though last, not least, the very
bonnet, not too sombre, which she herself should wear on the occasion.

Not one word did Mrs. Kettering hear of a long-winded story with which
Hairblower was delighting Blanche and Charlie; and which, as it seemed
to create immense interest and sympathy in his young listeners, and
is, besides, a further example of the general superstition of sailors
as to commencing any undertaking on a Friday, we may as well give, as
nearly as possible, in his own words.

“Blown, Master Charles?” said the good-humoured seaman, in answer to a
question from hard-working Charlie. “Blown? Not a bit of it; nor yet
tired; nor you neither. I _was_ a bit bamboozled though once somewhere
hereaway. It’s a good many years past now; but I don’t think as _I_
shall ever forget it. If you’d like to hear it, Miss Blanche, I’ll
tell it you, as well as I can. You see, it was rather a ‘circumstance’
from beginning to end. Well, the fact is, I had built a smartish craft
very soon after I was out of my time, and me and a man we used to call
‘Downright’ went partners in her, and although maybe she was a trifle
crank, and noways useful for stowage, we had pretty good times with
her when the mackerel was early, and the prices pretty stiffish. But
there never was no real luck about her, and I’ll tell ye how it was.
My uncle, he promised to help me with the money for her of a Friday.
She was put upon the stocks of a Friday--finished off of a
Friday--sailed her first trip of a Friday--and went down of a Friday;
so, as I say, Friday’s the worst day, to my mind, in the whole week.
Well, the _Spanking Sally_--that’s what we called her, Miss--always
carried a weather helm. And one day--it was a Friday, too--me and my
mate was coming in with a fairish cargo--Downright he said all along
she was over-deep in the water--with a light breeze from the
nor’-nor’-west, and the tide about half-flood, as it might be now. I
had just gone forward to look to the tackle, when the wind suddenly
shifted right on the other tack, and looking out down Channel, I saw
what was coming. Black, was it, Master Charlie? Not a bit; it was a
white one; and I knew then we should get it _hot and heavy_. It takes
something pretty cross to frighten _me_, but I own I didn’t like the
looks of it. Well, afore I could douse foresail the squall took her.
She capsized, and down she went; and though me and Downright stood by
for a start to windward, we never knew exactly how it was till we
found ourselves grinning at each other over a spare oar that happened
to be on board when she misbehaved, for all the world like two boys
playing at see-saw with their mouths full of salt water. Downright he
was an older man, and not so strong as me; so when I saw two was no
company for one oar, I left it; and thinks I, if I can get off my
fisherman’s boots and some of my clothes, I may have a swim for it
yet.

“The squall was too soon over to get up anything like a sea, and
Downright he held on to his oar and struck out like a man. Well, what
between floating and treading water, I got most of things clear. I was
as strong as a bull then, and though it was a long swim for a man I
had before me, I never lost heart noway. Downright, too, kept on close
in my wake; we didn’t say much, you may be sure, but I know _I_
thought of his missus and four children. At last I hear him whisper
quite hoarse-like, ‘Hairblower, it’s no use, I be goin’ down now!’ And
when I turned on my back to look at him he was quite confused, and had
let the oar cast off altogether. I couldn’t see it nowhere. I tried to
get alongside of him, but he was gone. I saw _the bubbles_ though,
and dived for him, but it was no use, and after that I held on alone.
The sun was getting down too, and queer fancies began to come into my
head about Downright. Sometimes I thought he was in heaven _then_, and
once I’ll swear I heard something whisper to me, but I couldn’t tell
what it said. The gulls, too, they began to stoop at me, and scream in
my ears; one long-winged ’un flapped me on the cheek, and for a bit I
scarcely knew whether I was dead or alive myself. At last, as I came
over the tops of the rollers, I saw the spars in the harbor, and the
chimneys at St. Swithin’s, and for awhile I thought I should get home
after all, so I turned on my side to get my breath a bit. I ought to
have made a buoy, as I calculated, about this time, but seek where I
would, I couldn’t see it nowhere, only looking down Channel to get my
bearings a little, I saw by the craft at anchor in the bay that the
tide was on the turn. My heart leapt into my mouth then. I had pulled
a boat often enough against the ebb hereabouts, and I knew how strong
it ran, and what my chance was, swimming, and nearly done too. First I
thought I’d go quietly down at once, like my mate did, and I said a
bit of a prayer, just inside like, and then I felt stronger, so I
thought what was best to be done; and says I, ‘’bout ship’ now is our
only chance, and maybe we shall get picked up by some fishing craft,
or such like, afore we drift clean out to sea again. Well, the Lord’s
above all, and though I thought once or twice I was pretty nigh out of
my mind, I _was_ picked up at last by a Frenchman. _He’d_ no call to
be where he was; I think he was there special, but I knew very little
about anything else, for I was in the hospital nine weeks afore I
could remember as much as I’ve told you. Howsoever, Friday’s an
unlucky day, Miss Blanche, you may take your Bible oath of it.”

Hairblower did _not_ tell them that half his earnings as soon as he
got well went to the support of his mate’s widow and her four
children; perhaps it was as well he did not, for Blanche’s eyes were
already full of tears, and Charlie felt more than half inclined to
embrace the honest seaman, but a bump against the shingle disturbed
all their comments, at the same time that it broke through Mrs.
Kettering’s day-dreams, and Blanche had hardly got as far as “Here we
are, mamma, and here’s----” when she was interrupted by Cousin
Charlie’s vociferous “Look alive, aunt. Hurrah! three cheers--who’d
have thought it? There’s Frank Hardingstone!”




CHAPTER II

THE ABIGAIL

     BLANCHE’S BOUDOIR--A LADY’S LADY’S-MAID--MRS. KETTERING AT
     LUNCHEON--AN HOUR’S PRACTICE--THE “MAN OF ACTION”--FOOD FOR THE
     MIND--A FRIEND IN NEED--A VISIT TO DAVID JONES


Whilst Mr. Hardingstone offers an arm--and a good strong arm it is--to
each of the ladies, and assists them slowly up the toilsome shingle,
let us take advantage of Blanche’s absence to peep into her pretty
room, where, as it is occupied only by Gingham, the maid, we need not
fear the fate of Actæon as a punishment for our curiosity.

It is indeed a sweet little retreat, with its chintz hangings and
muslin curtains, its open windows looking upon the shining Channel,
and all its etceteras of girlish luxury and refinement, that to us
poor old bachelors seem the very essence of ladylike comfort. In one
corner stands the book-case, by which we may discover the pretty
proprietor’s taste, at least in literature. Divers stiffish volumes on
the sciences repose comfortably enough, as if they had not often been
disturbed, and although scrupulously dusted, were but seldom opened;
but on the sofa, near that full-length glass, a new novel lies upon
its face, with a paper-cutter inserted at that critical page where the
heroine refuses her lover (in blank verse), on the high-minded
principle that he is not sufficiently poor to test her sincerity, or
sufficiently sensible to know his own mind, or some equally valid and
uncomplimentary reason--a consideration for the male sex, we may
remark _en passant_, that is more common in works of fiction than in
real life--while on the table a drawing-room scrap-book opens of
itself at some thrilling lines addressed “To a Débutante,” and
commencing, “Fair girl, the priceless gems upon thy brow,” by an
anonymous nobleman, who betrays in the composition a wide range of
fancy and a novel application of several English words. Flowers are
disposed in one or two common glass vases, with a womanly taste that
makes the apartment in that hired house like a home; and loose music,
of the double-action pianoforte school, scatters itself about every
time the door opens, in a system of fluttering disorder, which
provokes Gingham to express audibly her abhorrence of a place that is
“all of a litter.” “She can’t a-bear it--can you, Bully?” smirks the
Abigail; and Blanche’s pet bullfinch, the darling of her very heart,
makes an enormous chest, and whistles his reply in the opening notes
of “Haste to the wedding!” breaking off abruptly in the middle of the
second bar. Gingham is very busy, for she is putting Blanche’s “things
to rights,” which means that she is looking over the young lady’s
wardrobe with a view to discovering those colours and garments most
becoming to her own rather bilious complexion, and losing no
opportunity of acquainting herself with Blanche’s likes, dislikes,
feelings, and disposition, by reading her books, opening her letters,
and peeping into her album.

Now, Gingham had been with Mrs. Kettering for many years, and was a
most trustworthy person; so her mistress affirmed and thought.
Certainly, with all her weaknesses and faults, she was devotedly
attached to Miss Blanche; and it is our firm belief that she loved her
young lady, in her heart of hearts, better than her perquisites, her
tea, or even a certain Tom Blacke, whose dashing appearance and
assured vulgarity had made no slight impression on her too susceptible
feelings. “Every Jack has his Gill,” if he and she can only find each
other out at the propitious moment; and although the Gill in question
_owned_ to two-and-thirty, was by no means transparent in complexion,
and had projecting teeth, and a saffron-coloured front, yet she was no
exception to the beautiful law of nature, which provides for every
variety of our species a mate of fitting degree.

When a lady confines herself studiously to the house, avoids active
exercise, and partakes heartily of five meals a day, not to mention
strong tea and hot buttered toast at odd times, the presumption is,
that her health will suffer from the effects of such combined
hardships. With patients of Gingham’s class, the attack generally
flies to the nerves, and the system becomes wrought up to such a pitch
that nothing appears to afford the sufferer relief, except piercing
screams and violent demonstrations of alarm upon slight and often
imaginary occasions. Gingham would shriek as loudly to encounter a
live mouse as Mrs. Kettering would have done to face a raging lion;
and an unexpected meeting with any individual, even residing in the
same house, was apt to produce a flutter of spirits and prostration of
intellect, truly surprising to those who are unacquainted with the
delicate organisation of a real lady’s-maid _not_ on board wages. In
this critical condition, Mrs. Gingham, on the first evening of her
arrival at St. Swithin’s, “got a start,” as she expressed it, which
influenced the whole destiny of her after life. Coming down from
dressing her lady, she wended her way, as usual, to “the room,” that
sanctum in which the etiquette of society is far more rigidly enforced
than up-stairs, and to which “plush and powder” would find it far more
difficult to obtain the entrée than into master’s study or “missus’s”
boudoir. Expecting to see nothing more formidable than the butler,
Gingham’s alarm can be more easily imagined than described, when on
entering this privileged apartment, she found its only occupant a
goodish-looking, flashily-dressed young man, “taking a glass of sherry
and a biscuit,” and making himself very much at home.

A suppressed scream and sudden accession of faintness made it
imperative on the new arrival to exert himself, and by the time they
had got to “Goodness! how you frightened me, sir,” and “Dear _Miss_, I
beg a thousand pardings!” they became very good friends, and the timid
fair one was prevailed on to sit down and partake of the refreshments
hospitably provided by the butler at his mistress’s expense.

Tom Blacke very soon informed the lady that “he was assistant to a
professional gentleman” (in plain English an attorney’s clerk), and
had merely looked in to see if the house was let, to inform his
employer. “I am very unhappy, miss, to have been the cause of alarming
of you so, and I trust you will look over it, and may feel no ill
effects from the haccident.” To which Gingham, who was a lady of
elaborate politeness, as became her station, and, moreover, much
mollified by the constant use of the juvenile title “Miss,”
courteously replied that, “Indeed, it had given her _quite a turn_,
but she could not regret a meeting that had introduced her to such a
polite acquaintance.” So they parted with many “good evenings,” and an
openly expressed hope that they should meet again.

Tom Blacke was a scamp of the first water, but not deficient in
shrewdness, to which his professional pursuits added a certain amount
of acquired cunning. He naturally reflected that the sensitive,
middle-aged dame whom he had thus alarmed and soothed was probably an
old and esteemed servant of the family at No. 9. The whole
arrangements looked like being “well-to-do.” The butler poured out
sherry as if it was small beer, and probably in such an establishment
the confidential maid might have saved a pretty bit of money, to
which, even encumbered with the lady in question, Tom Blacke would
have had no earthly objection. He was, as he said himself, “open to a
match,” and being a rosy, dark-whiskered fellow, with good teeth and
consummate assurance, though he never looked at _you_ till you had
done looking at _him_, he resolved to lay siege forthwith to the heart
of Mrs. Gingham. A nervous temperament is usually susceptible; and
though her fingers are occupied in folding Blanche’s handkerchiefs,
and “putting away” her gloves, shoes, and etceteras, the Abigail’s
thoughts are even now far away round the corner, up two pair of
stairs, in the office with Tom Blacke.

“Goodness gracious! Missus’s bell!” exclaims Gingham, with a start, as
if she had _not_ expected that summons at its usual time--viz. when
Mrs. Kettering came in to shake her feathers before luncheon--and she
runs down, palpitating as if the house were on fire. Though we must
not stay to see Blanche take her bonnet off and smooth those sunny
ringlets, we may go and wait for her in the luncheon-room, to which
she is soon heard tripping merrily down, with even brighter eyes than
usual, perhaps from the excitement of meeting Cousin Charles’s friend,
Mr. Hardingstone, whom sly Blanche knows but very little, and with
whom she is consequently extremely diffident, notwithstanding the
deference of his manner, and the respectful, almost admiring tone in
which he always addresses the young girl.

“Blanche, have you fed Bully? and practised your music? and read your
history? Women should never neglect history. And looked for the name
of that weed, whilst we think of it? and shall I give you some
chicken?” said Mrs. Kettering, without waiting for an answer, as she
sat down to a very comfortable repast about three o’clock in the
afternoon, which she called luncheon, but which was by no means a bad
imitation of a good dinner.

“No, dear mamma,” said Blanche; “besides, it’s too hot for lessons;
but tell me, mamma, what did Mr. Hardingstone mean about a mermaid,
when he whispered to ‘Cousin Charlie,’ and Charlie laughed?”

“A mermaid, Blanche? pooh! nonsense; there’s no such animal. But that
reminds me--don’t forget to look over that beautiful thing of
Tennyson’s; girls should always be ‘up’ in modern literature. Do you
know, Blanche, I don’t quite like Mr. Hardingstone.”

“O mamma,” said Blanche, “such a friend of Charlie’s--I’m sure we
ought to like him; and I’m sure he likes _us_; what a way he came down
through that horrid shingle to help you out of the boat; and did you
see, mamma, what nice thin boots he had on? I think I should like him
very much if we knew him better. Not so much as ‘Cousin Charlie,’”
added the young girl, reflectively, “or dear darling Hairblower. How
shocking it was when his partner went down, mamma. Did you hear that
story? But I am sure Mr. Hardingstone is very good-natured.”

“That reminds me, my dear,” said Mrs. Kettering, who was getting
rather flushed towards the end of the chicken; “I do hope that boy has
not gone to bathe: I am always afraid about water. Blanche, hand me
the sherry; and, my dear, I must order some bottled porter for
_you_--you are very pale in this hot weather; but I am always fidgety
about Charlie when he is bathing.”

From the conversation recorded above, we may gather that Mrs.
Kettering, who, as we have said, was inclined to be nervous, was
rapidly becoming so upon one or two important points. In the first
place, with all a mother’s pride in her daughter’s beauty, she could
not be blind to the general admiration excited thereby, nor could she
divest herself of certain misgivings that Blanche would not long
remain to be the solace of her widowhood, but that, to use her own
expression, she was “sure to be _snapped up_ before she was old enough
to know her own mind.” The consequence was, that Mrs. Kettering
much mistrusted all her male acquaintance under the age of
old-fellow-hood--a period of life which, in these days of “wonderfully
young-looking men,” seems indefinitely postponed; and regarded every
well-dressed, well-whiskered biped as a possible subverter of her
schemes, and a probable rival to “Cousin Charlie”; she kept him at
bay, accordingly, with a coldness and reserve quite foreign to her own
cordial and demonstrative nature. Frank Hardingstone she could not
dislike, do what she would. And we are bound to confess that she was
less guarded in her encouragement of that gentleman than of any other
male visitor who appeared in the afternoons at No. 9, to leave a small
bit of glazed paste-board, with an inward thanksgiving for his escape
from a morning visit, or to utter incontrovertible platitudes while he
smoothed his hat on his coat-sleeve, and glanced ever and anon at the
clock on the chimney-piece, for the earliest moment at which, with
common decency, he might take his departure.

Then the safety and soundness of Blanche’s heart was scarcely more a
matter of anxiety than that of Charlie’s body; and the boy seemed to
take a ghastly delight in placing himself constantly in situations of
imminent bodily peril. Active and high-spirited, he was perpetually
climbing inaccessible places, shooting with dangerous guns, riding
wild hacks, overheating himself in matches against time, and, greatest
anxiety of all, performing aquatic feats--the principal result of his
Eton education--_out of his depth_, as his aunt observed with
emphasis, which were totally inexcusable as manifest temptations of
fate.

He was now gone off on an expedition with his friend and senior,
Hardingstone; but well did Mrs. Kettering know that yonder blue,
cool-looking sea would be an irresistible temptation, and that her
nephew would “bundle in,” as he called it, to a moral certainty, the
instant he got away from the prying gaze of the town.

“In the meantime,” thought she, “it’s a comfort to have Blanche safe
at her studies; there is nothing like occupation for the mind to keep
foolish fancies out of a young girl’s head; so bring your books down
here, my love,” she added, aloud, “and after we have read the last act
of ‘Don Carlos,’ you can practise your music, while I rest myself a
little on the sofa.”

With all its beauties, “Don Carlos” is a work of which a few pages go
a long way, when translated into their own vernacular by two ladies
who have but a slight acquaintance with the German language; and
Blanche soon tired of the princely step-son’s more than filial
affection, and the guttural warmth with which it is expressed; so she
drew mamma’s sofa to the open window, shut the door to keep her out of
the draught, and sat down to her pianoforte with an arch “Good-night,
mammy; you won’t hear any of my mistakes, so I shall play my lesson
over as fast as ever I can.”

Snore away, honest Mrs. Kettering, in the happy conviction that you
have given your daughter ample occupation of mind, to say nothing of
fingers, in the execution of those black-looking pages, so trying to
the temper and confusing to the ear. Snore away, and believe that her
thoughts and affections are as much under your control as her little
body used to be, when you put her to bed with your own hands, and she
said her innocent prayers on your knee. So you all think of your
children; so you all deceive yourselves, and are actually surprised
when symptoms of wilfulness or insubordination appear in your own
families, though you have long warned your neighbours that “boys will
be boys,” or “girls are always thoughtless,” when they have complained
to you of their parental disappointments and disgusts. You think you
know your children--you, who can scarce be said to know _yourself_.
The bright boy at your side, who calls you by the endearing
appellation of “the governor,” you fondly imagine he is drinking in
those words of wisdom in which you are laying down rules for his
future life of frugality, usefulness, and content. Not a bit of it. He
is thinking of his pony and his tick at the pie-shop, which will make
a sad hole in the sovereign you will probably present to him on his
return to Mr. Birch’s.

You describe in well-chosen language the miseries of a
“bread-and-cheese” marriage to your eldest daughter, a graceful girl,
whose fair, open brow you think would well become a coronet, and she
seems to listen with all attention to your maxims, and to agree
cordially with “dear papa,” in worldly prudence, and an abhorrence of
what you call “bad style of men.” When her mother, with flushed
countenance and angry tones, despatches you to look for her to-night
between the quadrilles, ten to one but you find her in the tea-room
with Captain Clank, “that odious man without a sixpence,” as your
energetic spouse charitably denominates him. And yet, as child after
child spreads its late-fledged wings, and forsakes the shelter of the
parental nest, you go on hoping that the next, and still the next,
will make amends to you for all the shortcomings of its seniors, till
the youngest--the Benjamin--the darling of your old age--the treasure
that was, indeed, to be your “second self”--takes flight after the
rest, and you feel a dreary void at your heart, and a solemn, sad
conviction that the best and holiest affections of an earthly nature
are insufficient for its happiness--that there must be something
better to come when everything here turns to heart-ache and
disappointment.

But Blanche will not think so for many a long day yet. Though the
minims and crotchets and flats and sharps were mixed up in sadly
puzzling confusion, not a frown of impatience crossed that pure, open
brow. Blanche’s own thoughts were a panacea for all the provocations
that the stiffest piece of musico-mechanism, or mechanical music,
could inflict. It is a task beyond our powers to detail the vague
ideas and shadowy dreams that chased each other through that glossy
little head; nor have we any business to try. A young girl’s brain is
a page of poetry, without rhyme certainly, probably without much
reason, but poetry notwithstanding. Before the world has lost its
gloss of novelty, that gloss which is like the charm that dazzled the
eyes of their mortal visitors, and made the fairies’ straws and
withered leaves and cobwebs look like purple hangings, and tapestry,
and ivory, and gold--before life has borne away much to regret, and
sin brought much to repent of--before the fruit has been plucked which
still hangs from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there is a
positive pleasure in the mere act of thinking; and that intellectual
luxury Blanche enjoyed to the utmost, whilst her fingers were tripping
over the pianoforte keys, and Mrs. Kettering was snoring comfortably
on the sofa.

Now, Frank Hardingstone was prime favourite and _beau idéal_ with
“Cousin Charlie,” who, like all boys, had selected an idol a few years
older than himself, and clothed him with those imaginary attributes
which youth considers essential to constitute a hero. Frank was a
country gentleman, in possession of his property at the early age of
five-and-twenty, and, truth to tell, somewhat bored with his position.
If we were to describe him, we should say he was “a man of action”
rather than “a man of feeling,” or “a man of business,” or “a man of
refinement,” or “a man of pleasure,” or a man of anything else. He
looked energetic too, and vigorous, with his brown healthy complexion,
his open forehead, clear penetrating eye, and short clustering hair
and whiskers. Had he been the least thing of a coxcomb in dress or
manner, the ladies would have voted him very handsome; but he was
plain to simplicity in his attire, and rather abrupt in his address,
so they abused him amongst themselves, but were very civil to him
notwithstanding. The men, particularly the sporting ones, who are
always ready with their judgments and opinions, pronounced that he
“looked a good one all over,” alluding, as we understand the phrase,
not so much to his virtue as his corporeal powers, and capability of
resisting fatigue. We are not so far removed from a state of barbarism
in the present day as we are prone to flatter ourselves. When young
King James called the grim old Douglas “his Graysteil,” that royal
heart was attached to Earl Angus for his magnificent frame, skill in
feats of arms and efforts of strength, not for the giant’s wisdom,
which was doubtful, or his honesty, which was entirely negative; and
so amongst any assemblage of young gentlemen now in the nineteenth
century, the quality which excites most admiration seems to be a
certain combination of activity and recklessness, which they call
_hardness_. “Was Rakes in time for parade?”--“Oh yes, he drank four
bottles of claret, and never went to bed--he’s a deuced _hard_ fellow,
Rakes” (applause). “Was Captain Cropper hurt when he tumbled over
that gate and broke his horse’s neck?”--“Hurt? not he; you won’t often
see _him_ hurt--there are not many fellows so _hard_ as Cropper”
(great applause); and thus it seems that the brain is chiefly honoured
according to its capacity, not of reasoning, but of cellarage--and the
head only becomes the noblest portion of the human frame when it may
be fallen on with impunity. Tell these “physical force” gentlemen of a
“clever horse,” and every ear is erect in motionless attention--talk
to them of a clever man, their shoulders are elevated in pity--of a
clever woman, their mouths are drawn down in disgust. But Frank
Hardingstone was, to use their favourite word, “a great card” amongst
all the associates of his age and standing. Square and muscular, with
temper, courage, and address, he could walk, run, leap, ride, fence,
play cricket, box, and swim with the best of them, and they never
suspected that this powerful frame contained a mind capable and
energetic as the casket in which it was concealed.

Frank was a well-informed, well-judging man--loved mathematics, logic,
and such strong intellectual food--enjoyed working out a sum or
problem, or otherwise exercising his powerful mind, and would go to an
iron foundry, or to see a ship built, or even to the Polytechnic, for
sheer amusement. Had he been born to work for his livelihood, he would
have made a capital engineer; as it was, he ought to have been in the
navy, or the artillery, or anything but an idle man, living at his own
place in the country. He had no relations, consequently nothing to
keep him at home; people said that when alone he had no established
dinner-hour--a grievous sin in our gastronomic age: he was too
energetic to care very much for farming, although he did _occupy_
certain acres of his own land; and too practical to be enthusiastic
about field-sports, though he was a good shot, and rode right well to
hounds. Altogether, Frank was out of his place in the world; and, not
having arrived at that age when, if a man don’t fit his destiny, he
makes his destiny fit _him_, was in danger of becoming bored and
careless, and a useless member of society. Luckily, Cousin Charlie’s
private tutor, Mr. Nobottle, held his cure close to Hardingstone
Hall, and leave to course over certain grounds thereunto belonging
being applied for and granted, an introduction took place between the
squire and the clergyman’s volatile pupil, which struck up an
immediate alliance of obliger and obliged.

No two people could well be more different in disposition and
appearance than were Frank and Charlie. The man--strong, sedate,
practical, acute, and penetrating; the boy--light, active, hot-headed,
and romantic, jumping to conclusions, averse to reasoning and
reflection, acting on the impulse of the moment, and continually
getting into scrapes, which his friend as continually had to get him
out of. Yet after they had known each other a few months they became
inseparable. Charlie went regularly, after his studies at the rectory,
to pass the rest of the day at the hall; and Frank found a renewed
pleasure in boating, cricket, hunting, shooting, and even fishing,
from the keen enjoyment with which the “young one” entered upon these
diversions. As for the “young one” himself, he thought there was
nothing in the world equal to Hardingstone--so strong, so plucky, so
well-read, so sagacious, with such faultless coats, and such a good
seat upon a horse, he was the boy’s hero (we have all had such in our
day), and he worshipped him accordingly. So ill could he bear to lose
sight of his Mentor, even during the sunshiny hours of the vacation,
that he had begged Hardingstone to come over to St. Swithin’s, no very
great distance from his own place, and had promised to introduce him
to the “Aunt Kettering,” and “Blanche,” of whom he had heard so much
in the intervals of their amusements “by thicket and by stream.” The
promise was made and kept--and Frank was living at the Royal Hotel,
disgusting the landlord by the simplicity of his habits, and the
waiter by his carelessness as regarded dinner, whilst he was growing
day by day in the good graces even of Mrs. Kettering, and finding, as
he himself thought with great penetration, a vast deal of sound merit
in the fresh, inexperienced mind of Blanche. “Your cousin looks all
the better for sea-bathing, Charlie,” said Hardingstone to his young
companion, as they toiled slowly along the broiling parade, where
every sunbeam was refracted with tenfold power from glaring houses
and a scorching pavement. “It braces the system just as good head-work
braces the intellect. People don’t train half enough, I think--even
women ought to have sound minds in sound bodies; and look what
indolent, unmeaning, insipid wretches half of them are--not like your
aunt. Now that’s what I call a vigorous woman, Charlie; she’d do in
the colonies or anywhere--she’s fit to be a queen, my boy, because
she’s got some energy about her. As for you, young gentleman, you work
hard enough out-of-doors, but you neglect your brains altogether--I
don’t believe now that you have opened a book since you left
Nobottle’s.”

“Wrong again, Frank, as usual,” replied Charlie; “I read for an hour
this very morning, whilst I was dressing; I am very fond of reading
when it’s not _dry_.”

“And may I ask what your early studies were, my industrious young
philosopher?”

“‘Parisina’ and ‘The Bride of Abydos’--by Jove, old fellow, it’s
beautiful.”

Frank made a face as if he had swallowed a pill. “‘Parisina’ and ‘The
Bride of Abydos,’” he repeated, with intense disgust; “a boy of
sixteen--I beg your pardon--a young _man_ of your age reading Byron;
why, you’ll arrive at a state of mental delirium tremens before you
are twenty, particularly if you smoke much at the same time. I daresay
you are ‘up’ in ‘Don Juan’ as well--not that I think _he_ is half so
bad for you; but no man should read sentiment in such an alluring garb
as Byron dressed it, till his heart is hardened and his whiskers
grown. All poetry, to my mind, has a tendency to make you more or less
imbecile. You should read Bacon, my boy, and Locke, and good sound
reasoning Butler; but if you must have works of imagination, take to
Milton.”

“Hate blank verse,” remarked Charlie, who opined--in which prejudice
we cannot help coinciding a little--that poetry is nothing without
jingle; “I can’t read three pages of ‘Paradise Lost.’”

“Because your brain is softening for want of proper training,”
interrupted Hardingstone; “if you go on like this you’ll very soon be
fit for Jean Jacques Rousseau, and I shall give you up altogether. No,
when you go back to Nobottle’s, I shall give him a hint to put you
into a stiffish course of mathematics, with a few logarithms for
plums, and when you are man enough to grapple with a real intellectual
difficulty you will read Milton for pleasure, and like him more and
more every day, for you will find----”

“Oh! bother Milton,” interrupted Charlie; “Frank, I’ll bet you
half-a-crown you don’t jump that gate without touching;” and he
pointed to a high white gate leading off the dusty road into the fresh
green meadows, for they were now clear of the town.

Frank was over it like a bird, ere the words were out of his admiring
disciple’s mouth, and their conversation, as they walked on, turned
upon feats of strength and agility, and those actions of enterprise
and adventure which are ever most captivating to the fancy of the
young.

Charles Kettering, we need scarcely say, entertained an extraordinary
fondness for all bodily exercises. Intended for the army, and “waiting
for his commission,” as he expressed it, he looked forward to his
future profession as a career of unalloyed happiness, in which he
should win fame and distinction without the slightest mental
exertion--an effort to which, in truth, Charlie was always rather
averse. Like most young aspirants to military honours, he had yet to
learn that study, reflection, memory, and, above all, common sense,
are as indispensable to the soldier’s success as to that of any other
professional man; and that, although physical courage and light
spirits are very useful accessories in a campaign, a good deal more is
required to constitute an officer, since, even in a subordinate grade,
the lives of his comrades and the safety of his division may depend on
his unassisted judgment alone. Charlie had good abilities, but it was
a difficult matter to get him to apply them with anything like
diligence; and his friend Hardingstone, whose appreciation of a
favourite’s good qualities never made him blind to his faults, saw
this defect, and did all in his power to remedy it, both by precept
and example.

Mrs. Kettering’s misgivings as regarded her nephew’s duck-like
propensities were founded on a thorough knowledge of his taste and
habits. Another mile of walking brought the pair once more to the
beach, where it curved away completely out of sight of St Swithin’s.
The heat was intense; Charlie took his coat off, sat down upon a
stone, and gazed wistfully at the sea.

“Don’t it look cool?” said he; “and don’t I wish, on a day like this,
that I was a ‘merman bold’? I say, Frank, I must have a dip--I shall
bundle in.”

“In with you,” was the reply; “I haven’t had a swim since I breasted
the Mediterranean last year; only we won’t stay in too long, for I
promised your cousin to bring her some of that seaweed she spoke
about;” and in another minute, in place of two well-dressed gentlemen
standing on the beach, a couple of hats and a heap of clothes occupied
the shore, whilst two white forms might be seen, ever and anon,
gleaming through the blue waves as their owners dived, floated, turned
upon their sides, kicked up their feet, and performed all those antics
with which masterly swimmers signalise their enjoyment of their
favourite element. We often hear people wishing they could fly. Now,
we always think it must be exactly the same sensation as swimming; you
are borne up with scarcely an effort--you seem to glide with the
rapidity of a bird--you feel a consciousness of daring, and a proud
superiority over nature, in thus mastering the instinctive fear man
doubtless entertains of water, and bidding ocean bear you like a steed
that knows its rider. The horizon appears so near that your ideas of
distance become entirely confused, and the “few yards of uneven” water
seem to your exulting senses like as many leagues. You dash your head
beneath the green transparent wave, and shaking the salt drops from
your brow, gallantly breast roller after roller as they come surging
in, and with a wild, glad sense of freedom and adventure, you strike
boldly out to sea. All this our two gentlemen bathers felt and
enjoyed, but Frank, who had not followed this favourite diversion for
a length of time, was even more delighted than his young companion
with his aquatic amusements; and when the breeze freshened and the
dark blue waters began to show a curl of white, he dashed away with
long, vigorous strokes to such a distance from the shore as even
Charlie, albeit of anything but nervous mood, thought over-venturous
and enterprising. The latter was emerging from the water, when, on
looking for his companion, it struck him that Frank, in the offing,
was making signals of distress. Once he saw a tremendous splash, and
he almost thought he heard a cry through the roar of the tide against
the shingle. “By all that’s fearful, he’s in grief,” was Charlie’s
mental exclamation; and whilst he thought it the gallant boy was
striking out for life and death to reach his friend. What a distance
it seemed! and how his knees and thighs ached with the long,
convulsive springs that shot him forward! Charlie never knew before
what hard work swimming might be; and now he has reached the spot he
aimed at--he raises himself in the water--what is this? Merciful
Heaven! Hardingstone is down! but there is a swirling circle of green
and white not ten yards before him, and the lad dives deep below the
surface and comes up holding his friend’s motionless body by the hair;
and now they are both down again, for Charlie is blown, and has not
before practised the difficult feat of rescuing a man from drowning.
But he comes up once more, and shakes his head, and coughs and
clutches tightly to the twining hair, that even in the water has a
death-like clamminess in his fingers. He is frightfully blown now, and
a wave takes him sideways and turns him over--he is under
Hardingstone, and this time he only comes up for an instant to go
under again, with a suffocating feeling at his chest, and a painful
pressure on his ears. Now he gulps at the salt water that appears to
fill body, and lungs, and head; and now he seems to be whirling round
and round; everything is green and giddy--there is something crooked
before his face--and a feeling of pleasing languor forbids him to
grasp it. The Great Uncertainty is very near--a glare of white light
dazzles his eyes, and the waters settle over him, as he holds on to
Hardingstone’s hair with the clutch of a drowning man.




CHAPTER III

THE HANDSOME GOVERNESS

     BLIND-MAN’S BUFF--AN UNCEREMONIOUS INTRODUCTION--THE
     MUSIC-MISTRESS--A CATHEDRAL TOWN--THE YOUNG LADIES’
     SEMINARY--MARY DELAVAL AND HER ADMIRER--AN ATTACK REPULSED--THE
     MILITARY ROUTED--A PRECARIOUS LIVELIHOOD


Little, indeed, do one half the world know how the other half live.
Fortunate is it for us all, that we have neither the invisible cap,
nor the shoes of swiftness, that did their owner such good service in
the fairy tale. We might be astonished, not to say disgusted, could we
follow our nearest and dearest for one short half-hour after they have
left our sight; could we see them, when they think no mortal eye is
upon their actions, we might smile or we might weep, according as our
temperament bordered upon the sentimental or the cynical. Yet is there
One that always watches. How comes it that when we hide ourselves from
man, we think no shame to expose our follies to man’s Creator? Will a
day come when everything shall be made known? when there will be no
more hypocrisy--no more respectability--no more difference between
vice on the house-top and vice in the corner? There will be some
strange shifting of places when that day does come--much shrinking and
wincing from the general Show-up--much scarlet shame, and livid
remorse, when the brow can no more be covered, nor the past undone.
’Tis a pity we should think so little of payment till the bill comes
due;--in the meantime we go blindly on, deceiving and deceived--we
know but little of our neighbour, and we trust in heaven our neighbour
knows nothing whatever about us; so we grope about in the dark, and
call it Life.

Mrs. Kettering, on the sofa, knew nothing of what Blanche was thinking
about, not six feet from her--knew nothing about Charlie, struggling
convulsively for life half-a-mile out at sea--knew nothing about the
woman she had left to take charge of her town-house--a pattern of
respectability, sobriety, and trustworthiness, then reeling out of
“The Feathers,” as drunk as Chloë, to use an old Eton expression,
highly derogatory to the character of Horace’s young and tender love,
she who bounded from the bard’s classical advances like a frightened
kid. Our Chloë, meanwhile, was grasping a door-key, and calling for
gin, regardless that she had left a tallow-candle flaring close to a
heap of shavings in the back scullery, that “the airy-gate,” as she
called it, was “on the latch,” and there was nobody to answer the
front door. This last piece of carelessness was the means of
inflicting an additional disappointment on one who had already in her
short life known troubles and disappointments more than enough. Mary
Delaval had walked up to the grim lion-headed knocker with a weary
step and heavy heart; but when her summons was again and again
unheeded, and the chance of finding out even Mrs. Kettering’s address
became hopeless, she moved away with the heavy, listless air of one
who has shot the last arrow from the quiver without attaining the
mark, and begins to doubt if courage and energy are indeed qualities
of the slightest advantage to our welfare, and whether blind fortune
is not the controller of all here below.

The sun beat fiercely upon the pavement, and there was not a breath of
air to refresh those arid gardens in the parched and dusty square--yet
Mary put her thick, suffocating veil down before her face and
quickened her pace as she went home from her hopeless errand; for to
these inconveniences she was obliged to submit, because in the freest
country in the world, and the most civilised capital in Europe, she
was walking on foot, without a companion or a man-servant.

“Gad, that’s a good-looking woman!” said Captain Lacquers to his
friend, Sir Ascot Uppercrust; “fine-ish goer, too, but tires over the
pavement. If it was not so cursedly hot, ‘Uppy,’ we might cross over
and get a look at her.”

“Women rather bore me,” replied Sir Ascot, who, being very young and a
Body-guardsman, was of course _blasé_; “but I don’t mind, to oblige
you,--only promise you won’t let her speak to me.” So, as Captain
Lacquers turned up his moustaches, Sir Ascot went through the same
pantomime, for practice against the time when his own should grow; and
the couple sauntered carelessly on, and, by a dexterous manœuvre,
came “right across the bows” of Mary Delaval.

We may be asked what two such undeniable dandies as good-looking
Lacquers, of the Lancers, and Sir Ascot Uppercrust, of the Body-guard,
should be doing in London at this time of the year. We cannot tell;
for love or money probably--a redundancy of the one and a deficiency
of the other being the two causes that generally drive young gentlemen
to the metropolis, when their confiding companions are all “faded and
gone.” Be it how it may, there they were, and Mary Delaval wished them
anywhere else, as, following in her wake, they made sundry
complimentary remarks upon her figure, ankles, and general appearance,
which might have been gratifying if overheard casually, but which,
under the circumstances, were doubtless extremely impertinent and
reprehensible.

“I think I’ll get forward, and ask her if she’s going home,” said
Lacquers; and, curling his great black moustaches, he quickened his
pace to add this crowning insult to an unprotected woman.

Mary’s blood boiled in her veins--she was a soldier’s daughter, and
her father’s spirit swelled her heart till it felt as if it would
choke her--she clenched her long slender hand, and thought, almost
aloud: “Oh, if I were but a man to strike the coward to the
earth!--oh, if I were but a man to shoot him as he stands!” In such a
mood women have shed blood ere now, but the excitement cannot
last--the reaction too surely arrives; and, alas for woman’s pride and
woman’s weakness! Mary returned the bold insolent stare with the
defiant glance and the lofty carriage of a queen, and then--she burst
into tears. It was too much; fatigue, anxiety, and disappointment had
overcome her nerves, and she could have killed herself for the
weakness, but she sobbed like a child.

Lacquers was a good-natured man, and a good fellow, as it is called,
at heart--he was pained and thoroughly ashamed of himself. He took his
hat off as if she had been a duchess, and with a readiness that argued
this was not a first offence, and did more credit to his ingenuity
than his candour, he begged her pardon, and assured her he thought she
was “his cousin”--“Quite a mistake, ma’am, I assure you--pray forgive
me--good-morning;” and so bowed himself off arm-in-arm with his
companion, who had preserved an immovable stoicism, almost
preternatural in one so young, during the whole interview.

As Mary Delaval walked on, and gradually recovered her composure, she
reflected somewhat bitterly on her lot, and looked back upon her life
with a feeling of discontent, that for a moment seemed almost to
upbraid Providence that she had not had a fair chance. It was but for
a moment--Mary had been schooled in adversity, and had profited by its
lessons. In some situations of life such a temperament as hers might
have been prone to grow fastidious and uncharitable. Her ideal of good
would have been very high, and she would have looked down with
contempt upon the grovelling spirits that constituted the mass of her
fellow-creatures. But poverty and dependence had taught her many a
lesson, hard to learn, but harder to forget. What had she to do with
pride?--a question to be asked, if you contemplated her tall, graceful
figure, with its majestic sweep and lofty gestures--her goddess-like
head, set on as if the Greek had carved its proportions with his
unerring chisel--her dark, deep-set grey eye, with its long lashes,
veiling a world of penetration, reflection, ay, and sentiment, for the
happy man who could bid it kindle into love--her faultless profile and
firm determined mouth, her father’s legacy, with the courage it
betokened--her low, lovable brow, with its masses of thick, dark brown
hair plainly braided on each side of that pale, haunting face,
beautiful in the deep expression which arrives only with the maturity
of womanhood; with all this she might have been a queen, yet what had
she to do with pride?--a question not to be asked of a friendless,
desolate woman, trudging along the streets in the dreary isolation of
loneliness in London, wasting her beauty in the strife for bread,
wearing her talents threadbare in the drudgery of a daily
music-mistress. What a lot if there were nothing beyond! To rise early
in that dingy atmosphere--to breakfast hurriedly on such a spare meal
as the lady’s-maid next door would deem insufficient for her
mistress’s poodle--to leave the dreary lodging for the scarce less
dreary street; day after day to make the same round, waiting upon
vulgar parents and stupid children--day after day to bend rebellious
fingers over the soul-breathing chords--to dissect the harmony of
heaven into “one--two--three--four,” “one--two--three--four,”--and
day after day to return, wearied out in body and mind, to the solitary
room which cannot be called a home, and the rent of which, dear on
account of _the situation_, swallows up the hard-earned coins that
should decorate and supply its vacuity; with nothing to cheer, nothing
to amuse, nothing to console, not even the consciousness of that
beauty which is only a cause of annoyance and remark; and, above all,
with nothing to love--what a lot would this be, were there not a
something to look forward to--a humble hope that this is but a state
of trial and probation--a humble confidence that the reward is sure to
come at last!

And who was Mary Delaval? One of the many instances of a child
suffering for the sins of its parents. We have said her father was a
soldier, but, alas! her mother never was, properly speaking, Mrs.
Delaval. Poor woman, she committed her one fault, and dearly she
atoned for it. She shut the door upon herself, and her sex took good
care that it should never again show a chink open to let her in. Trust
them for that! she was not a proper person to be visited, and she
remained outside. Captain Delaval would have married her, had he
thought such a sacrifice on his part would have improved her position,
for he loved her dearly; but he knew it could be of no use, in a
worldly point of view, the only one in which he considered the
subject, so he put it off and put it off, till too late. She never
complained of the injustice done her, but it broke her heart. Rich in
beauty and accomplishments, she had run away with the handsome, young
artillery officer rather than be forced into a match which she
detested, by a step-mother she despised. She had but one child, and on
that child, it is needless to say, she doted foolishly. Delaval was a
curious fellow, easy-tempered to a fault, careless of the world’s
opinion, and of everything but his own comfort and indulgences; a
gallant soldier, notwithstanding, as brave as a lion, and a perfect
authority in the code of honour adopted by his profession. Yet, for
all this, he allowed the mother of his child to go upon the stage,
under a feigned name, that he might live in luxury upon her earnings.
Fortunately, it may be, for all parties, the artillery officer caught
cold out duck-shooting, and was honoured with a military funeral some
ten days afterwards. He left all he had, a small pittance, to the
woman he had so deeply injured, and she retired with her daughter into
a humble cottage in the West of England, where, for a time, they lived
as happy as the day is long. Her whole energies were devoted to the
education of her child. She taught her all she had herself learned--no
mean list of acquirements--and young Mary Delaval (for, by the
deceased officer’s wish, they always bore his name) was skilled far
beyond other girls of her age in the graceful accomplishments of
womanhood, as well as in those deeper studies which strengthen the
mind and form the character of youth. But Mary’s girlhood had an
advantage, in which her mother’s was deficient. That mother, with the
earnestness of one into whose soul the iron had deeply entered,
impressed upon her daughter the lesson she had herself so painfully
learned: “Put not your trust in man,” was the substance of many a
tearful entreaty, many a sage homily, from the repentant sinner to her
innocent child; and, though the girl’s faith was sadly shaken in the
integrity of the creature, it was anchored all the more firmly in
reliance on his Creator. The mother’s health was but precarious. Often
she thought, “What will become of Mary when I must leave her alone in
the world?” and, having little else to bestow, she bequeathed to her
darling that best legacy of all, the heritage of an immortal soul.
Poor thing! her own constitution had been sadly broken by anxiety and
disappointment, and the heart-wearing conviction that she had given up
home, comfort, friends, good fame, everything, to fasten her young
pure love on an unworthy object. Oh! the sickening misery of that
moment, when first the idol’s shrine is found to be a blank! when
first the dreary misgiving dawns upon us, that the being for whom we
have sacrificed our earthly all, and offered it with a smile--whom we
have endued with all the attributes for which our own heart
yearns--whom we have clothed with the gorgeous colouring of fancy, and
decked in the false glitter of our own imagination--whom we have
raised upon a pedestal, to place our neck beneath its feet, is but a
stock or a stone, after all! Poor idolaters! are we not rightly
punished? Have we not exalted man to be our God? and shall we worship
the thing of clay with impunity? No; the very crime is made to bear
its own atonement. Better that we should bow down to the dust, with
crushed and empty hearts, than live on in the vain mockery of a false
worship, in the degradation of a soul’s homage to a mortal deity.

Poor Mrs. Delaval (for as such was the penitent lady known) bore her
punishment without a murmur; but it was a sad task to leave Mary among
strangers, when failing strength and wasting limbs warned her that she
must soon depart. The girl was in the first lovely bloom of womanhood,
bright and beautiful as if she had never known sorrow or self-denial;
and must she leave her now, when most she wants a mother’s care? God’s
will be done! There is a humble grave, in the corner of a retired
churchyard, far away in the West, marked by a plain grey stone, and
the initial letters of a name--nothing more; and there the spring
daisies are growing over the head of one who loved not wisely--who
erred, and was forgiven, but not here.

Mary Delaval was left to fight single-handed against the world. A hard
battle it is for those who are not furnished with the sinews of war.

The small sum bequeathed to her by her mother’s care was invested in a
savings bank, _which failed_. By the way, the failure was casually
mentioned in the morning papers, and trustees of savings banks, as
they sipped their coffee, remarked, “Ah! another of these concerns
broke: gross rascality somewhere, no doubt.” We hope it proved a
warning to them, to look a little carefully into affairs which they
had pledged themselves to superintend, and not to grudge
half-an-hour’s labour, when such a trifling effort might ward off the
direst calamities from their humble neighbours. What was Mary to do?
Besides her beauty and the mourning on her back, she had literally
nothing. And yet the girl’s heart never sank for a moment; she was
possessed of that invincible Anglo-Saxon resolution, for which there
is no better name than the colloquial one of “pluck.” Had she been a
man, she would have distinguished herself; as it was, perhaps the
humble part she had to play required more courage, self-command, and
self-reliance than the career of many a hero. One advantage she had
over many others equally indigent--her talents were brilliant, her
education had been excellent, and the natural conclusion at which she
arrived was, that she must be a governess or teacher in a school. The
former situation there was much difficulty in attaining, qualities
which are prized in a lady being considered great drawbacks to a
governess; but youth and good looks are not so much out of place in
the latter; and Mary, after considerable difficulty, and a voluminous
correspondence, found herself installed as second assistant in one of
those strongholds of innocence and propriety, termed a young ladies’
seminary.

How different the life on which the orphan now embarked from all her
previous experience of the world! She had been a merry little girl, in
barracks, petted by officers from every regiment in the service
(soldiers are all fond of children), and spoilt by papa, who thought
nothing in the world equal to his little pet. She had grown into
womanhood in the closest retirement of a small out-of-the-way village,
associating only with her refined and cultivated mother, and preparing
for a life of difficulty by study and reflection; and now she found
herself the inmate of a house in which there were thirty pupils, and
where she had not even a room of her own, to escape from the gossiping
chatter of the girls, or the solemn platitudes of Miss Primrose, the
venerable Calypso who presided over these isolated nymphs. There never
was such a place for ladies’ schools as the cathedral town of
Bishops’-Baffler; but, as we believe all these repositories of beauty
and education are conducted upon the same principles, it is needless
to describe them. Health and morals are studiously attended to, and
the use of the back-board inflexibly insisted on, the male sex, of
course, strictly prohibited, and the arts and sciences, giving the
former the preference, impartially administered. Young ladies are
likewise taught to lie perfectly flat on their backs for several
hours, we may say, literally, on a stretch, though of the object and
intention of this feat, whether it is viewed in the light of a dreary
penance, an innocent recreation, or a time-honoured institution, it
does not become us, in our ignorance, to give an opinion.

But Bishops’-Baffler, with all its advantages of salubrious air,
constant bell-ringing, and redundancy of ecclesiastics, has one
considerable drawback to those who take upon themselves the
responsible charge of young ladies in the vicinity of a cavalry
barracks. The morals of a cathedral town are not very easily
deteriorated; but an order from the Horse Guards, determining that a
certain number of jaunty forage-caps, jingling spurs, and dyed
moustaches, should be continually swaggering up and down the principal
thoroughfares of any city, though it adds to the liveliness, is not
supposed to conduce much to the general respectability of the place;
and with all our terrors of invasion, and our admiration, as
civilians, of the military character--particularly the mounted arm--we
confess to a partiality for it chiefly when removed beyond flirting
distance from our dwelling-house, and acknowledge with grief and shame
that its vicinity, in our own experience, has invariably over-roasted
our mutton, multiplied our cobwebs, and placed our female
establishment generally at sixes and sevens. But if we, an independent
bachelor, are thus fain to be removed from the insidious sounds of
“stable-call” and “watch-setting,” from the fascinating sights of
“watering-order” and “guard-mounting,” what must have been good Miss
Primrose’s care and anxiety to preserve her tender fledgelings from
the roving glances of those dashing serjeant-majors, far more
brilliant warriors than the very lieutenants and captains of the sober
foot regiment that preceded them; or the dangerous proximity of those
good-looking officers in their braided frock-coats and their
well-cultivated moustaches, which serve equally as an amusement to
themselves and a terror to their foes--a defence in war and an
occupation in peace? Miss Primrose was a large woman; but she ought to
have been a giantess to cover her brood as she would have wished,
when, walking two-and-two along the pavement, they were continually
encountering “the Loyal Hussars,” mounted and dismounted, or
entangling in the very sheep-fold of their innocence some wolf in
undress uniform, who would persist in taking the wrong side of the
“trottoir,” and then jingling his spurs together in feigned apologies;
merely, Miss Primrose well knew, as a pretext for peeping under their
parasols and “uglies” at the pretty faces, blushing not in anger
beneath those defences.

But what made the principal of the establishment, as she called
herself, more wrathful than anything else, was to perceive that the
figure on whom these warlike glances rested with the greatest marks of
approval and admiration was not one of the young ladies upon whom she
“lavished a mother’s care, and conferred a gentlewoman’s education”
(see advertisement)--not one of the lady pupils for whom she felt, as
she expressed it, “she was responsible, body and soul,” but the
majestic person, and the sweet, sad face, of the junior assistant,
Mary Delaval! “Had it been myself, for instance,” thought Miss
Primrose, drawing up her ample frame with a proud consciousness that,
twenty years ago, she, too, had a lover, “or even Miss Meagrim” (the
senior assistant, a gaunt and forbidding damsel), “who certainly has a
‘genteel’ figure, or little Miss Dashwood, or rosy Miss Wright, I
could have understood it; but the idea of that dowdy thing, with her
pale face and her shabby mourning! it only shows the extraordinary
tastes men have, and the unaccountable creatures they are from
beginning to end.”

And so poor Miss Primrose fell to ruminating on certain passages of
her own early career, and a blight which nipped her young affections
in the bud through the inconstancy of man.

“Have you served?” says a Frenchman to his acquaintance. “Have you
suffered?” might women as well ask of each other; and there are few
amongst them, we fancy, but at one time of their lives have gone
through the freemasonry of sorrow.

Miss Primrose did not look like a heroine; yet she, too, had had her
romance. Well, it had softened her character, for naturally she was a
strong-minded woman; and the pretty gipsies over whom she presided
little thought how much that austere lady sympathised with all the
innocent “_espiègleries_” and girlish follies she thought it right to
rebuke so severely.

Now, even Miss Primrose could not help remarking that, notwithstanding
the open admiration Mary Delaval everywhere excited, no London beauty
of half-a-dozen seasons could have accepted the homage due to her
charms with greater coldness and carelessness than did the junior
assistant. The girl seemed to live in a separate world of her own,
apart from the common pleasures and foibles of her sex. She was kind
and courteous to all, but she made no confidences, and had no female
friend. She continued to wear her mourning-dress for years after the
usual term that filial affection imposes, and with that mourning she
seemed to bear about with her the continual memory, almost the
companionship, of her dead mother. Even Miss Meagrim, whom she nursed
through the jaundice, and who, with returning health, and a fresh
accession of hideousness, confessed she owed her life to Miss
Delaval’s care, owned that she could not make her out; and truth to
tell, both that inquisitive lady and the formidable Miss Primrose
herself, were a little afraid of their stately assistant, with her
classical beauty and her calm, sad face.

Years rolled on, and Mary Delaval, now in the mature bloom of
womanhood, was still junior assistant at Miss Primrose’s, and might
have remained there till her glorious figure was bent, and her glossy
braids were grey, had it not been for that order from the Horse
Guards, mentioned above, which moved the head-quarters of the “Loyal
Hussars” from Waterbridge to Bishops’-Baffler. Much commotion was
there in the town when this regiment of “_Cupidons_” in pelisses
marched in with all the honours of war; nor were the chaste retreats
of our academical sanctuary entirely free from the excitement that
pervaded the neighbourhood. Miss Primrose had her “front” freshly
oiled, curled, and submitted to a process which, we believe, is termed
“baking”; Miss Meagrim appeared with new ribbons in her cap, of a hue
strangely unbecoming to her complexion; whilst a general feeling
amongst the pupils in favour of “a walk,” whenever the weather
afforded an opportunity, argued that the attraction, whatever it might
be, was decidedly out-of-doors. Mary Delaval alone seemed supremely
indifferent to the movements of the military, and yet her destiny it
was that the arrival of these gaudy warriors influenced in a manner
she of all people could least have foreseen.

We have said that of the usual pleasures of her kind she was utterly
careless; but there was one enjoyment of which Mary never wearied, and
in which she lost no opportunity of indulging when she could do so
without attracting observation. This was, listening to a military
band. It reminded her of her childhood--it reminded her of her
mother--and she could stand entranced by its sounds for hours. In the
gardens where the band played there used to be a porter’s lodge kept
by an old fruit-woman, much patronised by the Primrose establishment,
and with this ancient Pomona Mary made interest to occupy her little
secluded parlour, and listen to the music, whenever her school duties
permitted the indulgence. Now it happened that one sunny afternoon,
when Mary, in her usual sombre attire, was snugly enjoying from her
hiding-place the harmonious efforts of “the Loyals,” a certain wealthy
manufacturer’s lady was seized with a _physical_ giddiness as she
promenaded in the gardens, and Captain D’Orville, _the_ great card of
the regiment, came clanking into the porter’s lodge to get a glass of
water for the dame, upon whom he was in close attendance. Mary was
eager to assist in a case of distress, and the Captain, an avowed
admirer of beauty, was completely staggered by the apparition he
encountered in place of the grimy old woman he had expected to find
within. D’Orville was a gentleman of experience, and, as became a man
of war, fertile in resources. He spilt half the tumbler of water over
Mary’s black gown, which _coup-de-main_ gave him an opportunity of
excusing himself at length for his awkwardness, and prolonging his
interview with the beautiful woman he had so unexpectedly fallen in
with. The next day came a magnificent dress, and a note full of
apologies, couched in the most respectful language, and addressed
_Mrs._ Delaval. “I wonder how he found me out,” thought Mary, “and why
he did not put _Miss_.” There was no signature to the note, and it was
impossible to send the dress back, so she folded it in her drawer, and
wondered what she ought to do, and what her mother would have advised.
After this, wherever Mary went, there was Captain D’Orville; at
church, in her school walks, when she went out with Miss Primrose--he
seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of her movements, and never to
lose an opportunity of gazing at her. Mary was a woman, after all; she
thought it was “very disagreeable,” yet was the excitement not
altogether unpleasing. Gaston D’Orville was strikingly handsome; in
fact, generally considered “the best-looking fellow in the Loyals,”
with a peculiar charm of manner, and a thorough knowledge of the whole
art, method, and practice of war as carried on against the weaker sex.
What chance had the friendless teacher’s heart against such a
conqueror? This--there was no treachery in the citadel--there was no
gratified vanity to be the enemy’s best auxiliary, no trifling pique
nor unworthy jealousy to make a conquest valuable merely as a
conquest. Mary was one of the few women who can see things as they
are, and not through the glasses of their own imagination or
prejudice; and when she came to know him better, she perceived the
hollow selfishness of the hardened man of the world, with a
perspicuity of which he would have supposed “the handsome governess”
totally incapable. That she _should_ know him better he took good
care, but his advances were so well timed, so respectful, and in such
thoroughly good taste, that it was impossible to take umbrage at them,
and Mary found herself, she scarce knew how, meeting Captain D’Orville
_by accident_, walking with him as far as the end of the street,
amused by his conversation, and interested in his character, before
she had time to think where or how she had made his acquaintance, and
in what manner such an acquaintance was likely to end. And D’Orville
himself was really in love, in his own way, with “the handsome
governess.”

“There is no fool like an old one,” he confided to his friend
Lacquers, of the Lancers, in an epistle addressed to that philosopher
at Brussels. “If I were a ‘marrying man,’ which you well know I am
_not_, I should spend the rest of my life, unjust as would be the
monopoly, with this glorious Mrs. Delaval. I always call her by that
matronly title; it is so much more respectful, and must make her feel
so much more independent. She is only a teacher, my dear fellow, a
teacher in a girls’ school; and yet, for dignity and grace, and real
‘high-bred’ manner, she might be a duchess. Such a foot and hand! I
can take my oath she has good blood in her veins. Altogether, she
reminds me of your old mare, Sultana--as beautiful as a star--and
looks as if she would die rather than give in. I never in my life saw
a woman I admired half so much; you know I am generally pretty
hard-hearted, but upon my word I begin to fear I have a soft place in
me somewhere. And then, my dear Lacquers, what makes the thing so
exciting is this--I do not believe she cares one toss of a halfpenny
for me after all, and that if I were fool enough to offer to marry her
to-morrow, she would quietly balance the advantages and disadvantages
of the plan, and accept, or very likely _refuse_ me, with her calm,
condescending dignity, extremely unflattering as it is, and without
moving a muscle of her beautiful, placid countenance. Don’t she wish
she may have the chance? and yet, absurd as it sounds, I am horribly
in love with her. You will laugh at me ‘consumedly,’ and sometimes I
feel half inclined to laugh at myself, dodging about the stupidest of
places, as deeply smitten as if I were a cornet, regretting I ever
came here, and yet not man enough to leave and go on detachment, which
I have the option of doing. I shall see her again this evening, and
come to a decision one way or the other, for this can’t go on. In the
meantime, don’t show me up to a soul, and believe me,” etc.

That very evening, a tall, good-looking man, in undress uniform,
might have been seen, as indeed he was seen, by Miss Primrose’s
housemaid, walking a magnificent grey charger, with its bridle over
his arm, close to the foot-pavement in Crozier Street, deep in what
seemed an interesting conversation with a beautiful woman in black.

“So you don’t believe we unfortunates ever _are_ disinterested, Mrs.
Delaval? I am afraid you have a very bad opinion of the whole sex,”
said the gentleman, with a slight tremor in his voice, extremely
unusual to him, and contrasting strangely with the steady, measured
tones of his companion. “I cannot give an opinion where I have so
little knowledge, Captain D’Orville,” was the reply; she began to know
him well now, and liked to talk _out_ with him, as a woman never does
with a man for whom she cares; “I can only judge by what I see. It
appears to me that you all live wholly and entirely for yourselves.
If you are clever, you pervert your talents to get the better of
your friends in every allowable species of dishonesty; if you are
brave, your courage is but made subservient to your vanity and
self-aggrandisement; if you are rich, your money is devoted to your
own indulgence and your own purposes. I never hear, now-a-days, of
anything noble, anything disinterested, such as I have read of. But I
am talking great nonsense,” said Mary, checking herself, and smiling
at her own enthusiasm, unconscious of the burning admiration with
which the hussar’s eyes were riveted on her face. Like all _fast_
reckless men, there was a spice of romance about D’Orville, and he
liked to bring out the latent powers of a mind somewhat akin to his
own daring intellect, more particularly when that mind belonged to
such a person as his companion.

“I could prove that men _may_ be disinterested, even in the nineteenth
century,” said he, and again his voice trembled as it sank almost to a
whisper--“that there _are_ men who would give up station, profession,
ambition, everything,--the present they enjoy, and the future they
look forward to,--for the sake of one whom they esteemed--admired--in
short, whom they _loved_.” She would not understand him, and the calm
brow was as calm as ever while she answered, “I cannot think so. I have
seen quite enough as a child, for you know I am half a soldier
myself, to give me no inclination to prosecute my studies in human
nature. And yet I have my ideal of a hero too, but in these days there
is no such character as a Leonidas, a Curtius (you know, we
governesses must not forget our history), a William Tell, or a
Montrose.”

“I’ll wear thy colours in my cap, thy picture next my heart,” muttered
D’Orville; and then, carried away by the impulse of the moment, and
forgetful of all his worldly prudence and good resolutions, he hurried
impetuously on--“Listen to me, Mrs. Delaval; I may be presumptuous to
speak thus to you on such short acquaintance, but you must have seen
my regard--my attention--my devotion; I cannot bear to see you wasted
here, thrown away in such a place as this--you who are meant for
society and brilliancy, and everything that is worth having in life.
Will you rely upon _me_? will you suffer me to rescue you from this
obscure lot? will you consider?” Mary stopped dead short, drew herself
up, and looked her admirer full in the face: “I am so unused to this
sort of language, Captain D’Orville,” she observed, without a vestige
of emotion, “that I do not clearly understand you. If what you have to
say is fit for me to hear, pray explain yourself; if not, I wish you a
good evening;” and pausing for an instant while she kept him, as it
were, “chained in her eye,” she turned round, and walked calmly and
deliberately straight home to Miss Primrose’s.

The hussar was completely taken aback by the simplicity with which his
attack had been repulsed. There he stood, opposite the grey horse,
utterly confounded, and not knowing whether to advance or retreat.
Should he laugh the thing off, and descend to the meanness of
pretending he had been in jest? He could not--no, he _dared_ not meet
that calm, contemptuous eye. What an eye it was, and how he felt its
influence even now! Should he hurry after her, and make a _bonâ fide_
proposal of marriage, such as no woman could receive but as a
compliment? Psha! what! marry a governess? What would the mess say,
and Lacquers, and his brother profligates? No, the good grey horse was
galloped back to barracks, and D’Orville was the life and soul of the
supper-party, which he returned just in time to join. What a
contrast it was, with its brilliant lights, flushed countenances,
noise, excitement, and revelry, to the still summer evening, and the
pure, sweet face of Mary Delaval.

[Illustration: “She turned round and walked calmly and deliberately
home.”

_Page 56_]

The wealthy manufacturer’s lady thought Captain D’Orville very absent
and _distrait_ next day in the gardens; but from that time till he
went on leave he devoted himself exclusively to her service, and she
never dreamed that there was such a being in the world as the handsome
governess at Miss Primrose’s, or the loss that establishment had
sustained in its junior assistant’s departure.

And now Mary had been long dragging on her weary existence as a
music-mistress in London. Miss Primrose’s severe comments on the
impropriety of evening walks with cavalry officers led to a dignified
rejoinder from her teacher, and the conversation terminated in a small
arrear of salary being paid up, and Mary’s wardrobe (with the
exception of a certain very handsome dress, afterwards sold cheap as
“returned”) being packed for travelling. In London she obtained
sufficient employment to keep her from starving, and that was about
all. A situation as “Governess in a private family” was advertised
for, and again and again she was disappointed in obtaining one, till
at length hearing accidentally that Mrs. Kettering was in want of a
“finishing governess” for Blanche, Mary Delaval proceeded to the
town-house to make inquiries, and failing to obtain even the
wished-for address, was returning in hopeless despondency, when she
encountered the impertinences we have already detailed, and which were
alone wanting to fill the bitter cup of dependency to overflowing.
Poor Mary! hers was “a black cloud” through which it was indeed
difficult to see “the silver lining.”




CHAPTER IV

“LIBITINA”

     THE DROWNING MAN CATCHES AT A BOAT-HOOK--A BRITISH
     FISHERMAN--THE MOTHER STRUCK DOWN--THE SICK-ROOM--WATCH AND
     WARD--THE VISITOR THAT WILL NOT BE DENIED--A PRESSING
     SUITOR--THE CHIEF MOURNER


To keep a gentleman waiting any length of time, either in hot water or
cold, is decidedly a breach of the laws of politeness, to repair which
we must return as speedily as possible to “Cousin Charlie” and his
friend, lying somewhat limp and blue at the bottom of “Hairblower’s”
dinghy; this worthy, under Providence, having been the means of saving
the rash swimmer and the gallant boy who strove to rescue him from an
untimely death, which a very few seconds more of submersion would have
made a certainty. That Hairblower’s boat-hook should have been ready
at the nick of time was one of those “circumstances,” as he called
them, which he designated “special,” and turned upon the fact of his
having started a party of amateurs in the morning on a sort of marine
picnic, from which they had returned prematurely, the gala proving a
failure, with no greater loss than that of a spare oar and one or two
small casks belonging to the seaman. It was on the hopeless chance of
picking up these “waifs and strays” as they drifted down with the
tide, that “Hairblower” was paddling about in a shallow skiff,
denominated “a dinghy,” when his attention was arrested by an
adventurous swimmer striking boldly out at a long distance from the
beach. As he said himself, “There’s no depending on these gentlemen,
so I thought it very likely I might be wanted, and stood ‘off and on’
till I saw Mr. Hardingstone making signals of distress. It’s no joke
that cramp isn’t, half-a-mile out at sea; and I might have been too
late with the boat-hook if it hadn’t been for Master Charles--dear,
dear, there’s stuff in that lad you might cut an admiral out of, and
they’re going to make ‘a soger’ of him!”

He had contrived to pull the two exhausted swimmers into his little
craft; and although Charlie very soon recovered himself, his friend,
who was farther gone in his salt-water potations, gave them both some
uneasiness before he came thoroughly to his senses.

Whilst our hardy seaman is putting them upon their legs, and
administering hot brandy-and-water in a fisherman’s house near the
beach, we may spare a few lines to give some account of “Hairblower,”
and the qualities by which he earned that peculiar designation. Born
and bred a fisherman, one of that daring race with which our sea-board
swarms, and from which Her Majesty’s navy and the British merchant
service recruit their best men, he was brought up from his very
childhood to make the boat his cradle, and the wave his home. Wet or
dry, calm or stormy, blow high, blow low, with a plank beneath his
foot, and a few threads of canvas over his head, he was in his
element; and long ere he reached the full strength of manhood he was
known for the most reckless of all, even amongst those daring spirits
who seem to think life by far the least valuable of their earthly
possessions. Twice, as a boy, had he _volunteered_ to make up the crew
of a lifeboat when the oldest hands were eyeing with doubtful glances
that white, seething surf through which they would have to make their
way to the angry, leaden sea beyond; and the men of Deal themselves,
those heroes of the deep, acknowledged, with the abrupt freemasonry of
the brave, that “the lad was as tough as pin-wire, _heart_ to the
backbone.” His carelessness of weather soon became proverbial, and his
friends often expostulated with him on his rashness in remaining out
at sea with a craft by no means qualified to encounter the sudden
squalls of the Channel, or the heavy seas which come surging up from
the Atlantic in a real Sou’-Wester. His uncle at length promised to
assist him in building a lugger of somewhat heavier tonnage than the
yawl he was accustomed to risk, and the _Spanking Sally_, of ill-fated
memory, was the result. On the first occasion that the young skipper
exultingly stamped his foot on a deck he could really call his own, he
earned the nickname by which he was afterwards distinguished. His
uncle expressed a hope that the owner would now be a trifle more
careful in his ventures, and suggested that when it blew hard, and
there was a heavy cargo on board, it was good seamanship to run for
the nearest port. “Blow,” repeated the gallant lad, while he passed
his fingers through thick glossy curls that the breeze was even then
lifting from his forehead--“Blow, uncle! you’ll never catch me putting
_my_ helm down for weather, till it comes on stiff enough to blow
every one of these hairs clean out of my figure-head!” From that hour,
and ever afterwards, he was known by the _sobriquet_ of Hairblower,
and as such we verily believe he had almost forgotten his own original
name.

Hardingstone was soon sufficiently recovered to walk back to his
hotel, and with his strong frame and constitution scouted the idea of
any ill effects arising from what he called “a mere ducking.” Once,
however, on their way home, he pressed Charlie’s hand, and with a tear
in his eye--strange emotion for him to betray--whispered, “Charlie,
you’ve the pluck of the devil; you’ve saved my life, and I shall never
forget it.” We are an undemonstrative people: on the stage, or in a
book, here would have been an opportunity for a perfect oration about
gratitude, generosity, and eternal friendship; but not so in real
life; we cannot spare more than a sentence to acknowledge our rescue
from ruin or destruction, and we are so afraid of being thought
“humbugs,” that we make even that sentence as cold as possible.

Mrs. Kettering, though, was a lady of a different disposition. She was
in a terrible taking when her nephew returned, and she observed the
feverish remains of past excitement, which the boy was unable to
conceal. Bit by bit she drew from him the whole history of his gallant
efforts to save Hardingstone, and the narrow escape they both had of
drowning; and as Charlie finished his recital, and Blanche’s eyes
sparkled through her tears in admiration of his heroism, Mrs.
Kettering rang the bell twice for Gingham, and went off into strong
hysterics.

“Dear me, miss, how providential!” said the Abigail, an hour or so
afterwards, popping her head into the drawing-room, where Blanche and
Charlie were awaiting news of his aunt, having left her to “keep
quiet”--“Dr. Globus is down here for a holiday, and Missus bid me send
for him if she wasn’t any better, and now she _isn’t_ any better. What
shall I do?”

“Send for him, I should think,” said Charlie, and forthwith despatched
a messenger in quest of the doctor, whilst Blanche ran up-stairs to
mamma’s room with a beating heart and an aching presentiment, such as
often foretells too truly the worst we have to apprehend.

The curtains were drawn round Mrs. Kettering’s bed, and Blanche,
hoping it might only be one of the nervous attacks to which her mother
was subject, put them gently aside to see if she was sleeping. Even
that young, inexperienced girl was alarmed at the dark flush on the
patient’s face, and the heavy snorting respirations she seemed to draw
with such difficulty.

“O mamma, mamma!” said she, laying her head on the pillow by her
mother’s side, “what is it? I beseech you to tell me! Dear mamma, what
can we do to help you?”

Mrs. Kettering turned her eyes upon her daughter, but the pupils were
distorted as though from some pressure on the brain, and she strove to
articulate in vain. Blanche, in an agony of fear, rushed to the
bell-rope, and brought Gingham and Charlie running up hardly less
alarmed than herself. What could the lad do in a case like this? With
the impetuosity of his character, he took his hat and hastened to Dr.
Globus’s house with such speed as to overtake the messenger he had
previously despatched; Gingham was sent down to hunt up a prescription
of that skilful physician, which had once before been beneficial; and
Blanche sat her down in her mother’s room, to watch, and tremble, and
pray for the beloved form, stretched senseless within those white
curtains.

She could scarce believe it. In that very room, not six hours ago, she
had pinned her mother’s shawl, and smoothed her own ringlets. Yet it
seemed as if this had occurred to some one else--not to herself. With
the unaccountable propensity great excitement ever has for trifling,
she arranged the disordered toilet-table; she even counted the
curl-papers that lay in their little triangular box; then she went
down on her knees, and prayed, as those pray who feel it is the last
resource. When she rose, a passion of weeping somewhat relieved her
feelings, but with composure came the consciousness of the awful
possibility--the separation that might be--to-night, even; and the
dim, blank future, desolate, without a mother. But the familiar noises
in the street brought her back to the present, and it seemed
impossible that this should be the same world in which till now she
had scarcely known any anxiety or affliction. Then a soothing hope
stole over her that these dreadful misgivings might be groundless;
that the doctor would come, and mamma would soon be better; and she
would nurse her, and love her more and more, and never be wilful
again; but in the midst, with a pang that almost stopped her heart,
flashed across her the recollection of her father’s death--the
suspense, the confusion, the sickening certainty, the dreary funeral,
and how, in her little black frock, she had clasped mamma’s neck, and
thought she had saved all, since she had not lost her. And now, must
this come again? And would there be no mother to clasp when it was
over? Blanche groaned aloud. But hark! the door-bell rings, there is a
steady footstep on the stair, and she feels a deep sensation of
relief, as though the doctor held the scales of life and death in his
hands.

Gingham, in the meantime, whose composure was not proof against
anything in the shape of serious illness or danger, had been wandering
over the house with her mistress’s keys in her hand, seeking for that
prescription which she had herself put by, not three days before, but
of which she had totally forgotten the hiding-place. Music,
work-boxes, blotting-books were turned over and tumbled about in vain,
till at length she bethought her of her mistress’s writing-desk, and
on opening that “sanctum,” out fell a paper in her lady’s hand, which
ignorant Gingham herself at once perceived was meant for no such eyes
as hers. She caught a glimpse, too, of her own name between its folds,
and even in the hurry and emergency of the moment we are not prepared
to say that female curiosity could have resisted the temptation of
“just one peep,” but at that instant “Cousin Charlie” and the doctor
were heard at the door, and as Gingham thrust the mysterious document
into her bosom, the former entered the room, and rated her soundly for
prying about amongst Aunt Kettering’s papers when she ought to have
been up-stairs attending to herself.

Dr. Globus felt Mrs. Kettering’s pulse, and turned to Blanche (who was
watching his countenance as the culprit does that of the juryman who
declares his fate) with a face from which it was impossible to gather
hope or fear.

“Your mamma must be kept _very_ quiet, Miss Blanche,” said the doctor,
with whom his young friend was a prime favourite. “I must turn you all
out but Mrs. Gingham. I should like to remain here for a while to
watch the effect of some medicine I shall give her; but we cannot have
too few people in the room.” And to enhance this significant hint he
pointed to the door, at which Charlie was lingering with a white,
anxious face.

“But tell me, _dear_ doctor,” implored Blanche, in an agony of
suspense, “_pray_ tell me, is there any danger? Will _nothing_ do her
any good?”

Poor girl, did you ever know a doctor that would reply to such a
question?

“We must keep her quiet, my dear,” was all the answer she got; and
Blanche was forced to go down-stairs, much against her will, and wait
in blank dismay, with her hand clasping Cousin Charlie’s, and her eyes
turned to the clock, on which the minutes seemed to lengthen into
hours, whilst ever and anon a footstep overhead seemed to indicate
there would be some news of the patient; yet no door opened, no step
was heard upon the stairs. Not a word did the cousins exchange, though
the boy moved at intervals restlessly in his chair. The calm,
beautiful evening deepened into the purple haze of night over the
Channel, the lamps began to twinkle in the street, and still the
cousins sat and waited, and still nobody came.

When the door was shut, and Globus was left alone with his patient, a
solemn, sagacious expression stole over the worthy doctor’s face. He
had long been the personal friend of Mrs. Kettering, as well as “her
own medical man”; and although he would probably have felt it more had
he not been called in professionally, yet it was with a heavy heart
and a desponding brow that he confessed to himself there was little or
no hope. He had put in practice all that skill and experience
suggested--he had sent for a brother physician of high local repute,
and now there was nothing more to be done save to wait for the result;
so the kind-hearted man sat himself down in the chair Blanche had so
lately occupied, and pondered over the many changing years, now like a
dream, during which he had known that life which in yonder bed was
dribbling out its few remaining sands. He remembered her the merry,
black-eyed girl (once he thought her eyes brighter than those of Mrs.
Globus); he saw her again the sparkling bride, the good-humoured
matron, the doting mother, the not inconsolable widow. It was only
yesterday he bowed to her on the parade, and thought how young she
looked with her grown-up daughter; he was to have dined with them
to-morrow; and the uncertainty of life looked him startlingly in the
face. But the pride of science soon came to the rescue, and the
practised healer forgot his private feelings in his professional
reflections. And thus Dr. Globus passed his holiday--one afternoon of
the precious fourteen, in which he had promised himself the fresh
breezes and the out-of-doors liberty of St. Swithin’s. Mrs. Globus and
the children were picking up shells on the beach; his brother, whom he
had not seen for ten years, was coming to dinner; but the doctor’s
time is the property of the suffering and the doomed, and still Globus
sat and watched and calculated, and saw clearly that Mrs. Kettering
must die.

The hours stole on, candles were brought into the drawing-room, and
the cousins tried in vain with parched lips and choking throats to
have some tea. A ring at the door-bell heralded the arrival of the
other doctor, a stout man in a brown greatcoat, smelling of the
night-dew. Blanche ran out to meet him--it was a relief to do
something--and beckoned him silently up-stairs. She even stole into
the sick-room, and caught a glimpse of her mother’s figure, recumbent
and covered up; but the curtains were half closed, and she could not
see the dear face. Globus kindly drew her away, and shut her out, but
not before the frightened girl had glanced at a dark-stained
handkerchief on the floor, and sickened with the conviction that it
was clotted with blood. Outside, the little housemaid was sitting on
the stairs, crying as if her heart would break. Poor Blanche sat down
by her in the darkness, and mingled her tears with those of the
affectionate servant. She began to get hopeless now. After a while she
went down again to Cousin Charlie, and was surprised to find it so
late; the clock pointed to five minutes past ten; and with trembling
hands she closed the windows, listening for an instant to the dash of
the waves outside, with a strange, wild feeling that they never
sounded so before. Then she covered up “Bully,” who had been whistling
ever since the lights were brought; but she had not the heart to
exchange a syllable with Cousin Charlie; and that poor lad, affecting
a composure that his face belied, was pretending to spell over the
evening paper, of which he was vacantly staring at the advertisement
sheet. Again there is a movement above, and the two doctors adjourn to
another room to discuss the patient’s case. Great is the deference
paid by the local Esculapius to the famous London physician. What Dr.
Globus recommended--what Dr. Globus said--what Dr. Globus
thought--were quoted by the former ever afterwards; yet could one have
witnessed the consultation of these two scientific men, it might have
been instructive to observe how professional etiquette never once gave
way to the urgency of the moment--how the science of curing, like that
of killing, has its forms, its subordination, its ranks, its
dignities, and its “customs of war in like cases.” Gingham was left
with the patient, and the weeping housemaid stood ready to assist, the
latter showing an abundance of nerve and decision, when called upon to
act, which her behaviour on the staircase would scarcely have
promised. Even Gingham was less flustered than usual, now there was
really something to be frightened at. Woman is never seen to such
advantage as when tending the sick; the eye that quails to see a
finger pricked, the hand that trembles if there is but a mouse in the
room, will gaze unflinchingly on the lancet or the cupping-glass, will
apply the leeches without a shudder, or pour the soothing medicament,
drop by drop, into the measured wine-glass, with the steadiness and
accuracy of a chemical professor. Where man with all his boasted nerve
turns sick and pale, and shows himself worse than useless, woman
vindicates the courage of her sex, that unselfish heroism, that
passive devotion, which is ever ready to bear and be still. They seem
to have a positive pleasure in alleviating the pangs of the sufferer,
and taking care of the helpless. Look at a bustling matron, blessed
with a large family of children, and whatever may be the opinion of
the “paterfamilias,” however much he may grunt and grumble (so like a
_man_!) at having the quiver as full as it will hold, she, in her
heart of hearts, welcomes every fresh arrival with the hospitable
sentiment of “the more the merrier”; and much as she loves them all,
lavishes her warmest affections on the last little uninteresting
morsel of underdone humanity, which, on its first appearance, is the
most helpless, as it is the least attractive, of Nature’s germinating
efforts; unless, indeed, she should own a dwarf, a cripple, or an
idiot amongst her thriving progeny--then will that poor creature be
the mother’s chiefest treasure, then will woman’s love and woman’s
tenderness hover with beautiful instinct round the head which Nature
itself seems to have scouted, and the mother will press to her heart
of hearts the wretched being that all else are prone to ridicule and
despise. So in the sick-room, when “pain and anguish wring the brow,”
woman wipes the foaming lip and props the sinking head. Woman’s care
speeds the long doubtful recovery, and woman’s prayers soothe the
dying hour, when hope has spread her wings and fled away. In works
like these she vindicates her angel-nature, in scenes like these she
perfects that humble piety of which it appears to us she has a greater
share than the stronger sex. The proud Moslem boasts there will be no
women in his material paradise; let us look to ourselves, that the
exclusion for us be not all the other way.

Blanche sits vacantly in the drawing-room, and thinks the doctors’
consultation is to be endless, and that it is cruel to keep her so
long from her mamma. Charlie puts down the paper, and drawing kindly
towards his cousin, finds courage to whisper some few words of
consolation, which neither of them feel to be of the slightest avail.
He has been thinking that Uncle Baldwin ought to be sent for, but he
dares not excite more alarm in his companion’s mind by such a
suggestion, and he meditates a note to his friend Hardingstone to
manage it for him. Uncle Baldwin, better known in the world as
Major-General Bounce, is Mrs. Kettering’s brother, and lives in the
midland counties--“he should be sent for immediately,” thinks Charlie,
“if he is to see my aunt alive.” Blanche is getting very restless, and
thinks she might soon go up-stairs and see----Hush! the bedroom door
opens--a rapid footstep is heard on the stairs--it is Gingham running
down for the doctors--Blanche rushes to the door and intercepts her on
the landing-place--the woman’s face is ashy pale, and her eyes stand
strangely out in the dubious light--her voice comes thick and husky.
The young girl is quite composed for the instant, and every syllable
thrusts straight to her heart as the maid stammers out, “O Miss
Blanche! Miss Blanche! your mamma----”

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun rose, and the waters of the Channel glittered in the morning
light, but the shutters were closed at No. 9--and honest Hairblower
drew his rough hand across his eyes, as he sought to get some news of
“poor Miss Blanche.” He met Hardingstone coming from the house,
whither the “man of action” had repaired on the first intelligence of
their calamity, and had made himself as useful as he could to the
afflicted family. “Do she take on, poor dear?” said Hairblower,
scarcely restraining the drops that coursed down his weather-beaten
cheeks. “Such a young thing as that, Mr. Hardingstone, to go loose
without a mother--and the poor lady, too, gone down like in a calm.
They will not be leaving, sir, just yet, will ’em? I couldn’t bear to
think of Miss Blanche cruising about among strangers, till she begins
to hold up a bit--she should come out and get the sea-air, as soon as
she is able for it, and I’ll have the boat covered in and ready day
and night----O Mr. Hardingstone, what _can_ I do, sir, for the poor
young lady in her distress?” Frank shook the honest fellow’s hand, and
could scarcely command his own feelings enough to reply. He had done
everything that was necessary in the house of death, had sent off an
express for the General, sealed up Mrs. Kettering’s jewel-boxes,
writing-cases, etc., and performed all those offices of which the two
children, for so we might almost call them, were incapable, and which,
even in the presence of the Destroyer, are still hard, cold matters of
business, and _must_ be attended to, like the ordering dinner, and the
arrangement for the funeral, though the survivors’ hearts may ache,
and their wounds burst out afresh, till they too wish their bodies
were laid at rest beneath the sod, and their spirits were away, free
and unmourning, with the loved one in those realms with which, sooner
or later, we are all to be acquainted.

On the child’s misery it would not become us to dwell. There are
feelings over which a veil is drawn too sacred to be disturbed by
mortal hand. Well might Margaret Douglas exclaim, in the old ballad--

    “True lovers I may have many a one,
    But a father once slain, I shall never see mair.”

And when a young, affectionate girl is wailing for a parent, the voice
of sorrow cannot be hushed, nor the tears dried, till grief has had
its course, and time has cured the wounds now so excruciating, which
ere long shall be healed over and forgotten. “Cousin Charlie,”
boy-like, was more easily consoled; and although at intervals his kind
aunt’s voice would seem to sound in his ears, and the sight of her
work, her writing, or any other familiar object associated with
herself would bring on a fresh accession of grief, yet in the society
of Frank Hardingstone, and the anticipation of Uncle Baldwin’s
arrival, he found objects to divert his thoughts, and direct them to
that brilliant inheritance of the young, the golden future, which
never _shall_ arrive. He was, besides, a lad of a sanguine,
imaginative disposition, and these are the spirits over which sorrow
has least power. The more elastic the spring, the more easily it
regains its position; and a sensitive organisation, after the first
recoil, will rise uninjured from a shock that prostrates more material
souls to the very dust.

Over the rest of the household came the reaction that invariably
follows the first sensations of awe inspired by sudden death. There
was an excitement not altogether unpleasing in the total derangement
of plans, the uncertainty as to the future created amongst the
domestics by the departure of their mistress. The butler knew he
should have to account for his plate, and was busied with his spoons
and his inventory; the footman speculated on the next place he should
get, with “a family that spent nine months of the year in London”; the
very “boy in buttons” thought more of his promotion than of the kind
mistress who had housed, clothed, and fed him when a parish orphan.
Gingham herself, that tender damsel, was occupied and excited about
Miss Blanche’s mourning, and her own “breadths” of black and “depths”
of crape usurped the place of unavailing regrets in a mind not
calculated to contain many ideas at a time. Besides, the pleasure of
“shopping,” inexplicable as it may appear to man’s perverted taste, is
one which ravishes the female mind with an intense delight; and what
with tradesmen’s condolences, the interminable fund of gossip created
thereby, the comparing of patterns, the injunctions on all sides “not
to give way,” and the visits to linen-drapers’ shops, we cannot but
confess that Gingham’s spirits were surprisingly buoyant, considering
the circumstance under which she swept those costly wares from their
tempting counters. Tom Blacke, too, lost no time in assuring her of
his sympathy.

“O, Miss Gingham,” said wily Tom, as he insisted on carrying a huge
brown-paper parcel home for her, and led the way by a circuitous route
along the beach, “O, Miss Gingham, what a shock for your affectionate
natur’ and kindly ’eart! Yet sorrow becomes some people,” added Tom,
reflectively, and glancing his dark eyes into Gingham’s muddy-looking
face, as he offered her an arm.

“Go along with you, Mr. Blacke,” replied the sorrowing damsel,
forgetful of her despondency for the moment, which emboldened him to
proceed.

“You ought to have a home, Miss Gingham--you ought to have some one
to attach yourself to--you that attaches everybody” (he ventured a
squeeze, and the maiden did not withdraw the brown thread glove which
rested on his arm; so Tom mixed it a little stronger)--“a ’onest man
to depend on, and a family and such like.”

Tom flourished his arm along a line of imaginary olive branches, and
Gingham represented that “she couldn’t think of such a thing.”

“Service isn’t for the likes of you, miss,” proceeded the tempter;
“hindependence is fittest for beauty” (Tom peeped under the bonnet,
and “found it,” as he expressed himself, “all serene”); “a cottage and
content, and a ’eart that is ’umble may ’ope for it ’ere;” with which
concluding words Mr. Blacke, who was an admirer of poetry, and
believed with Moore _that_ would be given to song “which gold could
never buy,” imprinted a vigorous kiss on those not very tempting lips,
and felt that the day was his own.

Ladies of mature charms are less easily taken aback by such advances
than their inexperienced juniors. The position, even if new in
practice, is by no means so in theory, and having often anticipated
the attack, they are the more prepared to receive it when it arrives.
Ere our lovers reached No. 9 he had called her by her Christian name,
and “Rachel” had promised to think of it. As she closed the
“area-gate” Gingham had given her heart away to a scamp. True, she was
oldish, uglyish, wore brown thread gloves, and had a yellow skin; yet
for all this she had a woman’s heart, and, like a very woman, gave it
away to Tom Blacke without a return.

In good time General Bounce arrived, and took the command from Frank
Hardingstone, with many gracious acknowledgments of his kindness. The
General was a man of far too great importance to be introduced at the
conclusion of a chapter. It is sufficient to say, that with military
promptitude and decision (which generally means a disagreeable and
abrupt method of doing a simple thing) he set the household in order,
arranged the sad ceremony, over which he presided with proper gravity,
packed Cousin Charlie off to his private tutor’s, paid the servants
their wages, and settled the departure of himself and niece for his
own residence.

Do we think ourselves of account in this our world?--do we think we
shall be so missed and so regretted? Drop a stone into a pool, there
is a momentary splash, a bubble on the surface, and circle after
circle spreads, and widens and weakens, till all is still and smooth
as though the water had never been disturbed; so it is with death.
There is a funeral and crape and weeping, and “callings to inquire,”
then the intelligence gets abroad amongst mere acquaintances and utter
strangers, a line in the _Times_ proclaims our decease to the world.
Ere it has reached the colonies we are well-nigh forgotten at home.

Mrs. Kettering was at rest in her grave; the General was full of his
arrangements and his responsibilities; Charlie was back amongst his
mathematics and his cricket and his Greek and Latin; the servants were
looking out for fresh places; and the life that had disappeared from
the surface was forgotten by all. By all save one; for still Blanche
was gazing on the waters and mourning for her mother.




CHAPTER V

UNCLE BALDWIN

     NEWTON-HOLLOWS AND ITS GROUNDS--BACHELORS’ BILLETS--THE HEIRESS
     AND HER COMPANION--GENERAL BOUNCE--A GENTLEMAN FARMER--THE
     LADIES’ CLUB--A WOMAN’S IDEAL


In an unpretending corner of the “Guyville Guide and Midland Counties’
Directory” a few lines are devoted to inform the tourist that
“Newton-Hollows, post-town Guyville, in the Hundred of Cow-capers, is
the seat of Major-General Bounce, etc., etc., etc. The lover of the
picturesque obtains, from the neighbourhood of this mansion, a
magnificent view, comprising no less than seventeen churches, a vast
expanse of wood and meadow-land, the distant spires of Bubbleton, and
the imposing outline of the famous Castle Guy.” Doubtless all these
beauties might have been conspicuous had the adventurous tourist
chosen to climb one of the lofty elms with which the house was
surrounded; but from the altitude of his own stature he was obliged to
content himself with a far less extensive landscape, seeing that the
country was closely wooded, and as flat as his hand. But
Newton-Hollows was one of those sweet little places, self-contained
and compact, that require no distant views, no shaggy scenery, no
“rough heath and rugged wood,” to enhance their charm. Magnificent old
timber, “the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree,” to say nothing
of elms and chestnuts, dotted the meadows and pastures in which the
mansion was snugly ensconced. People driving up, or rather along, the
level approach, were at a loss to make out where the farms ended and
the park began. Well-kept lawns, that looked as if they were fresh
mown every morning, swept up to the drawing-room windows, opening to
the ground; not a leaf was strewn on sward or gravel; not a weed, nor
even a daisy, permitted to show its modest head above the surface; and
as for a rake, roller, or a gardener’s hat being left in a place where
such instruments have no business, why, the General would have
made the unfortunate delinquent eat it--rake, roller, or
“wide-a-awake”--and discharged him besides on the spot. No wonder the
flower-garden adjoining the conservatory, which again opened into the
drawing-room, looked so trim and well-kept: “Master’s” hobby was a
garden, and, though utterly ignorant of the names, natures, and
treatment of plants, he liked to see every variety in his possession,
and spared no expense on their cultivation; and so a head gardener and
five subalterns carried off all the prizes at the Bubbleton and
Guyville horticulturals; and the General complained that he could
never get a nosegay for his table, nor a bit of fruit for his dessert
fit to eat. Yet were there worse “billets” in this working world than
Newton-Hollows. The Bubbleton “swells” and county dignitaries found it
often “suit their hunting arrangements” to go, over-night, and dine
with “old Bounce.” He would always “put up a hack for you,” than which
no effort of hospitality makes a man more deservedly popular in a
hunting country; and his dinners, his Indian dishes, his hot pickles,
his dry champagne, his wonderful claret (“not a headache in a
hogshead, sir,” the General would say, with a frown of defiance), were
all in keeping with the snug, comfortable appearance of his dwelling,
and the luxurious style which men who have served long in the army,
and often been obliged to “rough it,” know so well how to enjoy. Then
there was no pretension about the thing whatever. The house, though it
ranged over a considerable extent of ground, particularly towards the
offices, was only two storeys high--“a mere cottage,” its owner called
it; but a cottage in which the apartments were all roomy and
well-proportioned, in which enough “married couples could be put up”
to furnish a very good-sized dinner-table, and the bachelors (we like
to put in a word for our fellow-sufferers) were as comfortably
accommodated as their more fortunate associates, who travelled with
wives, imperials, cap-boxes, and ladies’-maids.

It is a bad plan to accustom unmarried gentlemen to think they can do
without their comforts; it makes them hardy and independent, and
altogether averse to the coddling and care and confinement with which
they expect to find matrimony abound. As we go through the world, in
our desolate celibacy, we see the net spread in sight of many a bird,
and we generally remark, that the meshes which most surely entangle
the game are those of self-indulgence and self-applause. You _must_
gild the wires, and pop a lump of sugar between them too, if you would
have the captive flutter willingly into the cage. When young Coelebs
comes home from hunting or shooting, and has to divest himself of his
clammy leathers or dirt-encumbered gaiters in a room without a fire
and with a cracked pane in the window, he takes no pleasure in his
adornment, but hurries over his toilet, or perhaps begins to smoke.
This should be avoided: we have known a quiet cigar do away with the
whole effect of a bran-new pink bonnet. But if, on the contrary, he
finds a warm, luxurious room, plenty of hot water, wax candles on the
dressing-table, and a becoming looking-glass, the quarry lingers over
the tie of its neckcloth with a pleasing conviction that that is not
half a bad-looking fellow grinning opposite, and moreover that there
is a “deuced _lovable_ girl” down-stairs, who seems to be of the same
opinion. So the thing works: vows are exchanged, _trousseaux_ got
ready, settlements drawn out, the lawyers thrive, and fools are
multiplied. Had Newton-Hollows belonged to a designing matron, instead
of an unmarried general officer, it might have become a perfect mart
for the exchanges of beauty and valour. Hunting men are pretty usually
a marrying race; whether it be from daily habits of recklessness, a
bold disregard of the adage which advises “to look before you leap,”
or a general thick-headedness and want of circumspection, the
red-coated Nimrod falls an easy prey to any fair enslaver who may
think him worth the trouble of subjection; and for one alliance that
has been negotiated in the stifling atmosphere of a London ball-room,
twenty owe their existence to the fresh breezes, the haphazard
events, and surrounding excitement of the hunting-field.

General Bounce’s guests, as was natural in the country where he
resided, were mostly men like mad Tom,

          “Whose chiefest care
    Was horse to ride and weapon wear;”

nor, like him, would they have objected to place gloves in their caps
or carry any other favours which might demonstrate their own powers of
fascination, and their rank in the good graces of the heiress. Yes,
there was an heiress now at Newton-Hollows. Popular as had always been
the General’s hospitality, he was now besieged with hints, and
advances, and innuendoes, having for their object an invitation to his
house. What a choice of scamps might he have had, all ready and
willing to marry his niece--all anxious, if possible, to obtain even a
peep “of that little Miss Kettering, not yet out of the school-room,
who is to have ever so many hundred thousand pounds, and over whom old
Bounce keeps watch and ward like a fiery dragon.”

But the passing years have little altered Blanche’s sweet and simple
character, though they have rounded her figure and added to her
beauty. She is to “come out” next spring, and already the world is
talking of her charms and her expectations. A pretty picture is so
much prettier in a gilt frame, and she will probably begin life with
the ball at her foot; yet is there the same soft, artless expression
in her countenance that it wore at St. Swithin’s ere her mother’s
death--the same _essence_ of beauty, independent of colouring and
features, which may be traced in really charming people from the
cradle to the grave, which made Blanche a willing child, is now
enhancing the loveliness of her womanhood, and will probably leave her
a very pleasant-looking old lady.

“And Charlie comes home to-morrow,” says Blanche, tripping along the
gravel walk that winds through those well-kept shrubberies. “I wonder
if he’s at all the sort of person you fancy, and whether you will
think him as perfect as I do?”

“Probably not, my dear,” replied her companion, whose stately gait
contrasted amusingly with Blanche’s light and playful gestures.
“People seldom come up to one’s ideas of them; and I am sure it is not
your fault if I do not expect to meet a perfect hero of romance in
your cousin.” We ought to know those low thrilling tones; we ought to
recognise the majestic figure--the dark sweeping dress--the braided
hair and classical features of that pale, serious face. Mary Delaval
is still the handsome governess; and Blanche would rather part with
her beauty or her bullfinch, or any of her most prized earthly
possessions, than that dear duenna, who, having finished her
education, is now residing with her in the dubious capacity of part
chaperon, part teacher, and part friend.

“Well, dear, he _is_ a hero,” replied Blanche, who always warmed on
_that_ subject. “Let me see which of my heroes he’s most like: Prince
Rupert--only he’s younger and better-looking” (Blanche, though a
staunch little cavalier, could not help associating mature age and
gravity with the flowing wigs in which most of her favourites of that
period were depicted); “Claverhouse, only not so cruel,--he _is_ like
Claverhouse in the face, I think, Mrs. Delaval; or ‘bonnie Prince
Charlie’; or Ivanhoe,--yes, Ivanhoe, that’s the one; he’s as brave and
as gentle; and Mr. Hardingstone, whose life he saved, you know, says
he rides most beautifully, and will make a capital officer.”

“And which of the heroes is Mr. Hardingstone, Blanche?” said her
friend, in her usual measured tones. Blanche blushed.

“Oh, I can’t understand Mr. Hardingstone,” said she; “I think he’s
odd-_ish_, and quite unlike other people; then he looks through one
so. Mrs. Delaval, I think it’s quite rude to stare at people as if you
thought they were not telling the truth. But he’s good-looking, too,”
added the young lady, reflectively; “only not to be compared with
Charlie.”

“Of course not,” rejoined her friend; “but it is fortunate that
we are to enjoy the society of this Paladin till he joins his
regiment--Lancers, are they not? Well, we must hope, Blanche, to use
the language of your favourites of the middle ages, that he may prove
a lamb among ladies, as he is doubtless a lion among lancers.”

“Dear Charlie! how he will enjoy his winter. He is so fond of hunting;
and he is to have Hyacinth, and Haphazard, and Mayfly to ride for his
own--so kind of Uncle Baldwin; but I must be off to put some flowers
in his room,” quoth Blanche, skipping along the walk as young ladies
will, when unobserved by masculine eyes; “he may arrive at any moment,
he’s such an uncertain boy.”

“Zounds! you’ve broke it, you fiddle-headed brute!” exclaimed a
choleric voice from the further side of a thick laurel hedge,
startling the ladies most unceremoniously, and preparing them for the
spectacle of a sturdy black cob trotting rebelliously down the farm
road, with a fragment of his bridle dangling from his head, the
remaining portion being firmly secured to a gate-post, at which the
self-willed animal had been tied up in vain. Another instant brought
the owner of the voice and late master of the cob into the presence of
Mrs. Delaval and his niece. It was no less a person than General
Bounce.

“Uncle Baldwin, Uncle Baldwin,” exclaimed Blanche, who turned him
round her finger as she did the rest of the establishment, “where have
you been all day? You promised to drive me out--you know you did, you
wicked, hard-hearted man.”

“Been, my dear?” replied the General, in a tone of softness
contrasting strangely with the flushed and vehement bearing of his
outward man; “at that--(no, I will _not_ swear)--at that doubly
accursed farm. Would you believe the infernal stupidity of the
people--(excuse me, Mrs. Delaval)--men with heads on their shoulders,
and hair, and front teeth like other people--and they’ve sent the
black bull to Bubbleton without winkers--without winkers, as I live by
bread; but I won’t be answerable for the consequences,--no, I won’t
make good any damages originating in such carelessness; no, not if
there’s law in England or justice under heaven! But, my sweet
Blanche,” added the General, in a tone of amiable piano, the more
remarkable for the forte of his previous observations, “I’ll go and
get ready this instant, my darling; you shan’t be disappointed; I’ll
order the pony-carriage forthwith. Holloa! you, sir; only let me catch
you--only let me catch you, that’s all; I’ll trounce you as sure as my
name’s Bounce!” and the General, without waiting for any further
explanation, darted off in pursuit of an idle village boy, whom he
espied in the very act, _flagrante delicto_, of trespassing on a
pathway which the lord of the manor had been several years vainly
endeavouring to shut up.

General Bounce was such a medley as can only be produced by the action
of a tropical sun on a vigorous, sanguine Anglo-Saxon temperament.
Specimens are becoming scarcer every day. They are seldom to be met
with in our conventional and well-behaved country, though here and
there, flitting about a certain club celebrated for its curries, they
may be discovered even in the heart of the metropolis. On board
transports, men-of-war, mail-steamers, and such-like government
conveyances, they are more at home; in former days they were
occasionally visible inside our long coaches, where they invariably
made a difficulty about the window; but in the colonies they are to be
seen in their highest state of cultivation; as a general rule, the
hotter the climate, the more perfect the specimen.

Our friend the General was a very phoenix of his kind. In person he
was short, stout, square, and active, with black twinkling eyes and a
round, clean-shaved face--small-featured and good-humoured-looking,
but choleric withal. His naturally florid complexion had been baked
into a deep red-brown by his Indian campaigns. If Pythagoras was right
in his doctrine concerning the transmigration of souls, the General’s
must have previously inhabited the person of a sturdy, snappish
black-and-tan terrier. In manner he was alternately marvellously
winning and startlingly abrupt, the transition being instantaneous;
whilst in character he was decided, energetic, and impracticable,
though both rash and obstinate, with an irritable temper and an
affectionate heart. He had seen service in India, and by his own
account had not only experienced sundry hair-breadth ’scapes bordering
on the romantic, but likewise witnessed such strange sights and
vagaries as fall to the lot of few, save those whose bodily vision is
assisted by that imaginative faculty denominated “the mind’s eye.”

The General was a great disciplinarian, and piqued himself much upon
the order in which he kept the females of his establishment, Blanche
especially, whose lightest word, by the way, was his law. Indeed, like
many old bachelors, he entertained a reverence almost superstitious
for the opposite sex, and a few tears shed at the right moment would
always bear the delinquent harmless, whatever the misdemeanour for
which she was taken to task. The men, indeed, found him more
troublesome to deal with, and the newly-arrived were somewhat alarmed
at his violent language and impetuous demeanour; but the older
servants always “took the bull by the horns” fearlessly and at once,
nor in the end did they ever fail to get their own way with a master
who, to use their peculiar language, “was easily upset, though he soon
came round again.” What made the General an infinitely less
disagreeable man in society than he otherwise would have been, was the
fact of his having a farm, which farm served him as a safety-valve to
carry off all the irritation that could not but accumulate in an easy,
uneventful life, destitute of real grievances as of the stirring,
active scenes to which he had been accustomed in his earlier days. If
a gentleman finds it indispensable to his health that he should be
continually in hot water--that he should always have something to
grumble at, something to disappoint him, let him take to farming--his
own land or another’s, it is immaterial which; but let him “occupy,”
as it is called, a certain number of acres--and we will warrant him as
much “worry” and “annoyance” as the most “tonic”-craving disposition
can desire. Let us accompany our retired warrior to his farm-yard,
whither, after an ineffectual chase, he at length followed his black
pony, forgetful of Blanche and the drive, on which, in the now
shortening daylight, it was already too late to embark.

In the first place, the bull was come back--he had been to Bubbleton
_minus_ his winkers, but no one in that salubrious town caring to
purchase a bull, he had returned to his indigenous pastures and his
disgusted owner--therefore must the bailiff hazard an excuse and a
consolation, in which the words “poor,” and “stock,” and the “fair on
the fifteenth,” are but oil to the flame.

“Fair! he’ll be as thin as a whipping-post in a week--if anybody bids
five shillings for him at the fair, I’ll eat him, horns and all! What
weight are those sheep?” adds the General, abruptly turning to another
subject, and somewhat confusing his deliberate overseer by the
suddenness of the inquiry. “Now those turnips are not fit for sheep! I
tell you they ought to be three times the size. Zounds, man, _will_
you grow larger turnips? And have I not countermanded those infernal
iron hurdles a hundred times? a thousand times!! a hundred thousand
times!!! Give _me_ the pail, you lop-eared buffoon--do you call _that_
the way to feed a pig?” and the General, seizing the bucket from an
astonished chaw-bacon, who stood aghast, as if he thought his master
was mad, managed to spill the greater part of the contents over his
own person and gaiters, rendering a return home absolutely
indispensable. He stumped off accordingly, giving a parting direction
to some of his myrmidons to catch the black cob, in as mild a tone and
with as good-humoured a countenance as if he had been in this heavenly
frame of mind the whole afternoon.

Now the General, when he first began to live alone, and to miss the
constant interchange of ideas which a military life encourages, had
acquired a habit of discoursing to himself on such subjects as were
most interesting to him at the time; so as he toddled merrily along,
much relieved by the bucolic blow-up, and admired his sturdy legs and
swung his short arms, all the way up the long gravel-walk towards the
house, his thoughts framed themselves into a string of disjointed
sentences, now muttered scarcely above a whisper, now spoken boldly
out in an audible tone, which would have led a stranger to suppose he
was carrying on a conversation with some one on the other side of the
screening Portugal laurels. “Thick-headed fellows, these
bumpkins,” soliloquised the General, “not like my old friends at
Fool-a-pore--could make them skip about to some purpose: there’s
nothing like a big stick for a nigger--never mind. I’m young enough to
begin again--man of iron--what an arm! what a leg! might have married
a dozen peeresses, and beauties by hundreds--didn’t though. Now,
there’s Blanche; I shall have fifty fellows all after her before
Christmas--sharp dogs if they think they can weather old
Bounce--Rummagee Bang couldn’t. By the by, I haven’t told Mrs. Delaval
that story yet--clever woman, and good judgment--admires my character,
I’ll bet a million--an officer’s daughter, too, and what a magnificent
figure she has--Bounce, you’re an old fool! As for Charlie, he shall
stay here all the winter; there’s mettle in that lad, and if I can’t
lick him into shape I’m a Dutchman. He’ll show ’em the way with the
hounds, and I’ll put him up to a thing or two, the young scamp.
Snaffles! Snaffles!!” roared the General, as he concluded his
monologue, and passed the stables on his way to the house, “don’t take
any of the horses out to-morrow till you get your orders. Do you
_hear_ me? man alive!” And by this time, having reached home, he
stumped off to dress for dinner, keeping up a running fire along the
passages, as he discovered here a hearth-broom, and there a
coal-scuttle, ready for him to break his shins over, and observed the
usual plate and tea-cup standing sentry at each of the ladies’ doors.

We may be sure that not the least comfortable of the rooms at
Newton-Hollows was especially appropriated as Blanche’s own, and that
young lady was now sitting opposite a glass that reflected a smiling
face, enduring with patience and resignation the ceremony of having
“her hair done.” A French maid, named “Rosine,” a very pretty
substitute for bilious-looking Gingham, was working away at the
ivory-handled brushes, and occasionally letting fall a thick glossy
ringlet athwart the snow-white cape in which the process of adornment
was submitted to, whilst Mary Delaval, buried in an arm-chair drawn
close to the blazing fire, and enveloped in a dressing-gown, with an
open book in her hand, was quietly listening to Blanche’s remarks on
things in general, and her own self and prospects in particular.

That hour before dinner is the period chosen by women for their most
confidential intercourse, and the enjoyment of what they call “a cozy
chat.” When Damon, in the small hours, smokes a cigar with Pythias,
more especially if such an indulgence be treason against the rules of
the house, he opens his heart to his fellow-trespasser, in a manner of
which, next morning, he has but a faint recollection. He confides to
him his differences with “the governor,” his financial embarrassments,
the unsoundness of his horses and his heart, the latter possession
much damaged by certain blue eyes in the neighbourhood; he details to
him the general scandal with which he is conversant, and binding him
by promises of eternal secrecy, proceeds deliberately to demolish the
fair fame of maid and matron who enjoy the advantage of his
acquaintance; finally, he throws his cigar-end beneath the grate and
betakes him “to perch,” as he calls it, with an infatuated persuasion
that the confidences which he has broken, will be respected by his
listener, and that his debts, his difficulties, his peccadilloes, and
the lameness of his bay mare, will not form the subject of
conversation to-morrow night, when he, Damon, has gone back to London,
and Pythias takes out his case to smoke a cigar with Dionysius. But
the ladies by this time are fast asleep, dreaming, bless them, as it
shall please Queen Mab--they must not wither their roses by sitting up
too late, and though tolerant of smoking sometimes, they do not
practise that abomination themselves, so tea-time is _their_ hour of
gossip, and heartily they enjoy the refreshment, both of mind and
body, ere they come down demure and charming, in low evening dresses,
with little or no appetite for dinner.

“Never mind Rosine,” said Blanche, as that attendant concluded an
elaborate plait by the insertion of an enormous hair-pin; “she can’t
speak a word of English. I agree with you that it is very charming to
be an heiress, and I shall enjoy ‘coming out,’ and doing what I like;
but I wish, too, sometimes, that I were a man; I feel so restrained,
so useless, so incapable of doing any good. Mrs. Delaval, I think
women are shamefully kept back; why shouldn’t we have professions and
employments? not that I should like to be a soldier or a sailor,
because I am not brave, but I do feel as if I was fit for something
greater than tying up flowers or puzzling through worsted work.”

“There was a time when I, too, thought the same,” replied Mary, “but
depend upon it, my dear, that you may do an infinity of good in the
station which is assigned you. I used to fancy it would be so noble to
be a man, and to do something grand, and heroic, and disinterested;
but look at half the men we see, Blanche, and tell me if you would
like to change places with one of them. Caring only for their dress,
their horses, and their dinners, they will tell you themselves, and
think they are philosophers for saying so, ‘that they are easy,
good-tempered fellows, and if they can only get enough to eat, and
lots of good hunting and good claret, they are perfectly satisfied.’
Indeed, my dear, I think we have the best of it; we are more resigned,
more patient, more contented; we have more to bear, and we bear it
better--more to detach us from this world, and to wean us from being
entirely devoted to ourselves. No, I had rather be a woman, with all
her imperfections, than one of those lords of the creation, such as we
generally find them.”

“But still there are great men, Mrs. Delaval, even in these days. Do
you think they are all selfish and egotistical, and care only for
indulgences?”

“Heaven forbid, my dear; I only argue from the generality. My idea of
man,” said Mary, kindling as she went on in her description, “is that
he should be brave, generous, and unselfish; stored with learning,
which he uses not for display, but for a purpose; careless of vanity
and frivolous distinction; reliant on himself and his own high
motives; deep and penetrating in his mental powers, with a lofty view
of the objects of existence, and the purposes for which we are here.
What does it signify whether such a one is good-looking in person or
taking in manner? But as I am describing a hero, I will say his frame
should be robust and his habits simple, to harmonise with the vigour
of his intellect and the singleness of his character.”

“You have described Mr. Hardingstone exactly,” exclaimed Blanche, with
rising colour, and a feeling not quite of pleasure at her heart. Yet
what signified it to her that Mary Delaval’s Quixotic idea of a
pattern man should typify so precisely her old friend Frank? Mary had
never seen him; and even if she had, what was that to Blanche? Yet
somehow she had taught herself from childhood to consider him her own
property; probably because he was such a friend of Charlie; and she
was a thorough woman--though she fancied she ought to have been born a
hero--and consequently very jealous of her rights, real or imaginary.
Silly Blanche! there was a sort of excitement, too, in talking about
him, so she went on--“He is all that you have said, and people call
him very good-looking besides, though I don’t think him so;” and
Blanche coloured as she spoke, and told Rosine not to pull her hair so
hard.

“Well, my dear,” said Mary, “then I should like to know him. But never
mind the gentlemen, Blanche; there will be half-a-dozen here to dinner
to-day. To return to yourself--you have a bright career before you,
but never think it is traced out only for your own enjoyment. As a
girl, you may in your position be an example to your equals, and a
blessing to your dependents--think what a deal of good you can do even
about a place like this; and then, should you marry, your influence
may be the means of leading your husband and family into the right
way. I have had a good deal of trouble, as you know, but I have always
tried to remember, that to bear it patiently, and to do the best I
could in my own path without repining, was to fulfil my destiny as
nobly as if I had been a dethroned queen, or a world-famous heroine.
No, my dear, this world is not a place only for dancing, and driving,
and flirting, and dressing.--Good gracious! there’s the dinner-bell!
and my hair not ‘done’ yet.” And away Mary rushed in the midst of her
lecture, to complete those arrangements which brought her out, some
ten minutes afterwards, the handsomest woman within fifty miles of
Guyville.

Notwithstanding the lofty aspirations of these ladies, their contempt
for the approbation of the other sex, and the short time they allowed
themselves for adornment, two more tasteful and perfectly-finished
toilettes have been seldom accomplished than those which at the
well-lighted dinner-table enhanced the attractions of the pretty
heiress and her handsome governess.




CHAPTER VI

THE BLIND BOY

     THE GRUB BECOMES A BUTTERFLY--FAREWELL AND HOW D’YE DO--NOT
     WHAT WAS EXPECTED--THE GENERAL’S HOBBY--BLANCHE’S
     BIRTHDAY--FAMILY ARRANGEMENTS--“GIVE YOU JOY”--A COUNTRY
     DINNER-PARTY--TURNING THE TABLES--“THE COQUETTE”


Meanwhile the eventful Friday has arrived which has promoted “Cousin
Charlie” to the rank of manhood. The _Gazette_ of that day has
announced the appointment of “Charles Kettering, Gentleman, to be
Cornet in the 20th Lancers, vice Slack, who retires,” and the young
one, who has been cultivating the down on his upper lip for months, in
anticipation of this triumph, turns up those ends, of which there is
scarcely enough to take hold, and revels in the consciousness that he
is a boy no longer, but an officer, a cavalry officer, and a
gentleman. Old Nobottle, whom the pupil has attached to himself as an
imaginative boy often does a sober old gentleman, is of the same mind,
and has confided to Mr. Hardingstone his opinion of Charlie, and the
bright deeds he expects from him. “The lad has all the makings of a
soldier, sir,” said the clergyman; “the cheerful spirits, the gallant
bearing, the love of action, and the chivalrous vanity--half
courageous, half coxcombical--which form the military character; and
if he has a chance, he will distinguish himself. _If_ he has a chance,
do I say? he’ll make himself a chance, sir; the boy is cut out for a
recruit, and he’ll learn his drill and know his men, and keep his
troop-accounts smarter than any of ’em.” Nobottle was waxing
enthusiastic, as the old recollections stole over him, and he saw, in
fancy, a certain young artillery officer, gay amongst the gayest, and
brave amongst the bravest, consulted by his seniors for his science
and professional knowledge, and thanked in general orders for “his
distinguished gallantry” in more than one decisive action. How
different from the slouching, slovenly old man, in yesterday’s white
neckcloth, who may now be seen budding his roses, poking about his
parish, and stuffing stupid young gentlemen with as much learning as
shall enable them to pass their dreaded examinations. Poor old
Nobottle, you _would_ marry for love, you _would_ sacrifice your
profession and your commission, your prospects and your all, for the
red-nosed lady, then, to do her justice, a very pretty girl, who now
occupies the top of your table. Like Antony, you were “all for love
and the world well lost,” and, after a time, you found that the
exchange was against you: what you took for gold turned out to be
dross,--that which was honey in the mouth became bitter as gall in the
digestion; in short, you discovered Mrs. N. was a failure, and that
you did not care two pins for each other. Then came poverty and
recrimination and the gnawing remorse of chances thrown away, that
could not possibly recur again. Fortunately for you, a classical
education and Church interest enabled you to take orders and get a
living, so you work on, contentedly enough, now that your sensations
are deadened and yourself half torpid; and although, when your better
feelings obtain the mastery, you cannot but acknowledge the
superiority of the present warfare in which you are engaged over that
in which you spent your gaudy youth, yet, ever and anon, that foolish
old heart still pines for the marshalling of men and the tramp of
steeds, “the plumed troop and the big wars, that make ambition
virtue.”

Hardingstone breakfasted at the rectory on the morning of Charlie’s
departure; he was to drive him to the station, and our young friend
must indubitably have been late for the train, had he not been
rescued, by a man of decision, from the prolonged farewells of the
inconsolables he left behind. Binks, the butler, was overwhelmed by
sorrow and strong beer; Tim, the tea-boy, who had never before seen a
half-sovereign, sobbed aloud; the maids, on whom Charlie’s good looks
had made an impression proportionable to the softness of each
damsel’s heart, laughed and wept by turns; whilst Mrs. Nobottle,
generally a lady of austere and inflexible disposition, weakened the
very tea which she was pouring out for breakfast with her tears, and,
finally, embraced Charlie with hysterical affection, and a nose redder
than ever. The good rector took him aside into his study, and blessed
him as a father blesses a son. “You have never given me a moment’s
uneasiness, my dear boy, since you came here,” said the old man, with
a trembling voice; “you have been a credit to me as a pupil, and a
comfort as a friend; and now, perhaps, I shall never see you again.
But you won’t forget your old pedagogue, and if ever you are in
difficulties, if ever you are in distress, remember there is a home
here to which you may always apply for advice and assistance. God be
with you, my boy, in the temptations of a barrack, as, if it should be
your lot, in the perilous excitement of a battle. Do your duty
wherever you are, and think, sometimes, of old Nobottle.”

Why was it Charlie’s cigar would _not_ light, as he was borne away on
the wheels of Frank Hardingstone’s dog-cart? The tinder was quite
wet, though there was not a drop of rain in the sky, and he turned
away his head from his companion, and bent sedulously over the
refractory tobacco. Could it be that Charlie was crying? ’Tis not
improbable. Despite his recently-acquired manhood, he had a soft,
affectionate heart, and if it now gave way, and came unbidden to his
eyes, Frank liked him all the better for it.

And as he was whirled along on the London and North-Western, how the
young soldier’s thoughts ran riot in the future. Would he have changed
places with any dignitary in the world, monarch, prince, or peer, or
even with the heretofore much-admired Frank Hardingstone? Not he. None
of these held a commission in the 20th Lancers; and were to be pitied,
if not despised, accordingly. What a lot was his! Two months’ leave at
least, and at his time of life two months is an age, to be spent in
the gaieties of Newton-Hollows, and the attenuation of Haphazard,
Hyacinth, and Mayfly, the mettle of which very excellent steeds Master
Charlie had fully resolved to prove. All the delights of Bubbleton
and the county gaieties, with the companionship of Blanche, that more
than sister, without whom, from his earliest boyhood, no enjoyment
could be half enjoyed. And then the flattering pride she would feel in
her officer-cousin (Charlie felt for his moustaches so perseveringly,
that a short-sighted fellow-traveller thought he had a sore lip), and
the request he should be in amongst the young ladies of the
neighbourhood, with a romantic conviction that love was not for him,
that “the sword was the soldier’s bride,” etc. Then the dreamer looked
forward into the vistas of the future; the parade, the bivouac, and
the charge; night-watches in a savage country--for the 20th were even
then in Kaffirland--the trumpet alarum, the pawing troop-horses, the
death-shock and the glittering blade; a certain cornet hurraing in the
van, the admiration of brother officers, and the veteran colonel’s
applause; a _Gazette_ promotion and honourable mention in dispatches;
Uncle Baldwin’s uproarious glee at home; and Blanche’s quiet smile.
Who would not be a boy again? Yet not with the stipulation we hear so
often urged, of knowing as much as we do now. That knowledge would
destroy it all. No, let us have boyhood once more, with its vigorous
credulity and its impossible romance, with that glorious ignorance
which turns everything to gold, that sanguine temperament which sheds
its rosy hues even over the bleak landscape of future old age. “Poor
lad! how green he is,” says worldly experience, with a sneer of
affected pity at those raptures it would give its very existence to
feel again. “Happy fellow; he’s a boy still!” says good-natured
philosophy with a smile, half saddened at the thoughts of the coming
clouds, which shall too surely darken that sunny horizon. But each has
been through the crucible, each recognises that sparkle of the virgin
gold which shall never again appear on the dead surface of the metal,
beaten and stamped and fabricated into a mere conventional coin. The
train whizzes on, the early evening sets in, tired post-horses grope
their way up the dark avenue, wheels are heard grinding round the
gravel sweep before the house, and the expected guest arrives at
Newton-Hallows.

“Goodness! Charlie, how you _have_ been smoking,” exclaims Blanche,
after their first affectionate greeting, while she shrinks a little
from the cousinly embrace somewhat redolent of tobacco; “and how
you’re grown, dear--I suppose you don’t like to be told you are grown
now--and moustaches, I declare,” she adds, bursting out laughing, as
she catches Charlie’s budding honours _en profil_; “’pon my word
they’re a great improvement.” Charlie winced a little. There is always
a degree of awkwardness even amongst the nearest and dearest, when
people meet after a long absence, and the less artificial the
character, the more it betrays itself; but Blanche was in great
spirits and rattled on, till the General made his appearance, bustling
in perfectly radiant with hospitality.

“Glad to see ye, my lad--glad to see ye; have been expecting ye this
half-hour--trains always late--and always _will_ be till they hang a
director--I’ve hanged many a man for less, myself, ‘up the country.’
Fact, Blanche, I assure you. You’ll have lots of time to dress,” he
observed, glancing at the clock’s white face shining in the
fire-light--and adding, with a playful dig of his fingers into
Charlie’s lean ribs, “We dine in half-an-hour, _temps militaire_, you
dog! We must teach you that punctuality and good commissariat are the
two first essentials for a soldier.” So the General rang a peal for
hand candles that might have brought a house down.

And Charlie was well acquainted with all the inmates of Newton-Hollows
save Mrs. Delaval. Of her he had often heard Blanche speak as the most
delightful of companions, and indulgent of governesses, but he had
never set eyes on her in person; so as he effected his tie before the
glass, and drew his fingers over those precious moustaches to discover
if change of air had already influenced their growth, he began to
speculate on the character and appearance of the lady who was to
complete their family party. “A middle-aged woman,” thought
Charlie--for Blanche, on whom some ten years of seniority made a great
impression, had always described her as such--“forty, or
thereabouts--stout, jolly-looking and good-humoured, I’ll be bound--I
know I shall like her--wears a cap, I’ve no doubt, and a front, too,
most probably--sits very upright, and talks like a book, till one
knows her well--spectacles, I shouldn’t wonder (it’s no use making
much of a tie for _her_)--pats Blanche on the shoulder when she gives
her precedence, and keeps her hands in black lace mittens, I’ll bet a
hundred!” With which mental wager Master Charlie blew his candles out,
and swaggered down-stairs, feeling in his light evening costume, as
indeed he looked, well-made, well-dressed, and extremely like a
gentleman.

Mischievous Blanche was enchanted at the obvious start of astonishment
with which her introduction was received by her cousin--“Mr.
Kettering, Mrs. Delaval.” Charlie looked positively dismayed. Was this
the comfortable, round-about, good-humoured body he had expected to
see?--was that tall, stately figure, dressed in the most perfect
taste, with an air of more than high-breeding, almost of command, such
as duchesses may be much admired without possessing--was that the
dowdy middle-aged governess?--were those long, deep-set eyes, the orbs
that should have glared at him through spectacles, and would black
lace mittens have been an improvement on those white taper hands,
beautiful in their perfect symmetry without a single ornament? Charlie
bowed low to conceal the blush that overspread his countenance. The
boy was completely taken aback, and, when he led her in to dinner, and
heard those thrilling tones murmuring in his ear, the spell, we may be
sure, lost none of its power. “She is beautiful,” thought Charlie,
“and nearly as tall as I am;” and he was pleased to recollect that
Blanche had thought him grown. Ladies, we opine, are not so
impressionable as men--at least they do not allow themselves to appear
so. Either they are more cautious in their judgments, which we have
heard denied by those who plume themselves on knowledge of the sex, or
their hypocrisy is more perfect; certainly a young lady’s education is
based upon principles of the most frigid reserve, and her decorous
bearing, we believe, is never laid aside, even in tea-rooms,
conservatories, shaded walks, and other such resorts, fatal to the
equanimity of masculine understanding; therefore Mary Delaval did by
no means lose her presence of mind on being introduced to the young
gentleman, of whose deeds and sentiments she had heard so much. Woman
as she was, she could not but be gratified at the evident admiration
her appearance created in this new acquaintance, and truth to speak,
“Cousin Charlie” was a youth whose allegiance few female hearts would
have entirely scorned to possess; yet there was no occasion to tell
the young gentleman as much to his face.

A very good-looking face it was too, with its wide, intellectual brow,
round which the brown silky hair waved in such becoming clusters--its
perfect oval and delicate high-bred features, if they had a fault, too
girlish in their soft, winning expression--in fact, he was as like
Blanche as possible; and had his moustaches been shaved, could he
indeed have submitted to the sacrifice, his stature lowered, and a
bonnet and shawl put on, he might well have passed for his pretty
cousin. There was nothing effeminate though about Charlie, save his
countenance and his smile. That slender, graceful figure was lithe and
wiry as the panther’s--those symmetrical limbs could toil, those
little feet could walk and run, after a Hercules would have been blown
and overpowered; and when standing up to his wicket, rousing a horse,
or putting him at a fence, there was a game sparkle in his eye that,
to use Frank Hardingstone’s expression, “meant mischief.” Some of
these good-looking young gentlemen are “ugly customers” enough when
their blood is up, and Cousin Charlie, like the rest, had quite as
much “devil” in his composition as was good for him. The “pretty page”
only wanted a few years over his head, a little more beard upon his
lip, to be a perfect Paladin.

But the spell went on working the whole of dinner-time; in vain the
General told his most wondrous anecdotes, scolded his servants at
intervals, and pressed his good cheer on the little party--Charlie
_could_ not get over his astonishment. Mrs. Delaval sat by him,
looking like a queen, and talked in her own peculiarly winning voice
and impressive manner, just enough to make him wish for more. She was
one of those women who, speaking but little, seem always to mean more
than they say, and on whom conscious mental superiority, and the calm
subdued air worn by those who have known affliction, confer a certain
mysterious charm, which makes fearful havoc in a young gentleman’s
heart. There is nothing enslaves a boy so completely as a spice of
romance. An elderly Strephon will go on his knees to a romping
schoolgirl, and the more hoydenish and unsophisticated the object, the
more will the old reprobate adore her; but beardless youth loves to
own superiority where it worships, loves to invest its idol with the
fabulous attributes that compose its own ideal; and of all the
_liaisons_, honourable and otherwise, that have bound their votaries
in silken fetters, those have been the most fatal, and the most
invincible, which have dated their existence from an earnest boyish
heart’s first devotion to a woman some years his senior, of whom the
good-natured world says, “To be sure she _is_ handsome, but Lor’!
she’s old enough to be his mother!”

Not that Charlie was as far gone as this: on the contrary, his was an
imaginative poetical disposition, easily scorched enough, but almost
incapable of being thoroughly _done brown_. Of such men, ladies, we
would warn you to beware; the very temperament that clothes you in all
the winning attributes of its own ideal can the most easily transfer
those fancied attractions to a rival, inasmuch as the charm is not so
much yours as his, exists not in your sweet face, but in his heated
and inconstant brain. No, the real prize, depend upon it, is a
sensible, phlegmatic, matter-of-fact gentleman, anything but “wax to
receive,” yet if you can succeed in making an impression, most
assuredly “marble to retain.” Such a captive clings to his affections
as to his prejudices, and is properly subjected into a tame and
willing Benedict in half the time it takes to guess at the intentions
of the faithless rover, offering on a dozen shrines an adoration that,
however brilliant, is

    “Like light straw on fire,
    A fierce but fading flame.”

Again was Charlie struck, as he swaggered off to open the door for the
ladies, by the graceful movements of Mary’s majestic figure. Again the
half-bow with which, as she passed out, she acknowledged his courtesy,
made a pleasing impression on the boy’s fancy; and as he lingered for
a moment, ere he shut out the rustle of their dresses and the pleasant
tones of the women’s voices, and returned to the arm-chair and the
claret decanter, he could not help hoping “Uncle Baldwin” would be a
little less profuse than usual in his hospitality, and a little less
prolix in his narrative.

“The young ones drink no wine at all now-a-days,” remarked the
General, as Charlie a second time passed the bottle untouched, and his
host filled his glass to the brim. “Fault on the right side, my lad;
we used to drink too hard formerly--why, bless you, when I encountered
Tortoise, of the Queen’s, at the mess of the Kedjeree Irregulars, we
sat for seven hours and a half to see one another out, and the two
black fellows fainted who were ‘told off’ to bring in claret and pale
ale as they were wanted. Tortoise recovered himself wonderfully about
the eighth bottle; and if he hadn’t been obliged to be careful on
account of a wound in his head, we should have been there now. Drunk!
how d’ye mean? Not the least--fact, I assure you.”

Charlie got up and fidgeted about, with his back to the fire, but the
General would not let him off so easily.

“Show you the farm to-morrow, my boy, you’ll be delighted with my
pigs--Neapolitans every hair of ’em. What? no man alive shall presume
to tell me they’re not the best breed! And I’ll tell you what,
Charlie, I’ve secured the handsomest short-horned bull in this
country. Two hundred, you dog!--dirt cheap--and if you’re fond of
stock you’ll be charmed with him. Poultry too--real Cochin
Chinese--got three prizes at the last show; average height two feet
seven inches--rare beauties. Hens and chickens in knee-breeches, and a
cock in trunk-hose!” With which conclusion the chuckling old warrior
permitted Charlie to wheedle him off into the drawing-room, whither
they entered to find the ladies, as usual, absorbed in worsted work
and sunk in solemn silence.

Pleasantly the evenings always passed at Newton-Hollows even with a
small party like the present. Music, cards, cockamaroo, and the
eternal racing game, of course, which gives gentle woman an insight
into the two fiercest pleasures of the other sex--horse-racing and
gambling--and introduces into the drawing-room the slang and confusion
of the betting-ring and the hazard-table, served to while away the
time. And though the General was even more diffuse than was his wont
in personal recollections and autobiography, Blanche scarcely
listened, so absorbed was she in her delight at having got Cousin
Charlie back again, whilst that young gentleman and Mary Delaval were
progressing rapidly in each other’s good opinion, and exclaiming, in
their respective minds, “What an agreeable person! and so _different
from what I expected_!”

Blanche’s birthday was always kept as a period of great rejoicing at
Newton-Hollows, and a very short time after Charlie’s arrival that
auspicious anniversary was ushered in, as usual, by the General’s
appearance at the breakfast-table bearing a cotton-stuffed white and
green card-box, highly suggestive of Storr and Mortimer. This was
quietly placed by the side of Blanche’s plate, and when the young lady
made her appearance, and exclaimed, “Dear, kind Uncle Baldwin, what a
love of a bracelet!” though we might have envied, we could not have
grudged the General the grateful kiss bestowed on him by his
affectionate niece. Uncle Baldwin’s mind, however, was intent upon
weightier matters than jewels and “happy returns.” He was to celebrate
the festival with a dinner-party; and whilst he had invited several of
the _élite_ of Bubbleton to celebrate his niece’s birthday, he was
anxious so to dispose and welcome his guests as that none should have
reason to consider himself especially favoured or encouraged in the
advances which all were too eager to make towards the good graces of
the heiress; therefore the General held a solemn conclave, as was his
wont, consisting of himself and Mrs. Delaval, who on such occasions
was requested, with great pomp, to accompany him to his study, an
apartment adorned with every description of weapon used in civilised
or savage warfare, and to take her seat in his own huge arm-chair,
while he walked up and down the room, and held forth in his usual
abrupt and discursive manner.

“I have such confidence in your sound sense, Mrs. Delaval,” said he,
looking very insinuating, and pausing for an instant in his short,
quick strides, “that I always consult you in my difficulties.” This
was said piano, but the forte addition immediately succeeded.
“Reserving to myself the option of acting, for dictation I cannot
submit to, even from you, my dear Mrs. Delaval. You are aware, I
believe, of my intentions regarding Blanche. _Are_ you aware of my
intentions?” he interrupted himself to demand in a voice of thunder.

Mary, who was used to his manner, answered calmly, “that she was not;”
and the General proceeded, in a gentle and confidential tone--

“The fact is, my dear madam, I have set my heart on a family
arrangement, which I mention to you as a personal friend, and a lady
for whom I entertain the greatest regard.”

Mary bowed again, and could hardly suppress a smile at the manner in
which the old gentleman assured her of his consideration.

“Well, though an unmarried man _as yet_, I am keenly alive to the
advantages of the married state. I never told you, I think, Mrs.
Delaval, of an adventure that befell me at Cheltenham--never mind
now--but, believe me, I am no stranger to those tender feelings, Mrs.
Delaval, to which we men of the sword--ah, ah--are _infernally_
addicted. What? Well, ma’am, there’s my niece now, they all want to
marry her. Every scoundrel within fifty miles wants to lead Blanche to
the altar. Zounds, I’ll weather ’em, the villains--excuse me, Mrs.
Delaval, but to proceed--I am extremely anxious to confide my
intentions to you, as I hope I may calculate on your assistance. My
nephew, Charlie, to be explicit, is the----Holloa! you woman, come
back--come back, I say; you’re carrying off the wrong coop. The dolt
has mistaken my orders about the Cochin Chinas. In the afternoon, if
you please, Mrs. Delaval, we’ll discuss the point more at leisure.”

And the General bolted through the study window, and was presently
heard in violent altercation with the lady who presided over his
poultry yard.

Though not very explicit, Mary had gathered enough from the General’s
confidences to conclude he was anxious to arrange a marriage
eventually between the two cousins. Well! what was that to her? He
certainly was a very taking boy, handsome, gentle, and high-spirited;
nothing could be nicer for Blanche. And she was so fond of him; what a
charming couple they would make. “I am so glad,” thought Mary,
wondering when she might congratulate the bride-elect; “so _very_
glad; dear, how glad I am.” Why should Mary have taken such pains to
assure herself how glad she was? Why did she watch the _charming
couple_ with an interest she had never felt before, as she joined them
on their return from their morning walk? A walk, the object of which
(tell it not in Bubbleton) had been to pursue the sport of rat-hunting
in a certain barn, with a favourite terrier of Charlie’s, a sport that
Blanche was persuaded to patronise, notwithstanding her horror both of
the game and the mode of its destruction, by her affection for
Charlie, and her childish habit of joining him in all his pastimes and
amusements. How alike they were, with their delicate skin, their deep
blue eyes sparkling with exercise and excitement, and their waving
brown hair clustering round each flushed and smiling face. How alike
they were, and what a nice couple they certainly did make. And Mary
sighed, as again she thought how _very_ glad she was!

No further interview took place that day with the General, whose many
avocations scarcely permitted him time for the elaborate toilette
which, partly out of respect for Blanche’s birthday, partly in
consideration of his dinner-party, he thought it advisable to perform.
He certainly did take more pains with himself than usual; and as he
fixed an order or two in an unassuming place under the breast-lap of
his coat, a ray of satisfaction shot through his heart that beat
beneath those clasps and medals, while the old gentleman thought aloud
as usual, “Not such a bad arrangement after all! She certainly did
look very queer when I talked of Blanche’s marrying. No doubt she’s
smitten--just like the one at Cheltenham. Bounce! Bounce! you’ve a
deal to answer for. If ever I _do_, it’s time I thought of it; don’t
improve by keeping. ’Pon my life, I might go farther and fare worse.
Zounds! there’s the door-bell.”

“Lady Mount Helicon!” “Captain Lacquers!” “Sir Ascot Uppercrust!” and
a whole host of second-rate grandees were successively announced and
ushered into the brilliantly-lighted drawing-room, to be received by
the General with the _empressement_ of a bachelor, who is host and
hostess all in one. Blanche was too young and shy to take much part in
the proceedings. Charlie, of course, was late; but Bounce was in his
glory, bowing to the ladies, joking with the gentlemen, and telling
anecdotes to all, till the announcement of “dinner” started him across
the hall, convoying stately Lady Mount Helicon, and well-nigh lost
amidst the lappets and flounces of that magnificent dame, who would
not have been here at all unless she had owned an unmarried son, and a
jointure entirely out of proportion to the present lord’s finances.
The rest of the party paired off after their illustrious leaders. Sir
Ascot Uppercrust took Blanche, who was already lost in surprise at his
taciturnity. Miss Deeper skilfully contrived to entangle young
Cashley. Kate Carmine felt her heart beat happily against the arm of
Captain Laurel, of the Bays. Mr. Gotobed made a dash at Mary Delaval,
but “Cousin Charlie,” who that instant entered the room, quietly
interposed and led her off to the dining-room, leaving a heterogeneous
mass of unappropriated gentlemen to scramble in as they best might.
Mary was grateful for the rescue; she was glad to be near somebody she
knew. With a flush of shame and anger she had recognised Captain
Lacquers, though that worthy dipped his moustaches into his soup in
happy unconsciousness that the well-dressed aristocratic woman
opposite him was the same indignant damsel who would once have knocked
him down if she could. With all her self-possession, Mary was not
blind to the fact that her position was anomalous and ill-defined. She
had found that out already by the condescending manner in which Lady
Mount Helicon had bowed to her in the drawing-room. With the men she
was “that handsome lady-like Mrs. Delaval”; but with the women (your
true aristocrats after all) she was _only the governess_.

Dinner progressed in the weary protracted manner that the meal does
when it is one of state and ceremony. The guests did not know each
other well, and were dreadfully afraid (as is too often the case in
good society) of being over civil or attentive to those whose position
they had not exactly ascertained. It argues ill for one’s stock of
politeness when one cannot afford to part with ever so small a
portion, save in expectation of a return. So Lady Mount Helicon was
patronising and affable, and looked at everything, including the
company, through her eye-glass, but was very distant notwithstanding;
and the gentlemen hemmed and hawed, and voted the weather
detestable--aw! and the sport with the hounds--aw--very moderate--aw
(it was d----d bad after the ladies went away); and their fair
companions lisped and simpered, and ate very little, and drank as much
champagne as appearances would allow; and everybody felt it an
unspeakable relief when Blanche, drawing on her gloves, and blushing
crimson at the responsibility, made “the move” to Lady Mount Helicon;
and the muslins all sailed away, with their gloves and fans and
pocket-handkerchiefs rescued from under the table by their red-faced
cavaliers.

When they met again over tea and coffee, things had thawed
considerably. The most solemn high-breeding is not proof against an
abundance of claret, and the General’s hospitality was worthy of his
cellar. The men had found each other out to be “deuced good sort of
fellows,” and had moreover discovered mutual tastes and mutual
acquaintances, which much cemented their friendships. To be sure,
there was at first a partial reaction consequent upon the difficulty
of breaking through a formal circle of ladies; but this feat
accomplished, and the gentlemen grouped about cup-in-hand in becoming
attitudes, and disposed to look favourably on the world in general,
even Sir Ascot Uppercrust laid aside his usual reserve, and asked
Blanche whether she had seen anything of a round game called “turning
the tables,” which the juvenile philosopher further confided to her he
opined to be “infernal humbug.” In an instant every tongue was
unloosed. Drop a subject like this amongst a well-dressed crowd and it
is like a cracker--here and there it bounces, and fizzes, and
explodes, amongst serious exclamations and hearty laughter. Lady
Mount Helicon thought it wicked--Kate Carmine thought it “fun”--Miss
Deeper voted it charming--Lacquers considered it “aw--deuced
scientific--aw”--and the General in high glee exclaimed, “I vote we
try.” No sooner said than done; a round mahogany table was deprived of
its covering--a circle formed--hands joined with more energy than was
absolutely indispensable--white arms laid in juxtaposition to dark
coat sleeves--long ringlets bent over the polished mirror-like
surface; and amidst laughing entreaties to be grave, and voluble
injunctions to be silent, the incantation progressed, we are bound in
truth to state, with no definite result. Perhaps the spell was broken
by the bursts of laughter that greeted the pompous butler’s face of
consternation, as, entering the room to remove cups, etc., he found
the smartly-dressed party so strangely employed. Well-bred servants
never betray the slightest marks of emotion or astonishment, though we
fancy their self-command is sometimes severely put to the test. But
“turning the tables” was too much for the major-domo, and he was
obliged to make his exit in a paroxysm of unseemly mirth. Then came a
round game of forfeits--then music--then dancing, the ladies playing
by turns--then somebody found out the night was pouring with rain, and
the General declared it would be sure to clear in an hour or so, and
nobody must go away till after supper. So supper appeared and more
champagne; and even Lady Mount Helicon was ready to do anything to
oblige, so, being a fine musician, she volunteered to play “The
Coquette.” A chair was placed in the middle of the room, and everybody
danced, the General and all. Blanche laughed till she cried; and there
was but one feeling of regret when the announcement of her ladyship’s
carriage broke up the party, just at the moment when, in accordance
with the rules of the dance, Charlie sank upon one knee before the
Coquette’s chair, occupied by stately Mrs. Delaval. He looked like a
young knight prostrate before the Queen of Beauty.

When Blanche laid her head upon her pillow, she thought over all her
uncle’s guests in succession, and decided not one was to be compared
to Cousin Charlie; and none was half so agreeable as Mr. Hardingstone.
Mary Delaval, on the contrary, scarcely gave a thought to Captain
Lacquers, Sir Ascot Uppercrust, Captain Laurel, or even Mr. Gotobed,
who had paid her great attention. No, even as she closed her eyes she
was haunted by a young upturned face, with fair open brow and a
slight moustache--do what she would, she saw it still. She was,
besides, a little distracted about the loss of one of her gloves--a
white one, with velvet round the wrist--what could have become of it?




CHAPTER VII

BOOT AND SADDLE

     “THE GRAND MILITARY”--SPORT, BUT NOT PLEASURE--WARLIKE
     ADVANCES--SOME OF ALL SORTS--AN EQUESTRIAN FEAT--THEY’RE
     OFF--RIDING TO WIN--FOLLOW-MY-LEADER--WELL OVER AND WELL
     IN--HOME IN A HURRY-

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