Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 1
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Title: Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 1
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4235]
Most recently updated: December 27, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4235
Credits: Produced by Sandra Laythorpe. HTML version by Al Haines.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DYNEVOR TERRACE; OR, THE CLUE OF LIFE — VOLUME 1 ***
Produced by Sandra Laythorpe. HTML version by Al Haines.
DYNEVOR TERRACE:
OR
THE CLUE OF LIFE.
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
THE AUTHOR OF 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE'
CONTENTS
I. CHARLOTTE.
II. AN OLD SCHOOLMISTRESS.
III. LOUIS LE DEBONNAIRE.
IV. THISTLE-DOWN.
V. THE TWO MINISTERS.
VI. FAREWELLS.
VII. GOSSAMER.
VIII. A TRUANT DISPOSITION.
IX. THE FAMILY COMPACT.
X. THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR.
XI. A HALTING PROPOSAL.
XII. CHILDE ROLAND.
XIII. FROSTY, BUT KINDLY.
XIV. NEW INHABITANTS.
XV. MOTLEY THE ONLY WEAR.
XVI. THE FRUIT OF THE CHRISTMAS-TREE
XVII. THE RIVALS.
XVIII. REST FOR THE WEARY.
XIX. MOONSHINE.
XX. THE FANTASTIC VISCOUNT.
XXI. THE HERO OF THE BARRICADES.
XXII. BURGOMASTERS AND GREAT ONE-EYERS.
VOLUME I
Who wisdom's sacred prize would win,
Must with the fear of God begin;
Immortal praise and heavenly skill
Have they who know and do His will.
New Version.
CHAPTER I.
CHARLOTTE.
Farewell rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
May fare as well as they.
BP. CORBET.
An ancient leafless stump of a horse-chesnut stood in the middle of a
dusty field, bordered on the south side by a row of houses of some
pretension. Against this stump, a pretty delicate fair girl of
seventeen, whose short lilac sleeves revealed slender white arms, and
her tight, plain cap tresses of flaxen hair that many a beauty might
have envied, was banging a cocoa-nut mat, chanting by way of
accompaniment in a sort of cadence--
'I have found out a gift for my fur,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me the plunder forbear,
She will say--'
'Hollo, I'll give you a shilling for 'em!' was the unlooked-for
conclusion, causing her to start aside with a slight scream, as there
stood beside her a stout, black-eyed, round-faced lad, his ruddy cheeks
and loutish air showing more rusticity than agreed with his keen, saucy
expression, and mechanic's dress.
'So that's what you call beating a mat,' said he, catching it from her
hands, and mimicking the tender clasp of her little fingers. 'D'ye
think it's alive, that you use it so gingerly? Look here! Give it him
well!' as he made it resound against the tree, and emit a whirlwind of
dust. 'Lay it into him with some jolly good song fit to fetch a stroke
home with! Why, I heard my young Lord say, when Shakspeare was a
butcher, he used to make speeches at the calves, as if they was for a
sacrifice, or ever he could lift a knife to 'em.'
'Shakspeare! He as wrote Romeo and Juliet, and all that! He a
butcher! Why, he was a poet!' cried the girl, indignantly.
'If you know better than Lord Fitzjocelyn, you may!' said the boy.
'I couldn't have thought it!' sighed the maiden.
'It's the best of it!' cried the lad, eagerly. 'Why, Charlotte, don't
ye see, he rose hisself. Anybody may rise hisself as has a mind to it!'
'Yes, I've read that in books said Charlotte. 'You can, men can, Tom,
if you would but educate yourself like Edmund! in the _Old English
Baron_. But then, you know whose son you are. There can't be no
catastrophe--'
'I don't want none,' said Tom. 'We are all equal by birth, so the
orator proves without a doubt, and we'll show it one of these days. A
rare lady I'll make of you yet, Charlotte Arnold.'
'O hush, Tom, I can never be a lady--and I can't stand dawdling
here--nor you neither. 'Tisn't right to want to be out of our station,
though I do wish I lived in an old castle, where the maidens worked
tapestry, and heard minstrels, never had no stairs to scour. Come, give
me my mats, and thank you kindly!'
'I'll take 'em in,' said Tom, shouldering them. ''Tis breakfast-hour,
so I thought I'd just run up and ax you when my young Lord goes up to
Oxford.
'He is gone,' said Charlotte; 'he was here yesterday to take leave of
missus. Mr. James goes later--'
'Gone!' cried Tom. 'If he didn't say he'd come and see me at Mr.
Smith's!'
'Did you want to speak to him?'
'I wanted to see him particular. There's a thing lays heavy on my
mind. You see that place down in Ferny dell--there's a steep bank down
to the water. Well, my young Lord was very keen about building a kind
of steps there in the summer, and he and I settled the stones, and I
was to cement 'em. By comes Mr. Frost, and finds faults, what I
thought he'd no call to; so I flings down my trowel, and wouldn't go on
for he! I was so mortal angry, I would not go back to the work; and I
believe my Lord forgot it--and then he went back to college; and
Frampton and Gervas, they put on me, and you know how 'twas I come away
from Ormersfield. I was not going to say a word to one of that lot! but
if I could see Lord Fitzjocelyn, I'd tell him they stones arn't fixed;
and if the frost gets into 'em, there'll be a pretty go next time
there's a tolerablish weight! But there--it is his own look-out! If
he never thought it worth his while to keep his promise, and come and
see me--'
'O Tom! that isn't right! He only forgot--I hear Mrs. Beckett telling
him he'd forget his own head if it wasn't fixed on, and Mr. James is
always at him.'
'Forget! Aye, there's nothing gentlefolks forget like poor folks. But
I've done with he! Let him look out--I kept my promises to him long
enough, but if he don't keep his'n--'
'For shame, for shame, Tom! You don't mean it!' cried Charlotte. 'But,
oh!' with a different tone, 'give me the mat! There's the old Lord and
Mr. Poynings riding down the terrace!'
'I ain't ashamed of nothing!' said the lad, proudly; and as Charlotte
snatched away the mats, and vanished like a frightened hare, he stalked
along like a village Hampden, muttering, 'The old tyrant shall see
whether I'm to be trampled on!' and with both hands in his pockets, he
gazed straight up into the face of the grave elderly gentleman, who
never even perceived him. He could merely bandy glances with Poynings,
the groom, and he was so far from indifferent that he significantly
lifted up the end of his whip. Nothing could more have gratified Tom,
who retorted with a grimace and murmur, 'Don't you wish you may catch
me? You jealous syc--what is the word, sick of uncles or aunts, was
it, that the orator called 'em? He'd say I'd a good miss of being one
of that sort, and that my young Lord there opened my eyes in time. No
better than the rest of 'em--'
And the clock striking eight, he quickened his pace to return to his
work. He had for the two or three previous years been nominally under
the gardener at Ormersfield, but really a sort of follower and
favourite to the young heir, Lord Fitzjocelyn--a position which had
brought on him dislike from the superior servants, who were not
propitiated by his independent and insubordinate temper. Faults on
every side had led to his dismissal; but Lord Fitzjocelyn had placed
him at an ironmonger's shop in the town of Northwold, where he had been
just long enough to become accessible to the various temptations of a
lad in such a situation.
Charlotte sped hastily round the end of the block of buildings, hurried
down the little back garden, and flew breathlessly into her own
kitchen, as a haven of refuge, but she found a tall, stiff starched,
elderly woman standing just within the door, and heard her last words.
'Well! as I said, 'tis no concern of mine; only I thought it the part
of a friend to give you a warning, when I seen it with my own eyes!--
Ah! here she is!' as Charlotte dropped into a chair. 'Yes, yes, Miss,
you need not think to deceive me; I saw you from Miss Mercy's window--'
'Saw what?' faintly exclaimed Charlotte.
'You know well enough,' was the return. 'You may think to blind Mrs.
Beckett here, but I know what over good-nature to young girls comes to.
Pretty use to make of your fine scholarship, to be encouraging
followers and sweethearts, at that time in the morning too!'
'Speak up, Charlotte,' said the other occupant of the room, a pleasant
little brisk woman, with soft brown, eyes, a clear pale skin, and a
face smooth, in spite of nearly sixty years; 'speak up, and tell Mrs.
Martha the truth, that you never encouraged no one.'
The girl's face was all one flame, but she rose up, and clasping her
hands together, exclaimed--'Me encourage! I never thought of what Mrs.
Martha says! I don't know what it is all about!'
'Here, Jane Beckett,' cried Mrs. Martha; 'd'ye see what 'tis to
vindicate her! Will you take her word against mine, that she's been
gossiping this half hour with that young rogue as was turned off at
Ormersfield?'
'Tom Madison! cried the girl, in utter amaze. 'Oh! Mrs. Martha!'
'Well! I can't stop!' said Martha. 'I must get Miss Faithfull's
breakfast! but if you was under me, Miss Charlotte, I can tell you it
would be better for you! You'll sup sorrow yet, and you'll both
recollect my advice, both of you.'
Wherewith the Cassandra departed, and Charlotte, throwing her apron
over her face, began to cry and sob piteously.
'My dear! what is it now? exclaimed her kind companion, pulling down
her apron, and trying to draw down first one, then the other of the
arms which persisted in veiling the crimson face. 'Surely you don't
think missus or I would mistrust you, or think you'd take up with the
likes of him!'
'How could she be so cruel--so spiteful,' sobbed Charlotte, 'when he
only came to ask one question, and did a good turn for me with the
mats. I never thought of such a thing. Sweetheart, indeed! So cruel
of her!'
'Bless me!' said Jane, 'girls used to think it only civility to say
they had a sweetheart!'
'Don't, Mrs. Beckett! I hate the word! I don't want no such thing! I
won't never speak to Tom Madison again, if such constructions is to be
put on it!'
'Well, after all, Charlotte dear, that will be the safest way. You are
young yet, and best not to think of settling, special if you aren't
sure of one that is steady and religious, and you'd better keep
yourself up, and not get a name for gossiping--though there's no harm
done yet, so don't make such a work. Bless me, if I don't hear his
lordship's voice! He ain't never come so early!'
'Yes, he is,' said Charlotte, recovering from her sobs; 'he rode up as
I came in.'
'Well, to be sure, he is come to breakfast! I hope nothin's amiss with
my young Lord! I must run up with a cup and plate, and you, make the
place tidy, in case Mr. Poynings comes in. You'd better run into the
scullery and wash your face; 'tis all tears! You're a terrible one to
cry, Charlotte!' with a kind, cheering smile and caress.
Mrs. Beckett bustled off, leaving Charlotte to restore herself to the
little handy piece of household mechanism which kind, patient, motherly
training had rendered her.
Charlotte Arnold had been fairly educated at a village school, and
tenderly brought up at home till left an orphan, when she had been
taken into her present place. She had much native refinement and
imagination, which, half cultivated, produced a curious mixture of
romance and simplicity. Her insatiable taste for reading was
meritorious in the eyes of Mrs. Beckett, who, unlearned herself,
thought any book better than 'gadding about,' and, after hearing her
daily portion of the Bible, listened to the most adventurous romances,
with a sense of pleasure and duty in keeping the girl to her book.
She loved the little fragile orphan, taught her, and had patience with
her, and trusted the true high sound principle which she recognised in
Charlotte, amid much that she could not fathom, and set down
alternately to the score of scholarship and youth.
Taste, modesty, and timidity were guards to Charlotte. A broad stare
was terror to her, and she had many a fictitious horror, as well as
better-founded ones. Truly she said, she hated the broad words Martha
had used. One who craved a true knight to be twitted with a
sweetheart! Martha and Tom Madison were almost equally distasteful, as
connected with such a reproach; and the little maiden drew into
herself, promenaded her fancy in castles and tournaments, kept under
Jane's wing, and was upheld by her as a sensible, prudent girl.
CHAPTER II.
AN OLD SCHOOLMISTRESS.
I praise thee, matron, and thy due
Is praise, heroic praise and true;
With admiration I behold
Thy gladness unsubdued and bold.
Thy looks and gestures all present
The picture of a life well spent;
Our human nature throws away
Its second twilight and looks gay.
WORDSWORTH.
Unconscious of Charlotte's flight and Tom's affront, the Earl of
Ormersfield rode along Dynevor Terrace--a row of houses with handsome
cemented fronts, tragic and comic masks alternating over the downstairs
windows, and the centre of the block adorned with a pediment and
colonnade; but there was an air as if something ailed the place: the
gardens were weedy, the glass doors hazy, the cement stained and
scarred, and many of the windows closed and dark, like eyes wanting
speculation, or with merely the dreary words 'To be let' enlivening
their blank gloom. At the house where Charlotte had vanished, he drew
his rein, and opened the gate--not one of the rusty ones--he entered
the garden, where all was trim and fresh, the shadow of the house lying
across the sward, and preserving the hoar-frost, which, in the
sunshine, was melting into diamond drops on the lingering China roses.
Without ring or knock, he passed into a narrow, carpetless vestibule,
unadorned except by a beautiful blue Wedgewood vase, and laying down
hat and whip, mounted the bare staircase, long since divested of all
paint or polish. Avoiding the door of the principal room, he opened
another at the side, and stood in a flood of sunshine, pouring in from
the window, which looked over all the roofs of the town, to the
coppices and moorlands of Ormersfield. On the bright fire sung a
kettle, a white cat purred on the hearth, a canary twittered merrily in
the window, and the light smiled on a languishing Dresden shepherdess
and her lover on the mantelpiece, and danced on the ceiling, reflected
from a beautifully chased silver cream-jug--an inconsistent companion
for the homely black teapot and willow-patterned plates, though the two
cups of rare Indian porcelain were not unworthy of it. The furniture
was the same mixture of the ordinary and the choice, either worn and
shabby, or such as would suit a virtuoso, but the whole arranged with
taste and care that made the effect bright, pleasant, and comfortable.
Lord Ormersfield stood on the hearth-rug waiting. His face was that of
one who had learnt to wait, more considerate than acute, and bearing
the stamp both of toil and suffering, as if grief had taken away all
mobility of expression, and left a stern, thoughtful steadfastness.
Presently a lady entered the room. Her hair was white as snow, and she
could not have seen less than seventy-seven years; but beauty was not
gone from her features--smiles were still on her lips, brightness in
her clear hazel eyes, buoyancy in her tread, and alertness and dignity
in her tall, slender, unbent figure. There was nothing so remarkable
about her as the elasticity as well as sweetness of her whole look and
bearing, as if, while she had something to love, nothing could be
capable of crushing her.
'You here!' she exclaimed, holding out her hand to her guest. 'You are
come to breakfast.'
'Thank you; I wished to see you without interrupting your day's work.
Have you many scholars at present?'
'Only seven, and three go into school at Easter. Jem and Clara, wish
me to undertake no more, but I should sorely miss the little fellows. I
wish they may do me as much credit as Sydney Calcott. He wrote himself
to tell me of his success.'
'I am glad to hear it. He is a very promising young man.'
'I tell him I shall come to honour, as the old dame who taught him to
spell. My scholars may make a Dr. Busby of me in history.'
'I am afraid your preferment will depend chiefly on James and young
Calcott.'
'Nay, Louis tells me that he is going to read wonderfully hard; and if
he chooses, he can do more than even Sydney Calcott.'
'If!' said the Earl.
Jane here entered with another cup and plate, and Lord Ormersfield sat
down to the breakfast-table. After some minutes' pause he said, 'Have
you heard from Peru?'
'Not by this mail. Have you?'
'Yes, I have. Mary is coming home.'
'Mary!' she cried, almost springing up--'Mary Ponsonby? This is good
news--unless,' as she watched his grave face, 'it is her health that
brings her.'
'It is. She has consulted the surgeon of the Libra, a very able man,
who tells her that there is absolute need of good advice and a colder
climate; and Ponsonby has consented to let her and her daughter come
home in the Libra. I expect them in February.'
'My poor Mary! But she will get better away from him. I trust he is
not coming!'
'Not he,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'Dear, dear Mary! I had scarcely dared to hope to see her again,'
cried the old lady, with tears in her eyes. 'I hope she will be
allowed to be with us, not kept in London with his sister. London does
her no good.'
'The very purport of my visit,' said Lord Ormersfield, 'was to ask
whether you could do me the favour to set aside your scholars, and
enable me to receive Mrs. Ponsonby at home.'
'Thank you--oh, thank you. There is nothing I should like better, but
I must consider--'
'Clara would find a companion in the younger Mary in the holidays, and
if James would make Fitzjocelyn his charge, it would complete the
obligation. It would be by far the best arrangement for Mary's
comfort, and it would be the greatest satisfaction to me to see her
with you at Ormersfield.'
'I believe it would indeed,' said the old lady, more touched than the
outward manner of the Earl seemed to warrant. 'I would--you know I
would do my very best that you and Mary should be comfortable
together'--and her voice trembled--'but you see I cannot promise all at
once. I must see about these little boys. I must talk to Jem. In
short, you must not be disappointed'--and she put her hands before her
face, trying to laugh, but almost overcome.
'Nay, I did not mean to press you,' said Lord Ormersfield, gently; 'but
I thought, since James has had the fellowship and Clara has been at
school, that you wished to give up your pupils.'
'So I do,' said the lady, but still not yielding absolutely.
'For the rest, I am very anxious that James should accept Fitzjocelyn
as his pupil. I have always considered their friendship as the best
hope, and other plans have had so little success, that--'
'I'm not going to hear Louis abused!' she exclaimed, gaily.
'Yes,' said Lord Ormersfield, with a look nearly approaching a smile,
'you are the last person I ought to invite, if I wish to keep your
nephew unspoiled.'
'I wish there were any one else to spoil him!'
'For his sake, then, come and make Ormersfield cheerful. It will be
far better for him.'
'And for you, to see more of Jem,' she added. 'If he were yours, what
would you say to such hours?'
The last words were aimed at a young man who came briskly into the
room, and as he kissed her, and shook hands with the Earl, answered in
a quick, bright tone, 'Shocking, aye. All owing to sitting up till
one!'
'Reading?' said the Earl.
'Reading,' he answered, with a sort of laughing satisfaction in dashing
aside the approval expressed in the query, 'but not quite as you
suppose. See here,' as he held up maliciously a railway novel.
'I am afraid I know where it came from,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'Exactly so,' said James. 'It was Fitzjocelyn's desertion of it that
excited my curiosity.'
'Indeed. I should have thought his desertions far too common to excite
any curiosity.'
'By no means. He always has a reason.'
'A plausible one.'
'More than plausible,' cried James, excitement sparkling in his vivid
black eyes. 'It happens that this is the very book that you would most
rejoice to see distasteful to him--low morality, false principles,
morbid excitement, not a line that ought to please a healthy mind.'--
'Yet it has interest enough for you.'
'I am not Fitzjocelyn.'
'You know how to plead for him.'
'I speak simple truth,' bluntly answered James, running his hand
through his black hair, to the ruin of the morning smoothness, so that
it, as well as the whole of his quick, dark countenance seemed to have
undergone a change from sunny south to stormy north in the few moments
since his first appearance.
After a short silence, Lord Ormersfield turned to him, saying 'I have
been begging a favour of my aunt, and I have another to ask of you,'
and repeating his explanation, begged him to undertake the tutorship of
his son.
'I shall not be at liberty at Easter,' said James, 'I have all but
undertaken some men at Oxford.'
'Oh, my dear Jem!' exclaimed the old lady, 'is that settled beyond
alteration?'
'I'm not going to throw them over.'
'Then I shall hope for you at Midsummer,' said the Earl.
'We shall see how things stand,' he returned, ungraciously.
'I shall write to you,' said Lord Ormersfield, still undaunted, and
soon after taking his leave.
'Cool!' cried James, as soon as he was gone. 'To expect you to give up
your school at his beck, to come and keep house for him as long as it
may suit him!'
'Nay, Jem, he knew how few boys I have, and that I intended to give
them up. You don't mean to refuse Louis?' she said, imploringly.
'I shall certainly not take him at Easter. It would be a mere farce
intended to compensate to us for giving up the school, and I'll not
lend myself to it while I can have real work.'
'At Midsummer, then. You know he will never let Louis spend a long
vacation without a tutor.'
'I hate to be at Ormersfield,' proceeded James, vehemently, 'to see
Fitzjocelyn browbeaten and contradicted every moment, and myself set up
for a model. I may steal a horse, while he may not look over the wall!
Did you observe the inconsistency?--angry with the poor fellow first
for having the book, and then for not reading the whole, while it
became amiable and praiseworthy in me to burn out a candle over it!'
'Ah! that was my concern. I tell him he would sing another note if you
were his son.'
'I'd soon make him! I would not stand what Louis does. The more he is
set down and sneered at, the more debonnaire he looks, till I could
rave at him for taking it so easily.'
'I hoped you might have hindered them from fretting each other, as they
do so often.'
'I should only be a fresh element of discord, while his lordship will
persist in making me his pattern young man. It makes me hate myself,
especially as Louis is such an unaccountable fellow that he won't.'
'I am sorry you dislike the plan so much.'
'Do you mean that you wish for it, grandmamma? cried he, turning full
round on her with an air of extreme amazement. 'If you do, there's an
end of it; but I thought you valued nothing more than an independent
home.'
'Nor would I give it up on any account,' said she. 'I do not imagine
this could possibly last for more than a few months, or a year at the
utmost. But you know, dear Jem, I would do nothing you did not like.'
'That's nothing to the purpose,' replied James. 'Though it is to be
considered whether Ormersfield is likely to be the best preparation for
Clara's future life. However, I see you wish it--'
'I confess that I do, for a few months at least, which need interfere
neither with Clara nor with you. I have not seen Lord Ormersfield so
eager for many years, and I should be very sorry to prevent those two
from being comfortably together in the old home--'
'And can't that be without a chaperon?' exclaimed James, laughing.
'Why, his lordship is fifty-five, and she can't be much less. That is
a good joke.'
'It is not punctilio,' said his grandmother, looking distressed. 'It
is needful to be on the safe side with such a man as Mr. Ponsonby. My
fear is that he may send her home with orders not to come near us.'
'She used to be always at Ormersfield in the old times.'
'Yes, when my sister was alive. Ah! you were too young to know about
those matters then. The fact was, that things had come to such a pass
from Mr. Ponsonby's neglect and unkindness, that Lord Ormersfield,
standing in the place of her brother, thought it right to interfere.
His mother went to London with him, to bring poor Mary and her little
girl back to Ormersfield, and there they were till my sister's death,
when of course they could not remain. Mr. Ponsonby had just got his
appointment as British envoy in Peru, and wished her to go with him.
It was much against Lord Ormersfield's advice, but she thought it her
duty, poor dear. I believe he positively hates Lord Ormersfield; and
as if for a parting unkindness, he left his little girl at school with
orders to spend her holidays with his sister, and never to be with us.'
'That accounts for it!' said James. 'I never knew all this! nor why we
were so entirely cut off from Mary Ponsonby. I wonder what she is now!
She was a droll sturdy child in those days! We used to call her
Downright Dunstable! She was almost of the same age as Louis, and a
great deal stouter, and used to fight for him and herself too. Has not
she been out in Peru?'
'Yes, she went out at seventeen. I believe she is an infinite comfort
to her mother.'
'Poor Mary! Well, we children lived in the middle of a tragedy, and
little suspected it! By the bye, what relation are the Ponsonbys to
us?'
'Mrs. Ponsonby is my niece. My dear sister, Mary--'
'Married Mr. Raymond--yes, I know! I'll make the whole lucid; I'll
draw up a pedigree, and Louis shall learn it.' And with elaborate
neatness he wrote as follows, filling in the dates from the first leaf
of an old Bible, after his grandmother had left the room. The task,
lightly undertaken, became a mournful one, and as he read over his
performance, his countenance varied from the gentleness of regret to a
look of sarcastic pride, as though he felt that the world had dealt
hardly by him, and yet disdained to complain.
KING ARTHUR
-
Pendragons and Dynevors innumerable
-
Roland Dynevor, d. 1793
-
1. 2. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- - -
Catharine, m. James Frost Dynevor, Esq. Elizabeth, m. Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Ormersfield Mary, m. Ch. Raymond, Esq.
b. 1770 b. 1765 b. 1772 b. 1760 b. 1774 d.1802
d. 1816 d. 1835 d. 1833 d. 1800
1. 2.
-------------------------------------------------- Jocelyn, m. Louisa Villars, Mary, m. Robert Ponsonby Esq.,
Henry Roland m. Frances Preston Oliver J. Frost 4th Earl of b. 1805 b. 1796 British Envoy
Frost Dynevor b. 1802 Dynevor Ormersfield d. 1826 in Peru.
b. 1794 d. 1832 b. 1797 b. 1792
d. 1832
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
------------------------------------------------------------
James Roland Frances Catharine Oliver Clara Louis Fitzjocelyn Mary Ponsonby
Frost Dynevor b. 1826 b. 1827 b. 1829 b. 1831 Viscount Fitzjocelyn b. 1826
b. 1824 d. 1832 d. 1832 d. 1832 b. 1826.
Fellow of St.
F. College,
Oxford.
'Since 1816,' muttered James, as he finished. 'Thirty years of
drudgery! When shall I be able to relieve her? Ha! O. J. F. Dynevor,
Esquire, if it were you who were coming from Peru, you would find a
score to settle!'
He ran down stairs to assist his grandmother in the Latin lessons of
her little school, the usual employment of his vacations.
Catharine Dynevor had begun life with little prospect of spending
nearly half of it as mistress of a school.
Her father was the last male of the Dynevors of Cheveleigh--a family
mounting up to the days of the Pendragons--and she had been made to
take the place of an eldest son, inheriting the extensive landed
property on condition that her name and arms should be assumed in case
of her marriage. Her choice was one of the instances in which her
affections had the mastery over her next strongest characteristic,
family pride. She married a highly-educated and wealthy gentleman, of
good family, but of mercantile connexions, such as her father, if
living, would have disdained. Her married life was, however, perfectly
unclouded, her ample means gave her the power of dispensing joy, and
her temperament was so blithe and unselfish that no pleasure ever
palled upon her. Cheveleigh was a proverb for hospitality, affording
unfailing fetes for all ages, full of a graceful ease and freedom that
inspired enjoyment.
Mr. Frost Dynevor was a man of refined taste, open-handed even to
extravagance, liberal in all his appointments, and gratifying to the
utmost his love of art and decoration, while his charities and generous
actions were hearty and lavish enough to satisfy even his warm-hearted
wife.
Joined with all this was a strong turn for speculations. When the mind
has once become absorbed in earthly visions of wealth and prosperity,
the excitement exercises such a fascination over the senses that the
judgment loses balance. Bold assumptions are taken as certainties, and
made the foundation of fresh fabrics--the very power of discerning
between fact and possibility departs, and, in mere good-will, men,
honest and honourable at heart, risk their own and their neighbours'
property, and ruin their character and good name, by the very actions
most foreign to to their nature, ere it had fallen under the strong
delusion.
Mr. Frost Dynevor had the misfortune to live in a country rich in
mineral wealth, and to have a brother-in-law easily guided, and with
more love of figures than power of investigating estimates on a large
scale. Mines were set on foot, companies established, and buildings
commenced, and the results were only to be paralleled by those of the
chalybeate springs discovered by Mr. Dynevor at the little town of
Northwold, which were pronounced by his favourite hanger-on to be
destined 'literally to cut the throat of Bath and Cheltenham.'
Some towns are said to have required the life of a child ere their
foundations could be laid. Many a speculation has swallowed a life and
fortune before its time for thriving has come. Mr. Frost Dynevor and
Lord Ormersfield were the foremost victims to the Cheveleigh iron
foundries and the Northwold baths. The close of the war brought a
commercial crisis that their companies could not stand; and Mr.
Dynevor's death spared him from the sight of the crash, which his
talent and sagacity might possibly have averted. He had shown no
misgivings, but, no sooner was he removed from the helm, than the
vessel was found on the brink of destruction. Enormous sums had been
sunk without tangible return, and the liabilities of the companies far
surpassed anything that they had realized.
Lord Ormersfield was stunned and helpless. Mrs. Dynevor had but one
idea--namely, to sacrifice everything to clear her husband's name. Her
sons were mere boys, and the only person who proved himself able to act
or judge was the heir of Ormersfield, then about four-and-twenty, who
came forward with sound judgment and upright dispassionate sense of
justice to cope with the difficulties and clear away the involvements.
He joined his father in mortgaging land, sacrificing timber, and
reducing the establishment, so as to set the estate in the way of
finally becoming free, though at the expense of rigid economy and
self-denial.
Cheveleigh could not have been saved, even had the heiress not been
willing to yield everything to satisfy the just claims of the
creditors. She was happy when she heard that it would suffice, and
that no one would be able to accuse her husband of having wronged him.
But for this, she would hardly have submitted to retain what her nephew
succeeded in securing for her--namely, an income of about 150 pounds
per annum, and the row of houses called Dynevor Terrace, one of the
building ventures at Northwold. This was the sole dependence with
which she and her sons quitted the home of their forefathers. 'Never
mind, mother,' said Henry, kissing her, to prevent the tears from
springing, 'home is wherever we are together!' 'Never fear, mother,'
echoed Oliver, with knitted brow and clenched hands, 'I will win it
back.'
Oliver was a quiet lad, of diligent, methodical habits, and willingly
accepted a clerkship in a mercantile house, which owed some obligations
to his father. At the end of a couple of years he was sent to reside
in South America; and his parting words to his mother were--'When you
see me again, Cheveleigh shall be yours.'
'Oh, my boy, take care. Remember, 'They that haste to be rich shall
not be innocent.''
That was the last time she had seen Oliver.
Her great object was to maintain herself independently and to complete
Henry's education as a gentleman. With this view she took up her abode
in the least eligible of her houses at Northwold, and, dropping the
aristocratic name which alone remained of her heiress-ship, opened a
school for little boys, declaring that she was rejoiced to recall the
days when Henry and Oliver wore frocks and learnt to spell. If any
human being could sweeten the Latin Grammar, it was Mrs. Frost, with
the motherliness of a dame, and the refinement of a lady, unfailing
sympathy and buoyant spirits, she loved each urchin, and each urchin
loved her, till she had become a sort of adopted grandmamma to all
Northwold and the neighbourhood.
Henry went to Oxford. He gained no scholarship, took no honours, but
he fell neither into debt nor disgrace; he led a goodnatured easy life,
and made a vast number of friends; and when he was not staying with
them, he and his mother were supremely happy together. He walked with
her, read to her, sang to her, and played with her pupils. He had
always been brought up as the heir--petted, humoured, and waited on--a
post which he filled with goodhumoured easy grace, and which he
continued to fill in the same manner, though he had no one to wait on
him but his mother, and her faithful servant Jane Beckett. Years
passed on, and they seemed perfectly satisfied with their division of
labour,--Mrs. Frost kept school, and Henry played the flute, or shot
over the Ormersfield property.
If any one remonstrated, Henry was always said to be waiting for a
government appointment, which was to be procured by the Ormersfield
interest. More for the sake of his mother than of himself, the
Ormersfield interest was at length exerted, and the appointment was
conferred on him. The immediate consequence was his marriage with the
first pretty girl he met, poorer than himself, and all the Ormersfield
interest failed to make his mother angry with him.
The cholera of 1832 put an end to poor Henry's desultory life. His
house, in a crowded part of London, was especially doomed by the deadly
sickness; and out of the whole family the sole survivors were a little
girl of ten months old, and a boy of seven years, the latter of whom
was with his grandmother at Northwold.
Mrs. Frost was one of the women of whom affection makes unconscious
heroines. She could never sink, as long as there was aught to need her
love and care; and though Henry had been her darling, the very
knowledge that his orphans had no one but herself to depend on, seemed
to brace her energies with fresh life. They were left entirely on her
hands, her son Oliver made no offers of assistance. He had risen, so as
to be a prosperous merchant at Lima, and he wrote with regularity and
dutifulness, but he had never proposed coming to England, and did not
proffer any aid in the charge of his brother's children. If she had
expected anything from him, she did not say so; she seldom spoke of
him, but never without tenderness, and usually as her 'poor Oliver,'
and she abstained from teaching her grandchildren either to look to
their rich uncle or to mourn over their lost inheritance. Cheveleigh
was a winter evening's romance with no one but Jane Beckett; and the
grandmother always answered the children's inquiries by bidding them
prove their ancient blood by resolute independence, and by that true
dignity which wealth could neither give nor take away.
Of that dignity, Mrs. Frost was a perfect model. A singular compound
of the gentle and the lofty, of tenderness and independence, she had
never ceased to be the Northwold standard of the 'real lady,' too mild
and gracious to be regarded as proud and poor, and yet too dignified
for any liberty to be attempted, her only fault, that touch of pride,
so ladylike and refined that it was kept out of sight, and never
offended, and everything else so sweet and winning that there was
scarcely a being who did not love, as well as honour her, for the
cheerfulness and resignation that had borne her through her many
trials. Her trustful spirit and warm heart had been an elixir of
youth, and had preserved her freshness and elasticity long after her
sister and brother-in-law at Ormersfield had grown aged and sunk into
the grave, and even her nephew was fast verging upon more than middle
age.
CHAPTER III.
LOUIS LE DEBONNAIRE.
I walked by his garden and saw the wild brier,
The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher.
ISC WATTS.
Ormersfield Park was extensive, ranging into fine broken ground, rocky
and overgrown with brushwood; but it bore the marks of retrenchment;
there was hardly a large timber tree on the estate, enclosures had been
begun and deserted, and the deer had been sold off to make room for
farmers' cattle, which grazed up to the very front door.
The house was of the stately era of Anne, with a heavy portico and
clumsy pediment on the garden side, all the windows of the suite of
rooms opening on a broad stone terrace, whence steps descended to the
lawn, neatly kept, but sombre, for want of openings in the surrounding
evergreens.
It was early March, and a lady wrapped in a shawl was seated on the
terrace, enjoying the mild gleam of spring, and the freshness of the
sun-warmed air, which awoke a smile of welcome as it breathed on her
faded cheek, and her eyes gazed on the scene, in fond recognition.
It had been the home of Mrs. Ponsonby's childhood; and the slopes of
turf and belts of dark ilex were fraught with many a recollection of
girlish musings, youthful visions, and later, intervals of tranquillity
and repose. After fourteen years spent in South America, how many
threads she had to take up again! She had been as a sister to her
cousin, Lord Ormersfield, and had shared more of his confidence than
any other person during their earlier years, but afterwards their
intercourse had necessarily been confined to brief and guarded letters.
She had found him unchanged in his kindness to herself, and she was the
more led to ponder on the grave, stern impassiveness of his manner to
others, and to try to understand the tone of mind that it indicated.
She recalled him as he had been in his first youth--reserved, sensible,
thoughtful, but with the fire of ambition burning strongly within, and
ever and anon flashing forth vividly, repressed at once as too
demonstrative, but filling her with enthusiastic admiration. She
remembered him calmly and manfully meeting the shock of the failure,
that would, he knew, fetter and encumber him through life--how
resolutely he had faced the difficulties, how unselfishly he had put
himself out of the question, how uprightly he had dealt by the
creditors, how considerately by his father and aunt, how wise and
moderate his proceedings had been throughout. She recollected how she
had shared his aspirations, and gloried in his consistent and prudent
course, without perceiving what sorrow had since taught her-that
ambition was to him what pleasure was to other young men. What had it
not been to her when that ambition began to be gratified! when he had
become a leading man in Parliament, and by-and-by held office.
There, a change came over the spirit of her dream; and though she
sighed, she could not but smile at the fair picture that rose before
her, of a young girl of radiant loveliness, her golden curls drooping
over her neck, and her eyes blue as the starry veronica by the hedge
side, smiling in the sunshine. She thought of the glances of proud
delight that her cousin had stolen at her, to read in her face, that
his Louisa was more than all he had told her. Little was needed to
make her love the sweet, caressing young creature who had thrown her
arms round her, and told her that she saw it was all nonsense to tell
her she was such a good, grave, dreadful cousin Mary! Yet there had
been some few misgivings! So short an acquaintance! Her cousin too
busy for more than being bewitched by the lovely face! The Villiers
family, so gay and fashionable! Might not all have been foreseen? And
yet, of what use would foresight have been? The gentleman was deeply
attached, and the lady's family courted the match, the distinction he
had won, atoning for his encumbered fortune.
Other scenes arose on her memory--Louisa, a triumphant beauty, living
on the homage she received, all brilliance, grace, and enjoyment. But
there was a darkening background which grew more prominent. Poor
Louisa had little wisdom by nature, and her education had been solely
directed to enable her to shine in the world, not to render her fit for
the companionship of a man of domestic tastes, accustomed to the
society of superior women. There was nothing to fall back upon,
nothing to make a home, she was listless and weary whenever gaiety
failed her--and he, disappointed and baffled, too unbending to draw her
out, too much occupied to watch over her, yielded to her tastes, and
let her pursue her favourite enjoyments unchecked.
A time had come when childish vanity and frivolity were verging on
levity and imprudence. Expostulations fell powerless on her
shallowness. Painful was the remembrance of the deprecating roguish
glance of the beautiful eyes, and the coaxing caresses with which she
kissed away the lecture, and made promises, only to forget them. She
was like the soulless Undine, with her reckless gaiety and sweetness,
so loving and childish that there was no being displeased with her, so
innocent and devoid of all art or guile in her wilfulness, that her
faults could hardly bear a harsher name than follies.
Again, Mrs. Ponsonby thought of the days when she herself had been left
to stay with her old uncle and aunt. In this very house while her
husband was absent abroad, when she had assisted them to receive the
poor young wife, sent home in failing health. She thought of the sad
weeks, so melancholy in the impossibility of making an impression, or
of leading poor Louisa from her frivolities, she recalled the sorrow of
hearing her build on future schemes of pleasure, the dead blank when
her prattle on them failed, the tedium of deeper subjects, and yet the
bewitching sweetness overpowering all vexation at her exceeding
silliness. Though full one-and-twenty years had passed, still the
tears thrilled warm into Mrs. Ponsonby's eyes at the thought of
Louisa's fond clinging to her, in spite of many an admonition and even
exertion of authority, for she alone dared to control the spoilt
child's self-will; and had far more power than the husband, who seemed
to act as a check and restraint, and whose presence rendered her no
longer easy and natural. One confidence had explained the whole.
'You know, Mary dear, I always was so much afraid of him! If I had had
my own way, I know who it would have been; but there were mamma and
Anna Maria always saying how fortunate I was, and that he would be
Prime Minister, and all the rest. Oh! I was far too young and foolish
for him. He should have married a sober body, such as you, Mary! Why
did he not? She wished she had never teased him by going out so much,
and letting people talk nonsense; he had been very kind, and she was
not half good enough for him. That confession, made to him, would have
been balm for ever; but she had not resolution for the effort, and the
days slid away till the worst fears were fulfilled. Nay, were they the
worst fears? Was there not an unavowed sense that it was safer that
she should die, while innocent of all but wayward folly, than be left
to perils which she was so little able to resist?
The iron expression of grief on her husband's face had forbidden all
sympathy, all attempt at consolation. He had returned at once to his
business in London, there to find that poor Louisa's extravagance had
equalled her folly, and that he, whose pride it had been to redeem his
paternal property, was thrown back by heavy debts on his own account.
This had been known to Mrs. Ponsonby, but by no word from him; he had
never permitted the most distant reference to his wife, and yet, with
inconsistency betraying his passionate love, he had ordered one of the
most beautiful and costly monuments that art could execute, for her
grave at Ormersfield, and had sent brief but explicit orders that,
contrary to all family precedent, his infant should bear no name but
Louis.
On this boy Mrs. Ponsonby had founded all her hopes of a renewal of
happiness for her cousin; but when she had left England there had been
little amalgamation between the volatile animated boy, and his grave
unbending father. She could not conjure up any more comfortable
picture of them than the child uneasily perched on his papa's knee,
looking wistfully for a way of escape, and his father with an air of
having lifted him up as a duty, without knowing what to do with him or
to say to him.
At her earnest advice, the little fellow had been placed as a boarder
with his great aunt, Mrs. Frost, when his grandmother's death had
deprived him of all that was homelike at Ormersfield, He had been with
her till he was old enough for a public school, and she spoke of him as
if he were no less dear to her than her own grandchildren; but she was
one who saw no fault in those whom she loved, and Mrs. Ponsonby had
been rendered a little anxious by a certain tone of dissatisfaction in
Lord Ormersfield's curt mention of his son, and above all by his cold
manner of announcing that this was the day when he would return from
Oxford for the Easter vacation.
Could it be that the son was unworthy, or had the father's feelings
been too much chilled ever to warm again, and all home affections lost
in the strife of politics? These had ever since engaged him, whether
in or out of office, leaving little time for society or for any
domestic pursuit.
Her reflections were interrupted by a call of 'Mamma!' and her daughter
came running up the steps. Mary Ponsonby had too wide a face for
beauty, and not slightness enough for symmetry, but nothing could be
more pleasing and trustworthy than the open countenance, the steady,
clear, greenish-brown eyes, the kind, sensible mouth, the firm chin,
broad though rather short forehead, and healthy though not
highly-coloured cheek; and the voice--full, soft, and cheerful--well
agreed with the expression, and always brought gladness and promise of
sympathy.
'See, mamma, what we have found for you.'
'Violets! The very purple ones that used to grow on the orchard bank!'
'So they did. Mary knew exactly where to look for them,' said Mrs.
Frost, who had followed her up the steps.
'And there is Gervas,' continued Mary; 'so charmed to hear of you, that
we had almost brought him to see you.'
Mrs. Ponsonby declared herself so much invigorated by Ormersfield air,
that she would go to see her old friend the gardener. Mary hurried to
fetch her bonnet, and returned while a panegyric was going on upon her
abilities as maid-of-all-work, in her mother's difficulties with male
housemaids--black and brown--and washerwomen who rode on horseback in
white satin shoes. She looked as if it were hardly natural that any
one but herself should support her mother, when Mrs. Frost tenderly
drew Mrs. Ponsonby's arm into her own; and it was indeed strange to see
the younger lady so frail and broken, and the elder so strong,
vigorous, and active; as they moved along in the sunshine, pausing to
note each spring blossom that bordered the gravel, and entered the
walled kitchen-garden, where espaliers ran parallel with the walks,
dividing the vegetables from the narrow flower-beds, illuminated by
crocuses opening the depths of their golden hearts to the sunbeams and
the revelling bees. Old Gervas, in a patriarchal red waistcoat,
welcomed Mrs. Ponsonby with more warmth than flattery. Bless me,
ma'am, I'm right glad to see you; but how old you be!'
'I must come home to learn how to grow young, Gervas,' said she,
smiling; 'I hear Betty is as youthful as my aunt here.'
'Ay, ma'am, Betty do fight it out tolerablish,' was the reply to this
compliment.
'Why, Gervas, what's all that wilderness? Surely those used to be
strawberry beds.'
'Yes, ma'am, the earliest hautboys; don't ye mind? My young Lord came
and begged it of me, and, bless the lad, I can't refuse him nothing.'
'He seems to be no gardener!'
'He said he wanted to make a Botany Bay sort of garden,' said the old
man; 'and sure enough 'tis a garden of weeds he's made of it, and mine
into the bargain! He has a great big thistle here, and the down blows
right over my beds, thick as snow, so that it is three women's work to
be a match for the weeds; but speak to him of pulling it up, ye'd think
'twas the heart out of him.'
'Does he ever work here?'
'At first it was nought else; he and that young chap, Madison, always
bringing docks and darnel out of the hedges, and plants from the
nursery gardens, and bringing rockwork, and letting water in to make a
swamp. There's no saying what's in the lad's head! But, of late, he's
not done much but by times lying on the bank, reading or speaking
verses out loud to himself, or getting young Madison off his work to
listen to him. Once he got me to hear; but, ma'am, 'twas all about
fairies and such like, putting an ass's head on an honest body as had
lost his way. I told him 'twas no good for him or the boy to read such
stuff, and I'd ha' none of it; but, if he chose to read me some good
book, he'd be welcome--for the candles baint so good as they used, and
I can't get no spectacles to suit me.'
'And did he read to you?'
'A bit or two, ma'am, if the humour took him. But he's young, you see,
ma'am. I'm right glad he'll find you here. My old woman says he do
want a lady about the place to make him comfortable like.'
'And who is this young Madison?' asked Mrs. Ponsonby, when they had
turned from the old gardener.
'To hear Jem, you would believe that he is the most promising plant
rearing for Botany Bay!' said Mrs. Frost. 'He is a boy from that wild
place Marksedge, whom Louis took interest in, and made more familiar
than Jem liked, or than, perhaps, was good for him. It did not answer;
the servants did not like it, and it ended in his being sent to work
with Smith, the ironmonger. Poor Louis! he took it sadly to heart, for
he had taken great pains with the boy.'
'I like to hear the old name, Louis!'
'I can't help it,' said Mrs. Frost. 'He must be his old aunt Kitty's
Louis le Debonnaire! Don't you, remember your calling him so when he
was a baby?'
'Oh yes, it has exactly recalled to me the sort of gracious look that
he used to have--half sly, half sweet-and so very pretty!'
'It suits him as well now. He is the kind of being who must have a pet
name;' and Mrs. Frost, hoping he might be already arrived, could hardly
slacken her eager step so as to keep pace with her niece's feeble
movements. She was disappointed; the carriage had returned without
Lord Fitzjocelyn. His hat and luggage were come, but he himself was
missing. Mrs. Frost was very uneasy, but his father silenced
conjectures by saying, that it was his usual way, and he would make his
appearance before the evening. He would not send to meet another
train, saying, that the penalty of irregularity must be borne, and the
horses should not suffer for such freaks; and he would fain have been
utterly indifferent, but he was evidently listening to every sound, and
betrayed his anxiety by the decision with which he checked all
expression of his aunt's fears.
There was no arrival all that evening, no explanation in the morning;
and Betty Gervas, whom Mary went to visit in the course of the day,
began to wonder whether the young Lord could be gone for a soldier--the
usual fate of all missing village lads.
Mary was on her way home, through the park, along a path skirting the
top of a wooded ravine, a dashing rivulet making a pleasant murmur
among the rocks below, and glancing here and there through the
brushwood that clothed the precipitous banks, when, with a sudden
rustling and crackling, a man leaped upon the path with a stone in each
hand.
Mary started, but she did not lose her presence of mind, and her next
glance showed her that the apparition was not alarming, and was nearly
as much amazed as herself. It was a tall slight young man, in a suit
of shepherd's plaid, with a fair face and graceful agile form,
recalling the word debonnaire as she had yesterday heard it applied. In
instant conviction that this was the truant, she put out her hand by
the same impulse that lighted his features with a smile of welcome, and
the years of separation seemed annihilated as he exclaimed, 'My cousin
Mary!' and grasped her hand, adding, 'I hope I did not frighten you--'
'Oh no; but where did you come from?'
'Up a hill perpendicular, like Hotspur,' he replied, in soft low quiet
tones, which were a strange contrast to the words. 'No, see here,' and
parting the bushes he showed some rude steps, half nature, half art,
leading between the ferns and mountain-ash, and looking very inviting.
'How delightful!' cried Mary.
'I am glad you appreciate it,' he exclaimed; 'I will finish it off now,
and put a rail. I did not care to go on when I had lost the poor
fellow who helped me, but it saves a world of distance.'
'It must be very pretty amongst those beautiful ferns!'
'You can't conceive anything more charming,' he continued, with the
same low distinct utterance, but an earnestness that almost took away
her breath. 'There are nine ferns on this bank--that is, if we have
the Scolopendrium Loevigatum, as I am persuaded. Do you know anything
of ferns? Ah! you come from the land of tree ferns.'
'Oh! I am so glad to exchange them for our home flowers. Primroses
look so friendly and natural.'
'These rocks are perfect nests for them, and they even overhang the
river. This is the best bit of the stream, so rapid and foaming that I
must throw a bridge across for Aunt Catharine. Which would be most
appropriate? I was weighing it as I came up--a simple stone, or a
rustic performance in wood?'
'I should like stone,' said Mary, amused by his eagerness.
'A rough Druidical stone! That's it! The idea of rude negligent
strength accords with such places, and this is a stone country. I know
the very stone! Do come down and see!'
'To-morrow, if you please,' said Mary. 'Mamma must want me, and--but I
suppose they know of your return at home.'
'No, they don't. They have learnt by experience that the right time is
the one never to expect me.'
Mary's eyes were all astonishment, as she said, between wonder and
reproof, 'Is that on purpose?'
'Adventures are thrust on some people,' was the nonchalant reply, with
shoulders depressed, and a twinkle of the eye, as if he purposed
amazing his auditor.'
'I hope you have had an adventure, for nothing else could justify you,'
said Mary, with some humour, but more gravity.
'Only a stray infant-errant, cast on my mercy at the junction station.
Nurse, between eating and gossiping left behind--bell rings--engine
squeaks--train starts--Fitzjocelyn and infant vis-a-vis.'
'You don't mean a baby?'
'A child of five years old, who soon ceased howling, and confided his
history to me. He had been visiting grandmamma in London, and was
going home to Illershall; so I found the best plan would be to leave
the train at the next station, and take him home.'
'Oh, that was quite another thing!' exclaimed Mary, gratified at being
able to like him. 'Could you find his home?'
'Yes; he knew his name and address too well to be lost or mislaid. I
would have come home as soon as I had seen him in at the door; but the
whole family rushed out on me, and conjured me first to dine and then
to sleep. They are capital people. Dobbs is superintendent of the
copper and tin works--a thoroughly right-minded man, with a nice,
ladylike wife, the right sort of sound stuff that old England's heart
is made of. It was worth anything to have seen it! They do
incalculable good with their work-people. I saw the whole concern.'
He launched into an explanation of the process, producing from his
pocket, papers of the ore, in every stage of manufacture, and twisting
them up so carelessly, that they would have become a mass of confusion,
had not Mary undertaken the repacking.
As they approached the house, the library window was thrown up, and
Mrs. Frost came hurrying down with outstretched arms. She was met by
her young nephew with an overflow of fond affection, before he looked
up and beheld his father standing upright and motionless on the highest
step. His excuses were made more lightly and easily than seemed to
suit such rigid looks; but Lord Ormersfield bent his head as if
resigning himself perforce to the explanation, and, with the softened
voice in which he always spoke to Mrs. Ponsonby, said, 'Here he
is--Louis, you remember your cousin.'
She was positively startled; for it was as if his mother's deep blue
eyes were raised to hers, and there were the same regular delicate
features, fair, transparent complexion, and glossy light-brown hair
tinted with gold--the same careless yet deprecating glance, the same
engaging smile that warmed her heart to him at once, in spite of an air
which was not that of wisdom.
'How little altered you are!' she exclaimed. 'If you were not taller
than your father, I should say you were the same Louis that I left
fourteen years ago.'
'I fear that is the chief change,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'A boy that would be a boy all his life, like Sir Thomas More's son!'
said Louis, coolly and simply, but with a twinkle in the corner of his
eye, as if he said it on purpose to be provoking; and Mrs. Frost
interposed by asking where the cousins had met, and whether they had
known each other.
'I knew him by what you said yesterday,' said Mary.
'Louis le Debonnaire? asked Mrs. Frost, smiling.
'No, Mary; not that name!' he exclaimed. 'It is what Jem calls me,
when he has nothing more cutting to say--'
'Aye, because it is exactly what you look when you know you deserve a
scolding--with your shoulders pulled down, and your face made up!' said
his aunt, patting him.
When Mrs. Ponsonby and Mary had left the room to dress, Louis
exclaimed, 'And that is Mrs. Ponsonby! How ill she does look! Her
very voice has broken down, though it still has the sweet sound that I
could never forget! Has she had advice?'
'Dr. Hastings saw her in London,' said his father. 'He sent her into
the country at once, and thinks that there is fair hope that complete
rest of spirits may check the disease.'
'Will she stay here?' said Louis, eagerly. 'That would be like old
times, and we could make her very comfortable. I would train those two
ponies for her drives--'
'I wish she would remain here,' said his father; 'but she is bent on
becoming my aunt's tenant.'
'Ha! That is next best! They could do nothing more commendable. Will
they be a windfall for the House Beautiful?'
'No,' said Mrs. Frost. 'They wish to have a house of their own, in
case Mr. Ponsonby should come home, or Miss Ponsonby to stay with them.'
'The respected aunt who brought Mary up! How long has she been at
Lima?'
'Four years.'
'Four years! She has not made use of her opportunities! Alas for the
illusion dispelled! The Spanish walk and mantilla melt away; and
behold! the primitive wide-mouthed body of fourteen years since!'
Mrs. Frost laughed, but it seemed to be a serious matter with Lord
Ormersfield. 'If you could appreciate sterling worth,' he said, 'you
would be ashamed to speak of your cousin with such conceited
disrespect.'
All the effect was to make Louis walk quietly out of the room; but his
shoulder and eyebrow made a secret telegraph of amazement to Mrs. Frost.
The new arrival seemed to have put the Earl into a state of constant
restless anxiety, subdued and concealed with a high hand, but still
visible to one who knew him so intimately as did Mrs. Ponsonby. She
saw that he watched each word and gesture, and studied her looks to
judge of the opinion they might create in her. Now the process was
much like weighing and balancing the down of Fitzjocelyn's own
favourite thistle; the profusion, the unsubstantiality, and the
volatility being far too similar; and there was something positively
sad in the solicitous heed taken of such utter heedlessness.
The reigning idea was the expedition to Illershall, and the excellent
condition of the work-people under his new friend the superintendent.
Forgetful that mines were a tender subject, the eager speaker became
certain that copper must exist in the neighbourhood, and what an
employment it would afford to all the country round. 'Marksedge must
be the very place, the soil promises metallic veins, the discovery
would be the utmost boon to the people. It would lead to industry and
civilization, and counteract all the evils we have brought on them.
Mary, do you remember Marksedge, the place of exile?'
'Not that I know of.'
'No; we were too young to understand the iniquity. In the last
generation, it was not the plan to stone Naboth, but to remove him.
Great people could not endure little people; so, by way of kindness,
our whole population of Ormersfield, except a few necessary retainers,
were transported bodily from betwixt the wind and our nobility, located
on a moor beyond our confines, a generous gift to the poor-rates of
Bletchynden, away from church, away from work, away from
superintendence, away from all amenities of the poor man's life!'
This was one of the improvements to which Mr. Dynevor had prompted the
last Earl; but Louis did not know whom he was cutting, as he uttered
this tirade, with a glow on his cheek and eye, but with his usual soft,
modulated intonation and polished language, the distinctness and
deliberation taking off all air of rattle, and rendering his words more
impressive.
'Indeed! is there much distress at Marksedge?' said Mrs. Ponsonby.
'They have gifts with our own poor at Christmas,' said Lord
Ormersfield, 'but they are a defiant, ungrateful set, always in
distress by their own fault.'
'What cause have they for gratitude?' exclaimed his son. 'For being
turned out of house and home? for the three miles' walk to their daily
work! Yes, it is the fact. The dozen families left here, with edicts
against lodgers, cannot suffice for the farmer's work; and all Norris's
and Beecher's men have to walk six miles every day of their lives,
besides the hard day's work. They are still farther from their parish,
they are no one's charge, they have neither church nor school, and whom
should we blame for their being lawless?'
'It used to be thought a very good thing for the parish,' said Mrs.
Frost, looking at her niece. 'I remember being sorry for the poor
people, but we did not see things in the light in which Louis puts it.'
'Young men like to find fault with the doings of their elders,' said
Lord Ormersfield.
'Nothing can make me regard it otherwise than as a wicked sin!' said
Louis.
'Nay, my dear,' mildly said Aunt Catharine, 'if it were mistaken, I am
sure it was not intentionally cruel.'
'What I call wicked is to sacrifice the welfare of dependents to our
own selfish convenience! And you would call it cruel too, Aunt
Catharine, if you could hear the poor creatures beg as a favour of Mr.
Holdsworth to be buried among their kin, and know how it has preyed on
the minds of the dying that they might not lie here among their own
people.'
'Change the subject, Fitzjocelyn,' said his father: 'the thing is done,
and cannot be undone.'
'The undoing is my daily thought,' said Louis. 'If I could have tried
my plan of weaving cordage out of cotton-grass and thistle-down, I
think I could have contrived for them.'
Mary looked up, and met his merry blue eye. Was he saying it so
gravely to try whether he could take her in? 'If you could--' she
said, and he went off into a hearty laugh, and finished by saying, so
that no one could guess whether it was sport or earnest, 'Even taking
into account the depredations of the goldfinches, it would be an
admirable speculation, and would confer immeasurable benefits on the
owners of waste lands. I mean to take out a patent when I have
succeeded in the spinning.'
'A patent for a donkey,' whispered Aunt Catharine. He responded with a
deferential bow, and the conversation was changed by the Earl; but
copper was still the subject uppermost with Louis, and no sooner was
dinner over than he followed the ladies to the library, and began
searching every book on metals and minerals, till he had heaped up a
pile of volumes, whence be rang the changes on oxide, pyrites, and
carbonate, and octohedron crystals--names which poor Mrs. Frost had
heard but too often. At last it came to certainty that he had seen the
very masses containing ore; he would send one to-morrow to Illershall
to be analysed, and bring his friend Dobbs down to view the spot.
'Not in my time,' interposed Lord Ormersfield. 'I would not wish for a
greater misfortune than the discovery of a mine on my property.'
'No wonder,' thought Mrs. Ponsonby, as she recollected Wheal Salamanca
and Wheal Catharine, and Wheal Dynevor, and all the other wheals that
had wheeled away all Cheveleigh and half Ormersfield, till the last
unfortunate wheal failed when the rope broke, and there were no funds
to buy a new one. No wonder Lord Ormersfield trembled when he heard
his son launch out into those easily-ascending conjectural
calculations, freely working sums in his head, so exactly like the old
Earl, his grandfather, that she could have laughed, but for sympathy
with the father, and anxiety to see how the son would take the damp so
vexatiously cast on his projects.
He made the gesture that Mrs. Frost called debonnaire--read on for five
minutes in silence, insisted on teaching his aunt the cause of the
colours in peacock ores, compared them to a pigeon's neck, and talked
of old Betty Gervas's tame pigeons; whence he proceeded to memories of
the days that he and Mary had spent together, and asked which of their
old haunts she had revisited. Had she been into the nursery?
'Oh yes! but I wondered you had sent the old walnut press into that
lumber-room.'
'Is that satire?' said Louis, starting and looking in her face.
'I don't know what you mean.'
'I have a better right to ask what you mean by stigmatizing my
apartment as a lumber-room?'
'It was only what I saw from the door,' said Mary, a little confused,
but rallying and answering with spirit; 'and I must maintain that, if
you mean the room over the garden entrance, it is very like a
lumber-room.'
'Ah, Mary! you have not outgrown the delusions of your sex. Is an
Englishman's house his castle while housemaids maraud over it,
ransacking his possessions, irritating poor peaceful dust that only
wants to be let alone, sweeping away cherished cobwebs?'
'Oh, if you cherish cobwebs!' said Mary.
'Did not the fortunes of Scotland hang on a spider's thread? Did not a
cobweb save the life of Mahomet, or Ali, or a mediaeval saint--no
matter which? Was not a spider the solace of the Bastille? Have not I
lain for hours on a summer morning watching the tremulous lines of the
beautiful geometrical composition?'
'More shame for you!' said Mary, with a sort of dry humorous bluntness.
'The very answer you would have made in old times,' cried Louis,
delighted. 'O Mary, you bring me back the days of my youth! You never
would see the giant who used to live in that press!'
'I remember our great fall from the top of it.'
'Oh yes!' cried Louis; 'Jem Frost had set us up there bolt upright for
sentries, and I saw the enemies too soon, when you would not allow that
they were there. I was going to fire my musket at them; but you used
violence to keep me steady to my duty--pulled my hair, did not you?'
'I know you scratched me, and we both rolled off together! I wonder we
were not both killed!'
'That did not trouble Jem! He picked us up, and ordered us into arrest
under the bed for breach of discipline.'
'I fear Jem was a martinet,' said Mrs. Frost.
'That he was! A general formed on the model of him who, not contented
with assaulting a demi-lune, had taken une lune toute entiere. We had
a siege of the Fort Bombadero, inaccessible, and with mortars firing
double-hand grenades. They were dandelion clocks, and there were
nettles to act the part of poisoned spikes on the breach.'
'I remember the nettles,' said Mary, 'and Jem's driving you to gather
them; you standing with your bare legs in the nettle-bed, when he would
make me dig, and I could not come to help you!'
'On duty in the trenches. Your sense of duty was exemplary. I
remember your digging on, like a very Casablanca, all alone, in the
midst of a thunder-storm, because Jem had forgotten to call you in,
crying all the time with fear of the lightning!'
'You came to help me,' said Mary. 'You came rushing out from the
nursery to my rescue!'
'I could not make you stir. We were taken prisoners by a sally from
the nursery. For once in your life, you were in disgrace!'
'I quite thought I ought to mind Jem,' said Mary, 'and never knew
whether it was play or earnest.'
'Only so could you transgress,' said Louis,--'you who never cried,
except as my amateur Mungo Malagrowther. Poor Mary! what an amazement
it was to me to find you breaking your heart over the utmost penalties
of the nursery law, when to me they only afforded agreeable occasions
of showing that I did not care! I must have been intolerable till you
and Mrs. Ponsonby took me in hand!'
'I am glad you own your obligations,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'I own myself as much obliged to Mary for making me wise, as to Jem for
making me foolish.'
'It is not the cause of gratitude I should have expected,' said his
father.
'Alas! if he and Clara were but here!' sighed Louis. 'I entreated him
in terms that might have moved a pyramid from its base, but the Frost
was arctic. An iceberg will move, but he is past all melting!'
'I respect his steadiness of purpose,' said the Earl; 'I know no young
man whom I honour more than James.'
His aunt and his son were looking towards each other with glistening
eyes of triumph and congratulation, and Mrs. Frost cleared her voice to
say that he was making far too much of her Jemmy; a very good boy, to
be sure, but if he said so much of him, the Marys would be disappointed
to see nothing but a little fiery Welshman.
CHAPTER IV.
THISTLE-DOWN.
Lightly soars the thistle-down,
Lightly does it float--,
Lightly seeds of care are sown,
Little do we note.
Watch life's thistles bud and blow,
Oh, 'tis pleasant folly;
But when all life's paths they strew,
Then comes melancholy.
Poetry Past and Present.
Mary Ponsonby had led a life of change and wandering that had given her
few strong local attachments. The period she had spent at Ormersfield,
when she was from five to seven years old, had been the most joyous
part of her life, and had given her a strong feeling for the place
where she had lived with her mother, and in an atmosphere of affection,
free from the shadow of that skeleton in the house, which had darkened
her childhood more than she understood.
The great weakness of Mrs. Ponsonby's life had been her over-hasty
acceptance of a man, whom she did not thoroughly know, because her
delicacy had taken alarm at foolish gossip about herself and her
cousin. It was a folly that had been severely visited. Irreligious
himself, Mr. Ponsonby disliked his wife's strictness; he resented her
affection for her own family, gave way to dissipated habits, and made
her miserable both by violence and neglect. Born late of this unhappy
marriage, little Mary was his only substantial link to his wife, and he
had never been wanting in tenderness to her: but many a storm had raged
over the poor child's head; and, though she did not know why the kind
old Countess had come to remove her and her mother, and 'papa' was
still a loved and honoured title, she was fully sensible of the calm
security at Ormersfield.
When Mr. Ponsonby had recalled his wife on his appointment at Lima,
Mary had been left in England for education, under the charge of his
sister in London. Miss Ponsonby was good and kind, but of narrow
views, thinking all titled people fashionable, and all fashionable
people reprobate, jealous of her sister-in-law's love for her own
family, and, though unable to believe her brother blameless, holding it
as an axiom that married people could not fall out without faults on
both sides, and charging a large share of their unhappiness on the
house of Fitzjocelyn. Principle had prevented her from endeavouring to
weaken the little girl's affection to her mother; but it had been her
great object to train her up in habits of sober judgment, and freedom
from all the romance, poetry, and enthusiasm which she fancied had been
injurious to Mrs. Ponsonby. The soil was of the very kind that she
would have chosen. Mary was intelligent, but with more sense than
fancy, more practical than intellectual, and preferring the homely to
the tasteful. At school, study and accomplishments were mere tasks,
her recreation was found in acts of kindness to her companions, and her
hopes were all fixed on the going out to Peru, to be useful to her
father and mother. At seventeen she went; full of active, housewifely
habits, with a clear head, sound heart, and cramped mind, her spirits
even and cheerful, but not high nor mirthful, after ten years of
evenings spent in needlework beside a dry maiden aunt.
Nor was the home she found at Lima likely to foster the joyousness of
early girlhood. Mr. Ponsonby was excessively fond of her; but his
affection to her only marked, by contrast, the gulf between him and her
mother. There was no longer any open misconduct on his part, and Mrs.
Ponsonby was almost tremblingly attentive to his wishes; but he was
chill and sarcastic in his manner towards her, and her nervous attacks
often betrayed that she had been made to suffer in private for
differences of opinion. Health and spirits were breaking down; and,
though she never uttered a word of complaint, the sight of her
sufferings was trying for a warm-hearted young girl.
Mary's refuge was hearty affection to both parents. She would not
reason nor notice where filial tact taught her that it was best to be
ignorant; she charged all tracasseries on the Peruvian republic, and
set herself simply to ameliorate each vexation as it arose, and divert
attention from it without generalizing, even to herself, on the state
of the family. The English comfort which she brought into the Limenian
household was one element of peace; and her brisk, energetic habits
produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did much to make home
agreeable to her father, and removed many cares which oppressed her
mother. To her, Mary was all the world-daughter, comforter, friend,
and nurse, unfailing in deeds of love or words of cheer, and removing
all sense of dreariness and solitude. And Mary had found her mother
all, and more than all she remembered, and admired and loved her with a
deep, quiet glow of intense affection. There was so much call for
Mary's actual exertion of various kinds, that there was little
opportunity for cultivating or enlarging her mind by books, though the
scenes and circumstances around her could not but take some effect.
Still, at twenty-one she was so much what she had been at seventeen--so
staid, sensible, and practical, that Miss Ponsonby gladly pronounced
her not in the least spoilt.
Fain would her aunt have kept both her and her mother as her guests;
but Mrs. Ponsonby had permission to choose whatever residence best
suited her, and felt that Bryanston-square and Miss Ponsonby would be
fatal to her harassed spirits. She yearned after the home and
companions of her youth, and Miss Ponsonby could only look severe, talk
of London doctors, and take Mary aside to warn her against temptations
from fashionable people.
Mary had been looking for the fashionable people ever since, and the
first sign of them she had seen, was the air and figure of her cousin
Fitzjocelyn. Probably good Aunt Melicent would distrust him; and yet
his odd startling talk, and the arch look of mischief in the corners of
his mouth and eyes, had so much likeness to the little Louis of old
times, that she could not look on him as a stranger nor as a formidable
being; but was always recurring to the almost monitorial sense of
protection, with which she formerly used to regard him, when she shared
his nursery.
Her mother had cultivated her love for Ormersfield, and she was charmed
by her visits to old haunts, well remembering everything. She gladly
recognised the little low-browed church, the dumpy tower, and
grave-yard rising so high that it seemed to intend to bury the church
itself, and permitted many a view, through the lattices, of the seats,
and the Fitzjocelyn hatchments and monuments.
She lingered after church on Sunday afternoon with Mrs. Frost to look
at Lady Fitzjocelyn's monument. It was in the chancel, a recumbent
figure in white marble, as if newly fallen asleep, and with the lovely
features chiselled from a cast taken after death had fixed and ennobled
their beauty.
'It is just like Louis's profile!' said Mrs. Frost, as they came out.
'Well,' said Louis, who was nearer than she was aware, 'I hope at least
no one will make me the occasion of a lion when I am dead.'
'It is very beautiful,' said Mary.
'May be so; but the sentiment is destroyed by its having been six
months in the Royal Academy, number 16,136, and by seeing it down among
the excursions in the Northwold Guide.'
'Louis, my dear, you should not be satirical on this,' said Mrs. Frost.
'I never meant it,' said Louis, 'but I never could love that monument.
It used to oppress me with a sense of having a white marble mother!
And, seriously, it fills up the chancel as if it were its show-room,
according to our family tradition that the church is dedicated to the
Fitzjocelyns. Living or dead, we have taken it all to ourselves.'
'It was a very fair, respectable congregation,' said his aunt.
'Exactly so. That is my complaint. Everything belonging to his
lordship is respectable--except his son.'
'Take care, Louis; here is Mary looking as if she would take you at
your word.'
'Pray, Mary, do they let no one who is not respectable go to church in
Peru?'
'I do not think you would change your congregation for the wretched
crowds of brown beggars,' said Mary.
'Would I not?' cried Louis. 'Oh! if the analogous class here in
England could but feel that the church was for them!--not driven out
and thrust aside, by our respectability.'
'Marksedge to wit!' said a good-humoured voice, as Mr. Holdsworth, the
young Vicar, appeared at his own wicket, with a hearty greeting. 'I
never hear those words without knowing where you are, Fitzjocelyn.'
'I hope to be there literally some day this week,' said Louis. 'Will
you walk with me? I want to ask old Madison how his grandson goes on.
I missed going to see after the boy last time I was at home.'
'I fear he has not been going on well, and have been sorry for it ever
since,' said the Vicar. 'His master told me that he found him very
idle and saucy.'
'People of that sort never know how to speak to a lad,' said Louis. 'It
is their own rating that they ought to blame.'
'Not Tom Madison, I know,' said Mr. Holdsworth, laughing. 'But I did
not come out to combat that point, but to inquire after the commissions
you kindly undertook.'
'I have brought you such a set of prizes! Red rubrics, red margins;
and for the apparatus, I have brought a globe with all the mountains in
high relief;--yes, and an admirable physical atlas, and a box of
instruments and models for applying mathematics to mechanics. We might
give evening lectures, and interest the young farmers.'
'Pray,' said the Vicar, with a sound of dismay, 'where may the bill be?
I thought the limits were two pounds eighteen.'
'Oh! I take all that on myself.'
'We shall see,' said Mr. Holdsworth, not gratefully. 'Was Origen sent
home in time for you to bring?'
'There!' cried Louis, starting, 'Origen is lying on the very chair
where I put him last January. I will write to Jem Frost to-morrow to
send him to the binder.'
'Is it of any use to ask for the music?'
'I assure you, Mr. Holdsworth, I am very sorry. I'll write at once to
Frost.'
'Then I am afraid the parish will not be reformed as you promised last
Christmas,' said the Vicar, turning, with a smile, to Mrs. Frost. 'We
were to be civilized by weekly concerts in the school.'
'What were you to play, Louis?' said Mrs. Frost, laughing.
'I was to imitate all the birds in the air at once,' said Louis,
beginning to chirp like a melee of sparrows, turning it into the croak
of a raven, and breaking off suddenly with, 'I beg your pardon--I
forgot it was Sunday! Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than
that I was a wretch not to remember. Next time I'll write it all down
in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that if my hat be
stolen, the thief shall fulfil the commissions, and punctually send in
the bill to the Rev. W. B. Holdsworth!'
'I shall hardly run the risk,' said Mr. Holdsworth, smiling, as he
parted with them, and disappeared within his clipped yew hedges.
'Poor, ill-used Mr. Holdsworth!' cried Aunt Catharine.
'Yes, it was base to forget the binding of that book,' said Louis,
gravely. 'I wish I knew what amends to make.'
'You owe amends far more for making a present of a commission. I used
to do the like, to save myself trouble, till I came down in the world,
and then I found it had been a mere air de grand seigneur.'
'I should not dare to serve you or Jem so; but I thought the school was
impersonal, and could receive a favour.'
'It is no favour, unless you clearly define where the commission ended
and the gift began. Careless benefits oblige no one.'
Fitzjocelyn received his aunt's scoldings very prettily. His manner to
her was a becoming mixture of the chivalrous, the filial, and the
playful. Mary watched it as a new and pretty picture. All his
confidence, too, seemed to be hers; but who could help pouring out his
heart to the ever-indulgent, sympathizing Aunt Catharine? It was
evidently the greatest treat to him to have her for his guest, and his
attention to her extended even to the reading a sermon to her in the
evening, to spare her eyes; a measure so entirely after Aunt Melicent's
heart, that Mary decided that even she would not think her cousin so
hopelessly fashionable.
Goodnatured he was, without doubt; for as the three ladies were sitting
down to a sociable morning of work and reading aloud, he came in to say
he was going to see after Tom Madison, and to ask if there were any
commands for Northwold, with his checked shooting-jacket pockets so
puffed out that his aunt began patting and inquiring. 'Provisions for
the House Beautiful,' he said, as forth came on the one side a long
rough brown yam. 'I saw it at a shop in London,' he said, 'and thought
the Faithfull sisters would like to be reminded of their West Indian
feasts.' And, 'to make the balance true,' he had in the other pocket a
lambswool shawl of gorgeous dyes, with wools to make the like, and the
receipt, in what he called 'female algebra,' the long knitting-pins
under his arm like a riding-whip. He explained that he thought it
would be a winter's work for Miss Salome to imitate it, and that she
would succour half-a-dozen families with the proceeds; and Mrs.
Ponsonby was pleased to hear him speak so affectionately of the two old
maiden sisters. They were the nieces of an old gentleman to whom the
central and handsomest house of Dynevor Terrace had been let. He had
an annuity which had died with him, and they inherited very little but
the furniture with which they had lived on in the same house, in hopes
of lodgers, and paying rent to Mrs. Frost when they had any. There was
a close friendship and perfect understanding between her and them, and,
as she truly assured them, full and constant rent could hardly have
done her as much good as their neighbourhood. Miss Mercy was the
Sister of Charity of all Northwold; Miss Salome, who was confined to
her chair by a complaint in her knee, knitted and made fancy-works, the
sale of which furnished funds for her charities. She was highly
educated, and had a great knowledge of natural history. Fitzjocelyn
had given their abode the name of the House Beautiful, as being
redolent of the essence of the Pilgrim's Progress; and the title was so
fully accepted by their friends, that the very postman would soon know
it. He lingered, discoursing on this topic, while Mary repacked his
parcels, and his aunt gave him a message to Jane Beckett, to send the
carpenter to No. 5 before Mary's visit of inspection; but she
prophesied that he would forget; and, in fact, it was no good augury
that he left the knitting-pins behind him on the table, and Mary was
only just in time to catch him with them at the front door.
'Thank you, Mary--you are the universal memory,' he said. 'What rest
you must give my father's methodical spirit! I saw you pile up all
those Blackwoods of mine this morning, just as he was going to fall
upon them.'
'If you saw it, I should have expected you to do it yourself,' said
Mary, in her quaint downright manner.
'Never expect me to do what is expected,' answered he.
'Do you do that because it is not expected?' said Mary, feeling almost
as if he were beyond the pale of reason, as she saw him adjusting a
plant of groundsel in his cap.
'It is for the dicky-bird at my aunt's. There's no lack of it at the
Terrace; but it is an old habit, and there always was an illusion that
Ormersfield groundsel is a superior article.'
'I suppose that is why you grow go much.'
'Are you a gardener? Some day we will go to work, clear the place, and
separate the botanical from the intrusive!'
'I should like it, of all things!'
'I'll send the horse round to the stable, and begin at once!' exclaimed
Louis, all eagerness; but Mary demurred, as she had promised to read to
her mother and aunt some of their old favourites, Madame de Sevigne's
letters, and his attention flew off to his restless steed, which he
wanted her to admire.
'My Yeomanry charger,' he said. 'We turn out five troopers. I hope
you will be here when we go out, for going round to Northwold brought
me into a direful scrape when I went to exhibit myself to the dear old
Terrace world. My father said it was an unworthy ambition. What would
he have thought, if he had seen Jane stroking me down with the brush on
the plea of dust, but really on the principle of stroking a dog! Good
old Jane! Have you seen her yet? Has she talked to you about Master
Oliver?'
The horse became so impatient, that Mary had no time for more than a
monosyllable, before Louis was obliged to mount and ride off; and he
was seen no more till just before dinner, when, with a shade of French
malice, Mrs. Frost inquired about Jane and the carpenter: she had seen
the cap, still decorated with groundsel, lying in the hall, and had a
shrewd suspicion, but the answer went beyond her expectations--'Ah!' he
said, 'it is all the effect of the Norman mania!'
'What have you been doing? What is the matter?' she cried, alarmed.
'The matter is not with me, but with the magistrates.'
'My dear Louis, don't look so very wise and capable, or I shall think
it a very bad scrape indeed! Pray tell me what you have been about.'
'You know Sir Gilbert Brewster and Mr. Shoreland are rabid about the
little brook between their estates, of which each wishes to arrogate to
himself the exclusive fishing. Their keepers watch like the Austrian
guard on the Danube, in a life of perpetual assault and battery. Last
Saturday, March 3rd, 1847, one Benjamin Hodgekin, aged fifteen, had the
misfortune to wash his feet in the debateable water; the belligerent
powers made common cause, and haled the wretch before the Petty
Sessions. His mother met me. She lived in service here till she
married a man at Marksedge, now dead. This poor boy is an admirable
son, the main stay of the family, who must starve if he were
imprisoned, and she declared, with tears in her eyes, that she could
not bear for a child of hers to be sent to gaol, and begged me to speak
to the gentlemen.' He started up with kindling eyes and vehement
manner. 'I went to the Justice-room!'
'My dear! with the groundsel?'
'And the knitting-needles!'
On rushed the narration, unheeding trifles. 'There was the array: Mr.
Calcott in the chair, and old Freeman, and Captain Shaw, and fat Sir
Gilbert, and all the rest, met to condemn this wretched widow's son for
washing his feet in a gutter!'
'Pray what said the indictment?' asked Mrs. Ponsonby.
'Oh, that he had killed an infant trout of the value of three
farthings! Three giant keepers made oath to it, but I had his own
mother's word that he was washing his feet!'
No one could help laughing, but Fitzjocelyn was far past perceiving any
such thing. 'Urge what I would, they fined him. I talked to old
Brewster! I appealed to his generosity, if there be room for
generosity about a trout no bigger than a gudgeon! I talked to Mr.
Calcott, who, I thought, had more sense, but Justice Shallow would have
been more practicable! No one took a rational view but Ramsbotham of
the factory, a very sensible man, with excellent feeling. When it is
recorded in history, who will believe that seven moral, well-meaning
men agreed in condemning a poor lad of fifteen to a fine of five
shillings, costs three-and-sixpence--a sum he could no more pay than I
the National Debt, and with the alternative of three months'
imprisonment, branding and contaminating for life, and destroying all
self-respect? I paid the fine, so there is one act of destruction the
less on the heads of the English squirearchy.'
'Act of destruction!'
'The worst destruction is to blast a man's character because the love
of adventure is strong within him--!'
He was at this point when Lord Ormersfield entered, and after his daily
civil ceremonious inquiries of the ladies whether they had walked or
driven out, he turned to his son, saying, 'I met Mr. Calcott just now,
and heard from him that he had been sorry to convict a person in whom
you took interest, a lad from Marksedge. What did you know of him?'
'I was prompted by common justice and humanity,' said Louis. 'My
protection was claimed for the poor boy, as the son of an old servant
of ours.'
'Indeed! I think you must have been imposed on. Mr. Calcott spoke of
the family as notorious poachers.'
'Find a poor fellow on the wrong side of a hedge, and not a squire but
will swear that he is a hardened ruffian!'
'Usually with reason,' said the Earl. 'Pray when did this person's
parents allege that they had been in my service?'
'It was his mother. Her name was Blackett, and she left us on her
marriage with one of the Hodgekins.'
Lord Ormersfield rang the bell, and Frampton, the butler and
confidential servant, formed on his own model, made his appearance.
'Do you know whether a woman of the name of Blackett ever lived in
service here?'
'Not that I am aware of, my Lord. I will ascertain the fact.'
In a few moments Frampton returned. 'Yes, my Lord, a girl named
Blackett was once engaged to help in the scullery, but was discharged
for dishonesty at the end of a month.'
'Did not Frampton know that that related to me?' said Louis, sotto
voce, to his aunt. 'Did he not trust that he was reducing me from a
sea anemone to a lump of quaking jelly?'
So far from this consummation, Lord Fitzjocelyn looked as triumphant as
Don Quixote liberating Gines de Pasamonte. He and his father might
have sat for illustrations of
'Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care,'
as they occupied the two ends of the dinner-table; the Earl concealing
anxiety and vexation, under more than ordinary punctilious politeness;
the Viscount doing his share of the honours with easy, winning grace
and attention, and rattling on in an under-tone of lively conversation
with Aunt Catharine. Mary was silently amazed at her encouraging him;
but perhaps she could not help spoiling him the more, because there was
a storm impending. At least, as soon as she was in the drawing-room,
she became restless and nervous, and said that she wished his father
could see that speaking sternly to him never did any good; besides, it
was mere inconsiderateness, the excess of chivalrous compassion.
Mrs. Ponsonby said she thought young men's ardour more apt to be
against than for the poacher.
'I must confess,' said Aunt Catherine, with all the reluctance of a
high-spirited Dynevor,--'I must confess that Louis is no sportsman! He
was eager about it once, till he had become a good shot; and then it
lost all zest for him, and he prefers his own vagaries. He never takes
a gun unless James drives him out; and, oddly enough, his father is
quite vexed at his indifference, as if it were not manly. If his father
would only understand him!'
The specimen of that day had almost made Mrs. Ponsonby fear that there
was nothing to understand, and that only dear Aunt Kitty's affection
could perceive anything but amiable folly, and it was not much better
when the young gentleman reappeared, looking very debonnaire, and,
sitting down beside Mrs. Frost, said, in a voice meant for her
alone--'Henry IV; Part II., the insult to Chief Justice Gascoigne. My
father will presently enter and address you:
'O that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-cloths our children as they lay,--
Call'd yours Fitzjocelyn--mine, Frost Dynevor!'
'For shame, Louis! I shall have to call you Fitzjocelyn! You are
behaving very ill.'
'Insulting the English constitution in the person of seven squires.'
'Don't, my dear! It was the very thing to vex your father that you
should have put yourself in such a position.'
'Bearding the Northwold bench with a groundsel plume and a
knitting-needle:
'With a needle for a sword, and a thimble for a hat,
Wilt thou fight a traverse with the Castle cat?'
The proper champion in such a cause, since 'What cat's averse to fish?''
'No, Louis dear,' said his aunt, struggling like a girl to keep her
countenance; 'this is no time for nonsense. One would think you had no
feeling for your father.'
'My dear aunt, I can't go to gaol like Prince Hal. I do assure you, I
did not assault the bench with the knitting-pins. What am I to do?'
'Not set at nought your father's displeasure.'
'I can't help it,' said he, almost sadly, though half smiling. 'What
would become of me if I tried to support the full weight? Interfering
with institutions, ruining reputation, blasting bulwarks, patronizing
poachers, vituperating venerated--'
'Quite true,' cried Aunt Catherine, with spirit. 'You know you had no
business there, lecturing a set of men old enough to be your
grandfathers, and talking them all to death, no doubt.'
'Well, Aunt Kitty, if oppression maddens the wise, what must it do to
the foolish?'
'If you only allow that it was foolish--'
'No; I had rather know whether it was wrong. I believe I was too
eager, and not respectful enough to the old squire: and, on reflection,
it might have been a matter of obedience to my father, not to interfere
with the prejudices of true-born English magistrates. Yes, I was
wrong: I would have owned it sooner, but for the shell he fired over my
head. And for the rest, I don't know how to repent of having protested
against tyranny.'
There was something redeeming in the conclusion, and it was a comfort,
for it was impossible to retain anger with one so gently,
good-humouredly polite and attentive.
A practical answer to the champion was not long in coming. He
volunteered the next day to walk to Northwold with Mrs. Frost and Mary,
who wanted to spend the morning in selecting a house in Dynevor
Terrace, and to be fetched home by-and-by, when Mrs. Ponsonby took her
airing. Two miles seemed nothing to Aunt Catharine, who accepted her
nephew's arm for love, and not for need, as he discoursed of all the
animals that might be naturalized in England, obtained from Mary an
account of the llamas of the Andes, and rode off upon a scheme of an
importation to make the fortune of Marksedge by a manufacture of Alpaca
umbrellas.
Meantime, he must show the beautiful American ducks which he hoped to
naturalize on the pond near the keeper's lodge: but, whistle and call
as he would, nothing showed itself but screaming Canada geese. He ran
round, pulled out a boat half full of water, and, with a foot on each
side, paddled across to a bushy island in the centre,--but in vain.
The keeper's wife, who had the charge over them, came out: 'Oh, my
Lord, I am so sorry! They pretty ducks!'
'Ha! the foxes?'
'I wish it was, my Lord; but it is they poachers out at Marksedge that
are so daring, they would come anywheres--and you see the ducks would
roost up in the trees, and you said I was not to shut 'em up at night.
My master was out up by Beech hollow; I heerd a gun, and looked out; I
seen a man and a boy--I'd take my oath it was young Hodgekin. They do
say Nanny Hodgekin, she as was one of the Blacketts, whose husband was
transported, took in two ducks next morning to Northwold. Warren
couldn't make nothing of it; but if ever he meets that Hodgekin again,
he says he _shall_ catch it!'
'Well, Mrs. Warren, it can't be helped--thank you for the good care you
took of the poor ducks,' said Louis, kindly; and as he walked on
through the gate, he gave a long sigh, and said, 'My dainty ducks! So
there's an end of them, and all their tameness!' But the smile could
not but return. 'It is lucky the case does not come before the bench!
but really that woman deserves a medal for coolness!'
'I suppose,' said Mary, 'she could have paid the fine with the price of
the ducks.'
'Ah! the beauties! I wish Mr. Hodgekin had fallen on the pheasants
instead! However, I am thankful he and Warren did not come to a
collision about them. I am always expecting that, having made those
Marksedge people thieves, murder will be the next consequence.'
A few seconds sufficed to bring the ludicrous back. 'How pat it comes!
Mary, did you prime Mrs. Warren, or did Frampton?'
'I believe you had rather laugh at yourself than at any one else,'
exclaimed his aunt, who felt baffled at having thrown away her
compassion.
'Of course. One knows how much can be borne. Why, Mary, has that set
you studying,--do you dissent?'
'I was thinking whether it is the best thing to be always ready to
laugh at oneself,' said Mary. 'Does it always help in mending?'
''Don't care' came to a bad end,' said Louis; 'but on the other hand,
care killed a cat--so there are two sides to the question.'
While Mary was feeling disappointed at his light tone, he changed it to
one that was almost mournful. 'The worst of it is, that 'don't care'
is my refuge. Whatever I do care about is always thwarted by Frampton
or somebody, and being for ever thrown over, I have only to fall as
softly as I can.'
'You know, my dear,' said Mrs. Frost, 'that your father has no command
of means to gratify you.'
'There are means enough for ourselves,' said Louis; 'that is the
needful duty. What merely personal indulgence did I ever ask for that
was refused me?'
'If that is all you have to complain of, I can't pity you,' said Mary.
'Listen, Mary. Let me wish for a horse, there it is! Let me wish for
a painted window, we can't afford it, though, after all, it would not
eat; but horses are an adjunct of state and propriety. So again, the
parish feasted last 18th of January, because I came of age, and it was
_proper_; while if I ask that our people may be released from work on
Good Friday or Ascension Day, it is thought outrageous.'
'If I remember right, my dear,' interposed his aunt, 'you wanted no
work to be done on any saint's-day. Was there not a scheme that Mr.
Holdsworth called the cricket cure!'
'That may yet be. No one knows the good a few free days would do the
poor. But I developed my plan too rapidly! I'll try again for their
church-going on Good Friday.'
'I think you ought to succeed there.'
'I know how it will be. My father will ring, propound the matter to
Frampton; the answer will be, 'Quite impracticable, my Lord,' and there
will be an end of it.'
'Perhaps not. At least it will have been considered,' said Mary.
'True,' said Louis; 'but you little know what it is to have a Frampton!
If he be a fair sample of prime ministers, no wonder Princes of Wales
go into the opposition!'
'I thought Frampton was a very valuable superior servant.'
'Exactly so. That is the worst of it. He is supreme authority, and
well deserves it. When la Grande Mademoiselle stood before the gates
of Orleans calling to the sentinel to open them, he never stirred a
step, but replied merely with profound bows. That is my case. I make
a request, am answered, 'Yes, my Lord;' find no results, repeat the
process, and at the fourth time am silenced with, 'Quite impracticable
my Lord.''
'Surely Frampton is respectful?'
'It is his very essence. He is a thorough aristocrat, respecting
himself, and therefore respecting all others as they deserve. He
respects a Viscount Fitzjocelyn as an appendage nearly as needful as
the wyverns on each side of the shield; but as to the individual
holding that office, he regards him much as he would one of the wyverns
with a fool's-cap on.'
And with those words, Fitzjocelyn had sprung into the hedge to gather
the earliest willow-catkins, and came down dilating on their silvery,
downy buds and golden blossoms, and on the pleasure they would give
Miss Faithfull, till Mary, who had been beginning to compassionate him,
was almost vexed to think her pity wasted on grievances of mere random
talk.
Warm and kindly was his greeting of his aunt's good old servant, Jane
Beckett, whom Mary was well pleased to meet as one of the kind friends
of her childhood. The refinement that was like an atmosphere around
Mrs. Frost, seemed to have extended even to her servants; for Jane,
though she could hardly read, and carried her accounts in her head, had
manners of a gentle warmth and propriety that had a grace of their own,
even in her racy, bad grammar; and there was no withstanding the merry
smile that twitched up one side of her mouth, while her eyes twinkled
in the varied moods prompted by an inexhaustible fund of good temper,
sympathy, and affection, but the fulness of her love was for the
distant 'Master Oliver,' whose young nursery-maid she had been. Her
eyes winked between tears and smiles when she heard that Miss Mary had
seen him but five months ago, and she inquired after him, gloried in
his prosperity, and talked of his coming home, with far less reserve
than his mother had done.
Mary was struck, also, with the pretty, modest looks of the little
underling, and remarked on them as they proceeded to the inspection of
the next house.
'Yes,' said Louis, 'Charlotte is something between a wood sorrel and a
five-plume moth. Tom Madison, as usual, shows exquisite taste. She is
a perfect Lady of Eschalott.'
'Now, Louis!' said his aunt, standing still, and really looking
annoyed, 'you know I cannot encourage any such thing. Poor little
Charlotte is an orphan, and I am all the more responsible for her.'
'There's a chivalry in poor Tom--'
'Nonsense!' said his aunt, as if resolved not to hear him out, because
afraid of herself. 'Don't say any more about it. I wish I had never
allowed of his bringing your messages.'
'Who set him down in the kitchen to drink a cup of beer?' said Louis,
mischievously.
'Ah! well! one comfort is, that girls never care for boys of the same
age,' replied Aunt Catharine, as she turned the key, and admitted them
into No. 7; when Fitzjocelyn confused Mary's judgment with his
recommendations, till Aunt Catharine pointing out the broken shutter,
and asking if he would not have been better employed in fetching the
carpenter, than in hectoring the magistrates, he promised to make up
for it, fetched a piece of wood and James's tools, and was quickly at
work, his Aunt only warning him, that if he lost Jem's tools she would
not say it was her fault.
By the time Mary's imagination had portrayed what paper, paint,
furniture, and habitation might make the house, and had discerned how
to arrange a pretty little study in case of her father's return; he had
completed the repair in a workmanlike manner, and putting two fingers
to his cap, asked, 'Any other little job for me, ma'am?'
Of course, he forgot the tools, till shamed by Mary's turning back for
them, and after a merry luncheon, served up in haste by Jane, they
betook themselves to Number 8, where the Miss Faithfulls were seated at
a dessert of hard biscuits and water, of neither of which they ever
partook: they only adhered to the hereditary institution of sitting for
twenty minutes after dinner with their red and purple doileys before
them.
Mary seemed to herself carried back fourteen years, and to understand
why her childish fancy had always believed Christiana's Mercy a living
character, when she found herself in the calm, happy little household.
The chief change was that she must now bend down, instead of reaching
up, to receive the kind embraces. Even the garments seemed unchanged,
the dark merino gowns, black silk aprons, white cap-ribbons, the soft
little Indian shawl worn by the elder sister, the ribbon bow by the
younger, distinctions that used to puzzle her infant speculation, not
aware that the coloured bow was Miss Mercy's ensign of youth, and that
its absence would have made Miss Salome feel aged indeed. The two
sisters were much alike--but the younger was the more spare, shrivelled
up into a cheery nonpareil, her bloom changed into something quite as
fresh and healthful, and her blithe tripping step always active, except
when her fingers were nimbly taking their turn. Miss Salome had become
more plump, her cheek was smoother and paler, her eye more placid, her
air that of a patient invalid, and her countenance more intellectual
than her sister's. She said less about their extreme enjoyment of the
yam, and while Mrs. Frost and Mary held counsel with Miss Mercy on
servants and furniture, there was a talk on entomology going on between
her and Fitzjocelyn.
It was very pretty to see him with the old ladies, so gently attentive,
without patronizing, and they, though evidently doting on him, laughing
at him, and treating him like a spoilt child. He insisted on Mary's
seeing their ordinary sitting room, which nature had intended for a
housekeeper's room, but which ladylike inhabitants had rendered what he
called the very 'kernel of the House Beautiful.' There were the stands
of flowers in the window; the bullfinch scolding in his cage, the rare
old shells and china on the old-fashioned cabinets that Mary so well
remembered; and the silk patchwork sofa-cover, the old piano, and Miss
Faithfull's arm chair by the fire, her little table with her beautiful
knitting, and often a flower or insect that she was copying; for she
still drew nicely; and she smiled and consented, as Louis pulled out
her portfolios, life-long collections of portraits of birds, flowers,
or insects. Her knitting found a sale at the workshop, where the object
was well known, and the proceeds were diffused by her sister, and
whether she deserved her name might be guessed by the basket of poor
people's stores beside her chair.
Miss Mercy was well known in every dusky Northwold lane or alley, where
she always found or made a welcome for herself. The kindly counsel and
ready hand were more potent than far larger means without them.
Such neighbours were in themselves a host, and Mary and her mother both
felt as if they had attained a region of unwonted tranquillity and
repose, when they had agreed to rent No. 5, Dynevor Terrace, from the
ensuing Lady-day, and to take possession when carpenters and
upholsterers should have worked their will.
Louis was half-way home when he exclaimed, 'There! I have missed Tom
Madison a second time. When shall I ever remember him at the right
time?'
Little did Louis guess the effect his neglect was taking! Charlotte
Arnold might have told, for Mrs. Martha had brought in stories of his
unsteadiness and idle habits that confirmed her in her obedience to
Jane. She never went out alone in his leisure hours; never looked for
him in returning from church--alas! that was not the place to look for
him now. And yet she could not believe him such a very bad boy as she
was told he had become.
CHAPTER V.
THE TWO MINISTERS.
'The creature's neither one nor t'other.
I caught the animal last night,
And viewed him o'er by candle-light;
I marked him well, 'twas black as jet.
You stare, but sirs, I've got him yet,
And can produce him.' 'Pray, sir, do;
I'll lay my life the thing is blue.'
'And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen
The reptile, you'll pronounce him green.'
'Well, then, at once to end the doubt,'
Replies the man, 'I'll turn him out;
And when before your eyes I've set him,
If you don't find him black, I'll eat him.'
He said--then, full before their sight
Produced the beast, and lo! 'twas white!
MERRICK.
Mrs. Ponsonby had seen in the tropics birds of brilliant hues, that
even, whilst the gazer pronounced them all one beaming tint of gorgeous
purple, would give one flutter, and in another light would flash with
golden green or fiery scarlet. No less startling and unexpected were
the aspects of Lord Fitzjocelyn, 'Every thing by starts, and nothing
long;' sometimes absorbed in study, sometimes equally ardent over a
childish game; wild about philanthropic plans, and apparently
forgetting them the instant a cold word had fallen on them; attempting
everything, finishing nothing; dipping into every kind of book, and
forsaking it after a cursory glance; ever busy, yet ever idle; full of
desultory knowledge, ranging through all kinds of reading and natural
history, and still more full of talk. This last was perhaps his most
decided gift. To any one, of whatever degree, he would talk, he could
hardly have been silent ten minutes with any human being, except
Frampton or his father, and whether deep reflections or arrant nonsense
came out of his mouth, seemed an even chance, though both alike were in
the same soft low voice, and with the same air of quaint pensive
simplicity. He was exceedingly provoking, and yet there was no being
provoked with him!
He was so sincere, affectionate, and obliging, that not to love him was
impossible, yet that love only made his faults more annoying, and Mrs.
Ponsonby could well understand his father's perpetual restless anxiety,
for his foibles were exactly of the sort most likely to tease such a
man as the Earl, and the most positively unsatisfactory part of his
character was the insouciance that he displayed when his trifling or
his wild projects had given umbrage. Yet, even here, she could not but
feel a hope, such as it was, that the carelessness might be the effect
of want of sympathy and visible affection from his father, whose very
anxiety made him the more unbending; and that, what a worse temper
might have resented, rendered a good one gaily reckless and unheeding.
She often wondered whether she should try to give a hint--but Lord
Ormersfield seemed to dread leading to the subject, although on all
else that interested him he came to her as in old times, and seemed
greatly refreshed and softened by her companionship.
An old friend and former fellow-minister had proposed spending a night
at Ormersfield. He was the person whom the Earl most highly esteemed,
and, in his own dignified way, he was solicitous that the household
should be in more than usually perfect order, holding a long conference
with the man of whom he was sure, Frampton. Would that he could have
been equally sure of his son! He looked at him almost wistfully
several times during breakfast, and at last, as they rose, gave an
exhortation 'that he would be punctual to dinner at half-past seven,
which would give him ample time, and he hoped he would be--' He paused
for a word, and his son supplied it. 'On my good behaviour, I
understand.' With that he walked off, leaving Lord Ormersfield telling
Mrs. Ponsonby that it was the first introduction, as he had 'for
various reasons' thought it undesirable to bring Fitzjocelyn early to
London, and betraying his own anxiety as to the impression he might
produce on Sir Miles Oakstead. His own perplexity and despondency
showed themselves in his desire to view his son with the eyes of
others, and he also thought the tenor of Fitzjocelyn's future life
might be coloured by his friend's opinion.
Evening brought the guest. Mrs. Ponsonby was not well enough to appear
at dinner, but Mary and Mrs. Frost, pleased to see an historical
character, were in the drawing-room, enjoying Sir Miles's agreeable
conversation, until they caught certain misgivings reflected in each
other's looks, as time wore on and nothing had been seen or heard of
Louis. The half-hour struck; the Earl waited five minutes, then rang
the bell. 'Is Lord Fitzjocelyn come in?'
'No, my Lord.'
'Bring in the dinner.'
Mary longed to fly in search of him, and spare further vexation. She
had assumed all an elder sister's feelings, and suffered for him as she
used to do, when he was in disgrace and would not heed it. She heard
no more of the conversation, and was insensible to the honour of going
in to dinner with the late Secretary of State, as she saw the empty
place at the table.
The soup was over, when she was aware of a step in the hall, and beside
her stood a grey figure, bespattered with mud, shading his eyes with
his hand, as if dazzled by the lights. 'I beg your pardon,' were the
words, 'but I was obliged to go to Northwold. I have shot a
rose-coloured pastor!'
'Shot him!' cried Mary. 'Was he much hurt?'
'Killed! I took him to Miss Faithfull, to be sketched before he is
stuffed--'
A clearer view of the company, a wave of the hand from the Earl, and
the young gentleman was gone. Next he opened the library door, saying,
'Here's my pretty behaviour!'
'Louis! what is the matter?' cried Mrs. Ponsonby.
'I entirely forgot the right honourable, and marched into the
dining-room to tell Aunt Catharine that I have killed a rose-coloured
pastor.'
'Killed what?'
'A bird, hardly ever seen in England. I spied him in the fir-wood,
went to Warren for a gun, brought him down, and walked on to the House
Beautiful, where Miss Faithfull was enchanted. She will copy him, and
send him to the bird-stuffer. I looked in to give directions, and old
Jenyns was amazed; he never knew one shot here before, so early in the
year too. He says we must send the account to the Ornithological--'
'Do you know how wet you are? exclaimed Mrs. Ponsonby, seeing rivulets
dropping from his coat.
'I see. It rained all the way home, and was so dark, I could not see
the footpath; and when I came in, my eyes were blinded by the light,
and my head so full of the pastor, that the other minister never
occurred to me, and remains under the impression that I have confessed
a sacrilegious murder.'
'You really are incorrigible!' cried Mrs. Ponsonby. 'Why are you not
dressing for dinner?'
'Because you are going to give me a cup of your tea.'
'Certainly not. I shall begin to think you purposely mortified your
father, when you know he wanted you to be reasonable.'
'The lower species never show off well to strangers,' said Fitzjocelyn,
coolly; but, as he lighted his candle, he added, with more candour, 'I
beg your pardon--indeed I did not do this on purpose, but don't say
anything about appearances--there's something in me that is sure to
revolt.'
So noiselessly that the moment was unknown, the vacant chair was filled
by a gentleman irreproachably attired, his face glowing with exercise,
or with what made him very debonnaire and really silent, dining rapidly
and unobtrusively, and never raising his eyes even to his aunt,
probably intending thus to remain all the evening; but presently Sir
Miles turned to him and said, 'Pray satisfy my curiosity. Who is the
rose-coloured pastor?'
Louis raised his eyes, and meeting a pleasing, sensible face, out
beamed his arch look of suppressed fun as he answered, 'He is not at
all clerical. He is otherwise called the rose-coloured ouzel or
starling.'
'Whence is that other startling name?'
'From his attending flocks of sheep, on the same mission as jackdaws
fulfil here--which likewise have an ecclesiastical reputation--
'A great frequenter of the church.''
Fearing alike nonsense and ornithology, Lord Ormersfield changed the
subject, and Louis subsided, but when the gentlemen came into the
drawing-room, Mrs. Ponsonby was surprised to see him taking a fair
share, and no more, of the conversation. Some information had been
wanted about the terms of labour in the mining districts, and Louis's
visit to Illershall enabled him to throw light on the subject, with
much clearness and accuracy. Sir Miles had more literature than Lord
Ormersfield, and was more used to young men; and he began to draw
Fitzjocelyn out, with complete success. Louis fully responded to the
touch, and without a notion that he was showing himself to the best
advantage, he yielded to the pleasure, and for once proved of what he
was capable--revealing unawares an unusual amount of intelligence and
observation, and great power of expression. Not even his aunt had ever
seen him appear so much like a superior man, and the only alloy was his
father's, ill-repressed dread lest he should fall on dangerous ground,
and commit himself either to his wildly philanthropical or
extravagantly monarchical views, whichever might happen to be in the
ascendant. However, such shoals were not approached, nor did Louis
ever plunge out of his depth. The whole of his manner and demeanour
were proofs that, in his case, much talk sprang from exuberance of
ideas, not from self-conceit.
He was equally good in the morning: he had risen early to hunt up some
information which Sir Miles wanted, and the clearness and readiness
with which he had found it were wonderful. The guest was delighted
with him; gave him a warm invitation to Oakstead, and on being left
alone with Mrs. Ponsonby, whom he had formerly known, expressed his
admiration of his friend's son--as a fine, promising young man, of
great ability and originality, and, what was still more remarkable, of
most simple, natural manners, perfectly free from conceit. He seemed
the more amazed, when he found, what he would hardly believe, that
Fitzjocelyn was twenty-one, and had nearly finished his university
education.
The liking was mutual. No sooner had Sir Miles departed, than Louis
came to the library in a rapture, declaring that here was the
refreshing sight of a man unspoilt by political life, which usually ate
out the hearts of people.
Mary smiled at this, and told him that he was talking 'like an old
statesman weary of the world.'
'One may be weary of the world beforehand as well as after,' said he.
'That does not seem worth while,' said Mary.
'No,' he said, 'but one's own immediate look-out may not be flattering,
whatever the next turn may bring;' and he took up the newspaper, and
began to turn it over. ''As butler--as single-handed man--as clerk and
accountant.' There, those are the lucky men, with downright work, and
some one to work for. Or, just listen to this!' and he plunged into a
story of some heroic conduct during a shipwreck. While he was reading
it aloud, with kindling eyes and enthusiastic interest, his father
opened the door. 'Louis,' he said, 'if you are doing nothing, I should
be obliged if you would make two copies of this letter.'
Louis glanced at the end of what he was reading, laid the paper down,
and opened a blotting-book.
'You had better come into the study, or you will not write correctly.'
'I can write, whatever goes on.'
'I particularly wish this to be legible and accurate. You have begun
too low down.'
Louis took another sheet.
'That pen is not fit to write with.'
'The pens are delusions,' said Louis, trying them round, in an easy,
idle way: 'I never could mend a quill! How is this steel one? Refuses
to recognise the purpose of his existence. Aunt Catherine, do you
still forbid steel pens in your school? If so, it must be the solitary
instance. How geese must cackle blessings on the inventor! He should
have a testimonial--a silver inkstand representing the goose that laid
the golden eggs,--and all writing-masters should subscribe. Ha! where
did this pen come from? Mary, were you the bounteous mender! A
thousand thanks.'
If Louis fretted his father by loitering and nonsense, his father was
no less trying by standing over him with advice and criticisms which
would have driven most youths beyond patience, but which he bore with
constant good-humour, till his father returned to the study, when he
exclaimed, 'Now, Mary, if you like to finish the wreck, it will not
interrupt me. This is mere machine-work.'
'Thank you,' said Mary; 'I should like it better afterwards. Do you
think I might do one copy for you? Or would it not suit Lord
Ormersfield?'
Louis made polite demurs, but she overruled them and began.
He stretched himself, took up his Times, and skimmed the remaining
incidents of the shipwreck, till he was shamed by seeing Mary half-way
down the first page, when he resumed his pen, overtook her, and then
relapsed into talk, till Mrs. Frost fairly left the room, to silence
him.
As the two copies were completed, Lord Ormersfield returned; and Mary,
with many apologies, presented her copy, and received most gracious
thanks and compliments on her firm, clear writing, a vexation to her
rather than otherwise, since 'Fitzjocelyn' was called to account for
dubious scrawls, errors, and erasures.
He meekly took another sheet, consoling himself, however, by saying, 'I
warn you that pains will only make it Miss Fanny.'
'What do you mean?'
As if glad to be instigated, he replied, 'Did you never hear of my
signature being mistaken by an ingenious person, who addressed his
answer to 'Miss Fanny Jocelyn? Why, Fanny has been one of Jem's
regular names for me ever since! I have the envelope somewhere as a
curiosity. I'll show it to you, Mary.'
'You seem to be proud of it!' exclaimed his father, nearly out of
patience. 'Pray tell me whether you intend to copy this creditably or
not.'
'I will endeavour, but the Fates must decide. I can scrawl, or, with
pains, I can imitate Miss Fanny; but the other alternative only comes
in happy moments.'
'Do you mean that you cannot write well if you choose?'
'It is like other arts--an inspiration. Dogberry was deep when he said
it came by nature.'
'Then make no more attempts. No. That schoolgirl's niggle is worse
than the first.'
'Fanny, as I told you,' said Louis, looking vacantly up in resigned
despair, yet not without the lurking expression of amusement, 'I will
try again.'
'No, I thank you. I will have no more time wasted.'
Louis passively moved to the window, where he exclaimed that he saw
Aunt Catharine sunning herself in the garden, and must go and help her.
'Did you ever see anything like that?' cried Lord Ormersfield,
thoroughly moved to displeasure.
'There was at least good-humour,' said Mrs. Ponsonby. 'Pardon me,
there was almost as much to try his temper as yours.'
'He is insensible!'
'I think not. A word from Aunt Catharine rules him.'
'Though you counselled it, Mary, I doubt whether her training has
answered. Henry Frost should have been a warning.'
Mary found herself blundering in her new copy, and retreated with it to
the study, while her mother made answer: 'I do not repent of my advice.
The affection between him and Aunt Catherine is the greatest blessing
to him.'
'Poor boy!' said his father, forgetting his letters as he stood
pondering. Mrs. Ponsonby seized the moment for reporting Sir Miles's
opinion, but the Earl did not betray his gratification. 'First sight!'
he said. 'Last night and this afternoon he is as unlike as these are,'
and he placed before her Louis's unlucky copies, together with a letter
written in a bold, manly hand. 'Three different men might have written
these! And he pretends he cannot write like this, if he please!'
'I have no doubt it is to a certain extent true. Yes, absolutely true.
You do not conceive the influence that mood has on some characters
before they have learnt to master themselves. I do not mean temper,
but the mere frame of spirits. Even sense of restraint will often take
away the actual power from a child, or where there is not a strong
will.'
'You are right!' said he, becoming rigid as if with pain. 'He is a
child! You have not yet told me what you think of him. You need not
hesitate. No one sees the likeness more plainly than I do.'
'It is strong externally,' she said; 'but I think it is more external
than real, more temperament than character.'
'You are too metaphysical for me, Mary;' and he would fain have smiled.
'I want you to be hopeful. Half the object would be attained if you
were, and he really deserves that you should.'
'He will not let me. If I hope at one moment, I am disappointed the
next.'
'And how? By nothing worse than boyishness. You confirm what my aunt
tells me, that there has never been a serious complaint of him.'
'Never. His conduct has always been blameless; but every tutor has
said the same--that he has no application, and allows himself to be
surpassed by any one of moderate energy!'
'Blameless conduct! How many fathers would give worlds to be able to
give such a character of a son!'
'There are faults that are the very indications of a manly spirit,'
began the Earl, impatiently. 'Not that I mean that I wish--he has
never given me any trouble--but just look at James Frost, and you would
see what I mean! There's energy in him--fire--independence; you feel
there is substance in him, and like him the better for having a will
and way of his own.'
'So, I think, has Louis; but it is so often thwarted, that it sinks
away under the sense of duty and submission.'
'If there were any consistency or reason in his fancies, they would not
give way so easily; but it is all talk, all extravagant notions--here
one day, gone the next. Not a spark of ambition!'
'Ambition is not so safe a spark that we should wish to see it lighted.'
'A man must wish to see his son hold his proper station, and aim high!
No one can be satisfied to see him a trifler.'
'I have been trying to find out why he trifles. As far as I can see,
he has no ambition, and I do not think his turn will be for a life like
yours. His bent is towards what is to do good to others. He would
make an admirable country gentleman.'
'A mere farmer, idling away his time in his fields.'
'No; doing infinite good by example and influence, and coming forward
whenever duty required it. Depend upon it, the benefit to others is
the impulse which can work on Louis, not personal ambition. Birth has
already given him more than he values.'
'You may be right,' said Lord Ormersfield, 'but it is hard to see so
many advantages thrown away, and what sometimes seems like so much
ability wasted. But who can tell? he is never the same for an hour
together.'
'May it not be for want of a sphere of wholesome action?'
'He is not fit for it, Mary. You know I resolved that the whole
burthen of our losses should fall on me; I made it my object that he
should not suffer, and should freely have whatever I had at the same
age. Everything is cleared at last. I could give him the same income
as I started in life with; but he is so reckless of money, that I
cannot feel justified in putting it into his hands. Say what I will,
not a vacation occurs but he comes to tell me of some paltry debt of
ten or fifteen pounds.'
'He comes to tell you! Nay, never say he has no resolution! Such
debts as those, what are they compared with other young men's, of which
they do not tell their fathers?'
'If he were like other youths, I should know how to deal with him. But
you agree with me, he is not fit to have a larger sum in his hands.'
'Perhaps not; he is too impulsive and inexperienced. If you were to
ask me how to make it conduce to his happiness, I should say, lay out
more on the estate, so as to employ more men, and make improvements in
which he would take interest.'
'I cannot make him care for the estate. Last winter, when he came of
age, I tried to explain the state of affairs; but he was utterly
indifferent--would not trouble himself to understand the papers he was
to sign, and made me quite ashamed of such an exhibition before
Richardson.'
'I wish I could defend him! And yet--you will think me unreasonable,
but I do believe that if he had thought the welfare of others was
concerned, he would have attended more.'
'Umph!'
'I am not sure that it is not his good qualities that make him so hard
to deal with. The want of selfishness and vanity seem to take away two
common springs of action, but I do believe that patience will bring out
something much higher when you have found the way to reach it.'
'That I certainly have not, if it be there!'
'To cultivate his sympathies with you,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, hesitating,
and not venturing to look into his face.
'Enough, Mary,' he said, hastily. You said the like to me once before.'
'But,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, firmly, '_here_ there is a foundation to
work on. There are affections that only need to be drawn out to make
you happy, and him--not, perhaps, what you now wish, but better than
you wish.'
His face had become hard as he answered, 'Thank you, Mary; you have
always meant the best. You have always been kind to me, and to all
belonging to me.'
Her heart ached for the father and son, understanding each other so
little, and paining each other so much, and she feared that the Earl's
mind had been too much cramped, and his feelings too much chilled, for
such softening on his part as could alone, as it seemed, prevent Louis
from being estranged, and left to his naturally fickle and indolent
disposition.
Mary had in the mean time completed her copies, and left them on the
Earl's table; and wishing neither to be thanked nor contrasted with
Louis, she put on her bonnet, to go in search of Aunt Catharine. Not
finding her in the garden, she decided on visiting old Gervas and his
wife, who had gladly caught at her offer of reading to them. The visit
over, she returned by the favourite path above Ferny dell, gathering
primroses, and meditating how to stir up Louis to finish off his rocky
steps, and make one piece of work complete. She paused at the summit
of them, and was much inclined to descend and examine what was wanting,
when she started at hearing a rustling beneath, then a low moan and an
attempt at a call. The bushes and a projecting rock cut off her view;
but, in some trepidation, she called out, 'Is any one there?' Little
did she expect the answer--
'It is I--Fitzjocelyn. Come!--I have had a fall.'
'I'm coming--are you hurt?' she cried, as with shaking limbs she
prepared to begin the descent.
'Not that way,' he called; 'it gave way--go to the left.'
She was almost disobeying; but, recalling herself to thought, she
hurried along the top till the bank became practicable, and tore her
way through brake and brier, till she could return along the side of
the stream.
Horror-struck, she perceived that a heavy stone had given way and
rolled down, bearing Louis with it, to the bottom, where he lay,
ghastly and helpless. She called to him; and he tried to raise
himself, but sank back. 'Mary! is it you? I thought I should have
died here,' he said; as she knelt by him, exclaiming, 'Oh, Louis!
Louis! what a dreadful fall!'
'It is my fault,' he eagerly interrupted. 'I am glad it has happened
to no one else.'
'And you are terribly hurt! I must go for help! but what can I do for
you? Would you like some water?
'Water! Oh! I have heard it all this time gurgling there!'
She filled his cap, and bathed his face, apparently to his great
relief, and she ventured to ask if he had been long there.
'Very long!' he said. 'I must have fainted after I got the stone off
my foot, so I missed Gervas going by. I thought no one else would come
near. Thank God!'
Mary almost grew sick as she saw how dreadfully his left ankle had been
crushed by a heavy stone; and her very turning towards it made him
shudder, and say, 'Don't touch me! I am shattered all over.'
'I am afraid I should only hurt you,' she said, with difficulty
controlling herself. 'I had better fetch some one.'
He did not know how to be left again; but the damp chilliness of his
hands made her the more anxious to procure assistance, and, after
spreading her shawl over him, she made the utmost speed out of the
thicket. As she emerged, she saw Lord Ormersfield riding with his
groom, and her scream and sign arrested him; but, by the time they met,
she could utter nothing but 'Louis!'
'Another accident!' was the almost impatient answer.
'He is dreadfully hurt!' she said, sobbing and breathless. 'His foot
is crushed! He has been there this hour!'
The alarm was indeed given. The Earl seemed about to rush away without
knowing whither; and she had absolutely to withhold him, while,
summoning her faculties, she gave directions to Poynings. Then she let
him draw her on, too fast for speaking, until they reached the spot
where Louis lay, so spent with pain and cold, that he barely opened his
eyes at their voices, made no distinct answers as to his hurts, and
shrank and moaned when his father would have raised him.
Mary contrived to place his head on her lap, bathed his forehead and
chafed his hands, while Lord Ormersfield stood watching him with looks
of misery, or paced about, anxiously looking for the servants.
They came at last, all too soon for poor Louis, who suffered terribly
in the transport, and gave few tokens of consciousness, except a cry
now and then extorted by a rougher movement.
None of the household, scarcely even Mrs. Frost, seemed at first to be
able to believe that Lord Fitzjocelyn could really have hurt himself
seriously. 'Again!' was the first word of every one, for his many
slight accidents were treated like crying 'Wolf;' but Frampton himself
looked perfectly pale and shocked when he perceived how the matter
really stood; and neither he nor Lord Ormersfield was half so helpful
as Mrs. Frost. The shock only called out her energy in behalf of her
darling, and, tender as her nature was, she shrank from nothing that
could soothe and alleviate his suffering; and it did infinitely comfort
him, as he held her hand and looked with affection into her face, even
in the extremity of pain.
Fain would others have been the same support; but his father, though
not leaving him, was completely unnerved, and unable to do anything;
and Mrs. Ponsonby was suffering under one of the attacks that were
brought on by any sudden agitation. Mary, though giddy and throbbing
in every pulse, was forced to put a resolute check on herself--brace
her limbs, steady her voice, and keep her face composed, while every
faculty was absorbed in listening for sounds from her cousin's room,
and her heart was quivering with an anguish of prayer and suspense.
Could she but hide her burning cheeks for one moment, let out one of
the sobs that seemed to be rending her breast, throw herself on her
knees and burst into tears, what an infinite relief it would be! But
Mary had learnt to spend her life in having no self.
CHAPTER VI.
FAREWELLS.
What yet is there that I should do,
Lingering in this darksome vale?
Proud and mighty, fair to view,
Are our schemes, and yet they fail,
Like the sand before the wind,
That no power of man can bind.
ARNDT, Lyra Germanica.
Dynevor Terrace was said to have dark, damp kitchens, but by none who
had ever been in No. 5, when the little compact fire was compressed to
one glowing red crater of cinders, their smile laughing ruddily back
from the bright array on the dresser, the drugget laid down, the round
oaken table brought forward, and Jane Beckett, in afternoon trim,
tending her geraniums, the offspring of the parting Cheveleigh nosegay,
or gauffreing her mistress's caps. No wonder that on raw evenings,
Master James, Miss Clara, or my young Lord, had often been found
gossiping with Jane, toasting their own cheeks as well as the bread, or
pinching their fingers in her gauffreing machine.
Yet, poor little Charlotte Arnold learnt that the kitchen could be
dreary, when Mrs. Beckett had been summoned to nurse Lord Fitzjocelyn,
and she remained in sole charge, under Mrs. Martha's occasional
supervision. She found herself, her household cares over all too soon,
on a cold light March afternoon, with the clock ticking loud enough for
midnight, the smoke-jack indulging in supernatural groans, and the
whole lonely house full of undefined terrors, with an unlimited space
of the like solitude before her. She would even have been glad to be
sure of an evening of Mrs. Martha's good advice, and of darning
stockings! She sat down by the round table to Mr. James's wristbands;
but every creak or crack of the furniture made her start, and think of
death-watches. She might have learnt to contemn superstition, but that
did not prevent it from affecting her nerves.
She spread her favourite study, The Old English Baron, on the table
before her; but the hero had some connexion in her mind with Tom
Madison, for whom she had always coveted a battle-field in France. What
would he feel when he heard how he had filled up his course of evil,
being well-nigh the death of his benefactor! If any one ought to be
haunted, it would assuredly be no other than Tom!
Chills running over her at the thought, she turned to the fire as the
thing nearest life, but at the moment started at a hollow call of her
own name. A face was looking in at her through the geraniums! She
shrieked aloud, and clasped her hands over her eyes.
'Don't make a row. Open the door!'
It was such a relief to hear something unghostly, that she sprang to
the door; but as she undid it, all her scruples seized her, and she
tried to hold it, saying, 'Don't come in! You unfortunate boy, do you
know what you have done?'
But Tom Madison was in a mood to which her female nature cowered. He
pushed the door open, saying authoritatively, 'Tell me how he is!'
'He is as ill as he can be to be alive,' said Charlotte, actuated at
once by the importance of being the repository of such tidings, and by
the excitement of communicating them to one so deeply concerned. 'Mr.
Poynings came in to fetch Mrs. Beckett--he would have no one else to
nurse him--and he says the old Lord and Missus have never had their
clothes off these two nights.'
'Then, was it along of them stones?' asked the lad, hoarsely.
'Yourself should know best!' returned Charlotte. 'Mr. Poynings says
'twas a piece of rock as big as that warming-pan as crushed his ankle!
and you know--'
'I know nothing,' said Tom. 'Master kept me in all day yesterday, and
I only heard just now at Little Northwold, where I've been to take home
some knives of Squire Calcott's. Master may blow me up if he likes,
but I couldn't come till I'd heard the rights of it. Is he so very
bad?'
'They've sent up to London for a doctor,' pursued Charlotte. 'Mr.
Walby don't give but little hope of him. Poor young gentleman, I'm
sure he had a good word from high and low!'
'Well! I'm gone!' cried Tom, vehemently. 'Goodbye to you, Charlotte
Arnold! You'll never see me in these parts more!'
'Gone! Oh, Tom! what do you mean!'
'D'ye think I'll stay here to have this here cast in my face? Such a
one as won't never walk the earth again!' and he burst out into
passionate tears. 'I wish I was dead!'
'Oh, hush, Tom!--that is wicked!'
'May be so! I am all that's wicked, and you all turn against me!'
'I don't turn against you,' sobbed Charlotte, moved to the bottom of
her gentle heart.
'You! you turned against me long ago. You've been too proud to cast
one look at me these three months; and he forgot me; and that's what
drew me on, when who cared what became of me--nor I neither now.'
'Don't speak that way! Don't say 'twas pride. Oh no! but I had to
behave proper, and how should I keep up acquaintance when they said you
went on--unsteady--'
'Aye, aye! I know how it is,' said poor Tom, with broken-down
humility: 'I was not fit for you then, and I'm next thing to a murderer
now; and you're like a white dove that the very fingers of me would
grime. I'll take myself out of your way; but, let what will come of
me, I'll never forget you, Charlotte.'
'Oh, wait, Tom! If I could but say it right!--Oh! I know there's
something about biding patiently, and getting a blessing--if you'd only
stop while I recollect it.'
'I thought I heard voices!' exclaimed Mrs. Martha, suddenly descending
on them. 'I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourselves, and the family in
such trouble! Downright owdacious!'
'Be this your house?' said Tom, stepping before Charlotte, his
dejection giving way instantly to rude independence.
'Oh, very well,' said Martha, with dignity. 'I know what to expect
from such sort of people. The house and young woman is in my charge,
sir; and if you don't be off, I'll call the police.'
'Never trouble your old bones!' retorted Tom.
'Good-bye to you, Charlotte;' and, as in defiance of Martha, he took
her passive hand. 'You'll remember one as loved you true and faithful,
but was drove desperate! Good-bye! I'll not trouble no one no more!'
The three concluding negatives with which he dashed out of the house
utterly overwhelmed Charlotte, and made her perfectly insensible to
Mrs. Martha's objurgations. She believed in the most horrible and
desperate intentions, and sobbed herself into such violent hysterics
that Miss Mercy came in to assist--imagined that the rude boy had
terrified her, misunderstood her shamefaced attempts at explanation,
and left her lying on her bed, crying quietly over her secret terrors,
and over that first, strangely-made declaration of love. The white
dove! she did not deserve it, but it was so poetical! and poor Tom was
so unhappy! She had not time even to think what was become of her own
character for wisdom and prudence.
The next morning, between monition and triumph, Martha announced that
the good-for-nothing chap was off with a valuable parcel of Mr.
Calcott's, and the police were after him; with much more about his
former idle habits,--frequenting of democratic oratory, public-houses,
and fondness for bad company and strolling actors. Meek and easily
cowed, Charlotte only opened her lips to say she knew that he had taken
home Mr. Calcott's parcel. But this brought down a storm on her for
being impertinent enough to defend him, and she sat trembling till it
had subsided; and Martha retreating, left her to weep unrestrainedly
over her wild fancies, and the world's cruelty and injustice towards
one whom, as she was now ready to declare, she loved with her whole
heart.
The bell rang sharply, knocks rattled at the front door! She was sure
that Tom had been just taken out of the river! But instinct to answer
the bell awoke at the second furious clattering and double pealing,
which allowed no time for her to compose her tear-streaked, swollen
face, especially as the hasty sounds suggested 'Mr. James.'
Mr. James it was, but the expected rebuke for keeping him waiting was
not spoken. As he saw her sorrowful looks, he only said, low and
softly, 'Is it so, Charlotte?' In his eyes, there could be but one
cause for grief, and Charlotte's heart smote her for hypocrisy, when
she could barely command her voice to reply, 'No, sir; my Lord has had
a little better night.'
He spoke with unusual gentleness, as he made more inquiries than she
could answer; and when, after a few minutes, he turned to walk on to
Ormersfield, he said, kindly, 'Good-bye, Charlotte; I'll send you word
if I find him better:' and the tears rose in his eyes at the thought
how every one loved the patient.
He was not wrong. There was everywhere great affection and sympathy
for the bright, fantastic being whom all laughed at and liked, and
Northwold and the neighbourhood felt that they could have better spared
something more valuable.
The danger was hardly exaggerated even by Charlotte. The chill of the
long exposure had brought on high fever; and besides the crushed ankle,
there had been severe contusions, which had resulted in an acute pain
in the side, hitherto untouched by remedies, and beyond the
comprehension of the old Northwold surgeon, Mr. Walby. As yet,
however, the idea of peril had not presented itself to Louis, though he
was perfectly sensible. Severe pain and illness were new to him; and
though not fretful nor impatient, he had not the stoicism either of
pride or of physical indifference, put little restraint on the
expression of suffering, and was to an almost childish degree absorbed
in the present. He was always considerate and grateful; and his fond
affection for his Aunt Catharine, and for good old Jane, never failed
to show itself whenever they did anything for his relief; and they were
the best of nurses.
Poor Lord Ormersfield longed to be equally effective; but he was
neither handy nor ready, and could only sit hour after hour beside his
son, never moving except to help the nurses, or to try to catch the
slightest accent of the sufferer. Look up when Louis would, he always
saw the same bowed head, and earnest eyes, which, as Mrs. Ponsonby told
her daughter, looked as they did when Louisa was dying.
The coming of the London surgeon was an era to which Louis evidently
looked anxiously, with the iteration of sickness, often reckoning the
hours till he could arrive; and when at last he came, there was an
evident effort to command attention.
When the visit was over, and the surgeon was taking leave after the
consultation, Fitzjocelyn calmly desired to know his opinion, and kept
his eyes steadily fixed on his face, weighing the import of each word.
All depended on the subduing the inflammatory action, in the side; and
there was every reason to hope that he would have strength for the
severe treatment necessary. There was no reason to despond.
'I understand--thank you,' said Louis.
He shut his eyes, and lay so still that Mrs. Frost trusted that he
slept; but when his father came in, they were open, and Lord
Ormersfield, bending over him, hoped he was in less pain.
'Thank you, there is not much difference.' But the plaintive sound was
gone, the suffering was not the sole thought.
'Walby is coming with the leeches at two o'clock,' said Lord
Ormersfield: 'I reckon much on them.'
'Thank you.' Silence again, but his face spoke a wish, and his aunt
Catharine said, 'What, my dear?'
'I should like to see Mr. Holdsworth,' said Louis, with eyes appealing
to his father.
'He has been here to inquire every day,' said the Earl, choosing
neither to refuse nor understand. 'Whenever it is not too much for
you--'
'It must be quickly, before I am weaker,' said Louis. 'Let it be
before Walby returns, father.'
'Whatever you wish, my dear--' and Lord Ormersfield, turning towards
the table, wrote a note, which Mrs. Frost offered to despatch, thinking
that her presence oppressed her elder nephew, who looked bowed down by
the intensity of grief, which, unexpressed, seemed to pervade the whole
man and weigh him to the earth: and perhaps this also struck Louis for
the first time, for, after having lain silent for some minutes, he
softly said, 'Father!'
The Earl was instantly beside him, but, instead of speaking, Louis
gazed in his face, and sighed, as he murmured, 'I was meant to have
been a comfort to you.'
'My dear boy--' began Lord Ormersfield, but he could not trust his
voice, as he saw Louis's eyes moist with tears.
'I wish I had!' he continued; 'but I have never been anything but a
care and vexation, and I see it all too late.'
'Nay, Louis,' said his father, trying to assume his usual tone of
authority, as if to prove his security, 'you must not give way to
feelings of illness. It is weak to despond.'
'It is best to face it,' said the young man, with slow and feeble
utterance, but with no quailing of eye or voice. 'But oh, father! I
did not think you would feel it so much. I am not worth it.'
For the Earl could neither speak nor breathe, as if smothered by one
mighty unuttered sob, and holding his son's hand between both his own,
pressed it convulsively.
'I am glad Mrs. Ponsonby is here,' said Louis; 'and you will soon find
what a nice fellow Edward Fitzjocelyn is, whom you may make just what--'
'Louis, my own boy, hush! I cannot bear this,' cried his father, in an
accent wrung from him by excess of grief.
'I may recover,' said Louis, finding it his turn to comfort, 'and I
should like to be longer with you, to try to make up--'
'You will. The leeches must relieve you. Only keep up your spirits:
you have many years before you of happiness and success.'
The words brought a look of oppression over Louis's face, but it
cleared as he said, 'I am more willing to be spared those years!'
His father positively started. 'Louis, my poor boy,' he said, 'is it
really so? I know I have seemed a cold, severe father.'
'Oh, do not say so!' exclaimed Louis; 'I have deserved far less-idle,
ungrateful, careless of your wishes. I did not know I could pain you
so much, or I would not have done it. You have forgiven often, say you
forgive now.'
'You have far more to forgive than I,' said the Earl.
'If I could tell you the half-waywardness, discontent, neglect, levity,
wasted time--my treatment of you only three days back. Everything
purposed--nothing done! Oh! what a life to bring before the Judge!'
And he covered his face, but his father heard long-drawn sobs.
'Compose yourself, my dear boy,' he exclaimed, exceedingly grieved and
perplexed. 'You know there is no cause to despond; and even--even if
there were, you have no reason to distress yourself. I can say, from
the bottom of my heart, that you have never given me cause for real
anxiety, your conduct has been exemplary, and I never saw such
attention to religion in any young man. These are mere trifles--'
'Oh, hush, father!' exclaimed Louis. 'You are only making it worse;
you little know what I am! If Mr. Holdsworth would come!'
'He could only tell you the same,' said his father. 'You may take
every comfort in thinking how blameless you have been, keeping so clear
of all the faults of your age. I may not have esteemed you as you
deserved, my poor Louis; but, be assured that very few can have so
little to reproach themselves with as you have.'
Louis almost smiled. 'Poor comfort that,' he said, 'even if it were
true; but oh, father!' and there was a light in his eye, 'I had thought
of 'He hath blotted out like a cloud thy transgressions.''
'That is right. One like you must find comfort in thinking.'
'There is comfort ineffable,' said Louis; 'but if I knew what I may
dare to take home to myself! It is all so dim and confused. This pain
will not let anything come connectedly. Would you give me that little
manuscript book!'
It was given; and as the many loose leaves fell under Louis's weak
hand, his father was amazed at the mass of copies of prayers, texts,
and meditations that he had brought together; the earlier pages
containing childish prayers written in Aunt Catharine's hand. Louis's
cheeks coloured at the revelation of his hidden life, as his father put
them together for him.
'It is of no use,' he said, sadly; 'I cannot read. Perhaps my aunt
would come and read this to me.'
'Let me,' said his father; and Louis looked pleased.
Lord Ormersfield read what was pointed out. To him it was a glimpse of
a very new world of contrition, faith, hope, and prayer; but he saw the
uneasy expression on Louis's face give place to serenity, as one
already at home in that sphere.
'Thank you,' he said. 'That was what I wanted. Mr. Holdsworth will
soon come, and then I don't want to say much more. Only don't take
this too much to heart--I am not worth it; and but for you and the dear
Terrace home, I can be very glad. If I may hope, the hope is so
bright! Here there are so many ways of going wrong, and all I do
always fails; and yet I always tried to do Him service. Oh, to have
all perfect!--no failure--no inconsistency--no self! Can it be?'
'I always tried to do Him service!' Sadly and dejectedly as the words
were spoken--mournful as was the contrast between the will and the
result, this was the true cause that there was peace with Louis.
Unstable, negligent, impetuous, and weak as he had been, the one
earnest purpose had been his, guarding the heart, though not yet
controlling the judgment. His soul was awake to the unseen, and thus
the sense of the reality of bliss ineffable, and power to take comfort
in the one great Sacrifice, came with no novelty nor strangeness. It
was a more solemn, more painful preparation, but such as he had
habitually made, only now it was for a more perfect Festival.
His father, as much awestruck by his hopes as distressed by his
penitence, still gave himself credit for having soothed him, and went
to meet and forewarn the Vicar that poor Fitzjocelyn was inclined to
despond, and was attaching such importance to the merest, foibles in a
most innocent life, that he required the most tender and careful
encouragement. He spoke in his usual tone of authoritative courtesy;
and then, finding that his son wished to be left alone with Mr.
Holdsworth, he went to the library to seek the only person to whom he
could bear to talk.
'Mary,' he said, 'you were right. I have done so little to make that
poor boy of mine happy, that he does not wish for life.'
Mrs. Ponsonby looked up surprised. 'Are you sure of what he meant?'
she said. 'Was it not that this life has nothing to compare with that
which is to come?'
'But what can be more unnatural?' said the Earl. 'At his age, with
everything before him, nothing but what he felt as my harshness could
so have checked hope and enjoyment. My poor Louis!' And, though eye
and voice were steady and tearless, no words could express the anguish
of his under-tone.
Mrs. Ponsonby adduced instances showing that, to early youth, with
heart still untainted by the world, the joys of the Life Everlasting
have often so beamed out as to efface all that earth could promise, but
he could not be argued out of self-reproach for his own want of
sympathy, and spoke mournfully of his cold manner, sternness to small
faults, and denial of gratifications.
Mary the younger could not help rising from her corner to say, 'Indeed,
Louis said the other day that you never had denied him any personal
indulgence.'
'My dear, he never asked for personal indulgences,' said the Earl. His
further speech was interrupted by a quick step, a slow opening of the
door, and the entrance of James Frost, who grasped his outstretched
hand with a breathless inquiry.
'He is very ill--' Lord Ormersfield paused, too much oppressed to say
more.
'No better? What did the London surgeon say? what?'
'He says there is no time to be lost in attacking the inflammation. If
we can subdue that, he may recover; but the state of the ankle weakens
him severely. I believe myself that he is going fast,' said the Earl,
with the same despairing calmness; and James, after gazing at him to
collect his meaning, dropped into a chair, covered his face with his
hands, and sobbed aloud.
Lord Ormersfield looked on as if he almost envied the relief of the
outburst, but James's first movement was to turn on him, as if he were
neglecting his son, sharply demanding, 'Who is with him?'
'He wished to be left with Mr. Holdsworth.'
'Is it come to this!' cried James. 'Oh, why did I not come down with
him? I might have prevented all this!'
'You could not have acted otherwise,' said the Earl, kindly. 'Your
engagement was already formed.'
'I could!' said James. 'I would not. I thought it one of your excuses
for helping us.'
'It is vain to lament these things now,' said Lord Ormersfield. 'It is
very kind in you to have come down, and it will give him great pleasure
if he be able to see you.'
'If!' James stammered between consternation and anger at the doubt,
and treated the Earl with a kind of implied resentment as if for
injustice suffered by Louis, but it was affecting to see his petulance
received with patience, almost with gratitude, as a proof of his
affection for Louis. The Earl stood upright and motionless before the
fire, answering steadily, but in an almost inward voice, all the
detailed questions put by James, who, seated on one chair, with his
hands locked on the back of the other, looked keenly up to him with his
sharp black eyes, often overflowing with tears, and his voice broken by
grief. When he had elicited that Louis had been much excited and
distressed by the thought of his failings, he burst out, 'Whatever you
may think, Lord Ormersfield, no one ever had less on his conscience!'
'I am sure of it.'
'I know of no one who would have given up his own way again and again
without a murmur, only to be called fickle.'
'Yes, it has often been so,' meekly said Lord Ormersfield.
'Fickle!' repeated James, warming with the topic, and pouring out what
had been boiling within for years. 'He was only fickle because his
standard was too high to be reached! You thought him weak!'
'There may be weakness by nature strengthened by principle,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby.
'True,' cried Jem, who, having taken no previous notice of her, had at
first on her speaking bent his brows on her as if to extend to her the
storm he was inflicting on poor, defenceless Lord Ormersfield, 'he is
thought soft because of his easy way; but come to the point where harm
displays itself, you can't move him a step farther--though he hangs
back in such a quiet, careless fashion, that it seems as if he was only
tired of the whole concern, and so it goes down again as
changeableness.'
'You always did him justice,' said Lord Ormersfield, laying his hand on
his cousin's shoulder, but James retreated ungraciously.
'I suppose, where he saw evil, he actually took a dislike,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby.
'It is an absolute repugnance to anything bad. You,' turning again on
the Earl, 'had an idea of his being too ready to run into all sorts of
company; but I told you there was no danger.'
'You told me I might trust to his disgust to anything unrefined or
dissipated. You knew him best.'
'There is that about him which men, not otherwise particular, respect
as they might a woman or a child. They never show themselves in their
true colours, and I have known him uphold them because he has never
seen their worst side!'
'I have always thought he learnt that peculiar refinement from your
grandmother.'
'I think,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, softly, 'that it is purity of heart
which makes him see heaven so bright.'
'Sydney Calcott walked part of the way with me,' continued Jem, 'and
showed more feeling than I thought was in him. He said just what I do,
that he never saw any one to whom evil seemed so unable to cling. He
spoke of him at school--said he was the friend of all the juniors, but
too dreamy and uncertain for fellows of his own standing. He said, at
first they did not know what to make of him, with his soft looks and
cool ways--they could not make him understand bullying, for he could
not be frightened nor put in a passion. Only once, one great lout
tried forcing bad language on him, and then Fitzjocelyn struck him,
fought him, and was thoroughly licked, to be sure: but Calcott said it
was a moral victory--no one tried the like again--'
James was interrupted by Mr. Holdsworth's entrance. He said a few
words apart to the Earl, who answered, with alarm, 'Not now; he has
gone through enough.'
'I told him so, but he is very anxious, and begged me to return in the
evening.'
'Thank you. You had better join us at dinner.'
The Vicar understood Lord Ormersfield better than did James, and said,
pressing his hand, 'My Lord, it is heart-breaking, but the blessedness
is more than we can feel.'
Mrs. Ponsonby and Mary were left to try to pacify James, who was half
mad at his exclusion from the sickroom, and very angry with every hint
of resignation--abusing the treatment of the doctors, calling Mr. Walby
an old woman, and vehemently bent on prophesying the well-doing of the
patient. Keenly sensitive, grief and suspense made him unusually
irritable; and he seemed to have no power of waiting patiently, and
trusting the event to wiser Hands.
Mrs. Ponsonby dared not entertain any such ardent wishes. Life had not
afforded her so much joy that she should deem it the greatest good, and
all that she had heard gave her the impression that Louis was too soft
and gentle for the world's hard encounter,--most pure and innocent,
sincere and loving at present, but rather with the qualities of
childhood than of manhood, with little strength or perseverance, so
that the very dread of taint or wear made it almost a relief to think
of his freshness and sweetness being secured for ever. Even when she
thought of his father, and shrank from such grief for him, she could
not but see a hope that this affliction might soften the heart closed
up by the first and far worse sorrow, and detach it from the interests
that had absorbed it too exclusively. All this was her food for silent
meditation. Mary sat reading or working beside her, paler perhaps than
her wont, and betraying that her ear caught every sound on the stairs,
but venturing no word except the most matter-of-fact remark, quietly
giving force to the more favourable symptoms.
Not till after Mr. Walby's second visit, when there was a little
respite in the hard life-and-death contest between the remedies and the
inflammation, could Mrs. Frost spare a few moments for her grandson.
She met him on the stairs--threw her arms round his neck, called him
her poor Jemmy, and hastily told him that he must not make her cry. He
looked anxiously in her face, and told her that he must take her place,
for she was worn out.'
'No, thank you, my dear, I can rest by-and-by.'
It sounded very hopeless.
'Come, granny, you always take the bright side.'
'Who knows which is the bright side?' she said. 'Such as he are always
the first. But there, dear Jem, I told you not to make too much of
granny--' and hastily withdrawing her hand, she gave a parting caress
to his hair as he stood on the step below her, and returned to her
charge.
It would have been an inexpressible comfort to James to have had some
one to reproach. His own wretchedness was like a personal injury, and
an offence that he could resent would have been a positive relief. He
was forced to get out of the way of Frampton coming up with a tray of
lemonade, and glared at him, as if even a station on the stairs were
denied, then dashed out of doors, and paced the garden, goaded by every
association the scene recalled. It seemed a mere barbarity to deprive
him of what he now esteemed as the charm of his life--the cousin who
had been as a brother, ever seeking his sympathy, never offended by his
sharp, imperious temper, and though often slighted or tyrannized over,
meeting all in his own debonnaire fashion, and never forsaking the
poor, hard-working student, so that he might well feel that the world
could not offer him aught like Louis Fitzjocelyn.
He stood in the midst of the botanical garden, and, with almost
triumphant satisfaction, prognosticated that now there would be regret
that Louis's schemes had been neglected or sneered at, and when too
late, his father might feel as much sorrow as he had time for. It was
the bitterness, not the softness of grief, in which he looked forth
into the dull blue east-windy haze deepening in the twilight, and
presently beheld something dark moving along under the orchard bank
beneath. 'Hollo! who's there?' he exclaimed, and the form, rearing
itself, disclosed young Madison, never a favourite with him, and
though, as a persecuted protege of Louis, having claims which at
another time might have softened him, coming forward at an unlucky
moment, when his irritation only wanted an object on which to discharge
itself. It was plain that one who came skulking in the private grounds
could intend no good, and James greeted him, harshly, with 'You've no
business here!'
'I'm doing no harm,' said the boy, doggedly, for his temper was as
stubborn as James's was excitable.
'No harm! lurking here in that fashion in the dark! You'll not make me
believe that! Let me hear what brings you here! The truth, mind!'
'I came to hear how Lord Fitzjocelyn is,' said Tom, with brief
bluntness and defiance.
'A likely story! What, you came to ask the apple-trees?' and James
scornfully laughed. 'There was no back-door, I suppose! I could
forgive you anything but such a barefaced falsehood, when you know it
was your own intolerable carelessness that was the only cause of the
accident!'
'Better say 'twas yourself!' cried Tom, hoarse with passion and shaking
all over.
The provocation was intense enough to bring back James's real principle
and self-restraint, and he spoke with more dignity. 'You seem to be
beside yourself, Madison,' he said, 'you had better go at once, before
any one finds you here. Lord Fitzjocelyn cared for you so much, that I
should not wish for you to meet your deserts under present
circumstances. Go! I wish to have no more of your tongue!'
The boy was bounding off, while James walked slowly after to see him
beyond the grounds, and finding Warren the keeper, desired him to be on
the look-out. Warren replied with the tidings that Madison had run
away from his place, and that the police were looking out for him on
the suspicion of having stolen Mr. Calcott's parcel, moralizing further
on the depravity of such doings when my young Lord was so ill, but
accounting for the whole by pronouncing poaching to be bred in the bone
of the Marksedge people.
This little scene had done Jem a great deal of good, both by the
exhalation of bitterness and by the final exertion of forbearance. He
had, indeed, been under two great fallacies on this day,--soothing
Charlotte for the grief that was not caused by Fitzjocelyn's illness,
and driving to extremity the lad brimming over with sorrow not inferior
to his own. Little did he know what a gentle word might have done for
that poor, wild, tempestuous spirit!
Yet, James's heart smote him that evening, when, according to Louis's
earnest wish, Mr. Holdsworth came again, and they all were admitted to
the room, and he saw the feeble sign and summons to the Vicar to bend
down and listen. 'Tell poor Madison, it was wrong in me not to go to
see him. Give him one of my books, and tell him to go on well!'
That day had been one of rapid change, and the remedies and suffering
had so exhausted Louis that he could scarcely speak, and seemed hardly
conscious who was present. All his faculties were absorbed in the one
wish, which late in the evening was granted. The scene was like an
epitome of his life--the large irregular room, cumbered with the
disorderly apparatus of all his multifarious pursuits, while there he
lay on his little narrow iron bed, his features so fair and colourless
as to be strangely like his mother's marble effigy--his eyes closed,
and his brows often contracted with pain, so that there was a doubt how
far his attention was free, but still with a calm, pure sweetness, that
settled down more and more, as if he were being lulled into a sleep.
'He is asleep,' Mrs. Frost said, as they all rose up.
They felt what that sleep might become.
'We might as well wish to detain a snow-wreath,' thought Mr. Holdsworth.
CHAPTER VII.
GOSSAMER.
Chaos is come again.--Othello.
That sleep was not unto death. When James and Mary came simultaneously
creeping to the door in the grey twilight of the morning, they heard
that there had been less pain and more rest, and gradually throughout
the day, there was a diminution of the dangerous symptoms, till the
trembling hope revived that the patient might be given back again to
life.
James was still sadly aggrieved at being forbidden the sick-room, and
exceedingly envied Lord Ormersfield's seat there. He declared, so that
Mary doubted whether it were jest or earnest, that the Earl only
remained there because society expected it from their relative
positions, and that it must retard poor Fitzjocelyn's recovery to be
perpetually basilisked by those cold grey eyes. Mary stood up
gallantly for the Earl, who had always been so kind to her, and, on her
mother's authority, vouched for his strong though hidden, feelings; to
which Jem replied, 'Aye! he was hiding a strong fear of being too late
for the beginning of the Session.'
'I do not think it right to impute motives,' said Mary.
'I would not, Mary, if I could help it,' said James, 'but through the
whole course of my life I have never seen a token that his lordship is
worthy of his son. If he were an ordinary, practical, common-place
block, apt to support his dignity, he might value him, but all the
grace, peculiarity, and conventionality is a mere burthen and vexation,
utterly wasted.'
Mary knew that she was a common-place block, and did not wonder at
herself for not agreeing with James, but cherishing a strong conviction
that the father and son would now leave off rubbing against each other;
since no unprejudiced person could doubt of the strong affection of the
father, nor of the warm gratitude of the son. In spite of the asperity
with which James spoke of the Earl, she was beginning to like him
almost as much as she esteemed him. This had not been the case in
their childhood, when he used to be praised by the elders for his
obedience to his grandmother and his progress in the Northwold Grammar
School; but was terribly overbearing with his juniors, and whether he
cuffed Louis or led him into mischief, equally distressed her. Grown
up, he was peculiarly vif, quick and ready, unselfish in all his ways,
and warmly affectionate--very agreeable companion where his
sensitiveness was not wounded, and meriting high honour by his deeper
qualities. Young as he was, he had already relieved his grandmother
from his own maintenance: he had turned to the utmost account his
education at the endowed school at Northwold; by sheer diligence, had
obtained, first a scholarship and then a fellowship at Oxford; and now,
by practising rigid economy, and spending his vacations in tuition, he
was enabled to send his sister to a boarding-school. He had stolen a
few days from his pupils on hearing of Fitzjocelyn's danger, but was
forced to return as soon as the improvement became confirmed. On the
previous day, he asked Mary to walk with him to the scene of the
accident, and they discussed the cause with more coolness than they
really felt, as they shuddered at the depth of the fall, and the size
of the stones.
James declared it all the fault of that runaway scamp, young Madison,
in whom Louis had always been deceived, and who had never been seen
since the night of his apparition in the garden.
'Poor boy! I suppose that was the reason he ran away,' said Mary.
'A very good thing, too. He would never have been anything but a
torment to Louis. I remember telling him he was setting the stones so
as to break the neck of some one!'
'I think it would be of more use to build them up than to settle how
they broke down,' said Mary. 'Do you think we could manage it safely?'
'A capital thought!' cried James, eagerly, and no sooner said than
done. The two cousins set to work--procured some cement from the
bricklayer in the village, and toiled at their masonry with right
good-will as long as light and time served them, then made an
appointment to meet at half-past six next morning, and finish their
work.
When the rendezvous took place, they were rejoicing over Mrs. Frost's
report of an excellent night, and over her own happy looks, from which
James prognosticated that all her fatigue and watching had done no harm
to her vigorous frame, for which gladness was always the best cordial.
It was a joyous beginning on that spring morning, and seemed to add
fresh sparkles to the dazzling dewdrops, and double merriment to the
blackbirds and thrushes answering each other far and wide, around, as
the sun drew up the grey veil of morning mist. 'They all seem holding a
feast for his recovery!' exclaimed Mary, warming for once into poetry,
as she trudged along, leaving green footmarks in the silver dew.
'Well they may,' said James; 'for who loves them better than he? I
grudge myself this lovely morning, when he is lying there, and my poor
Clara is caged up at that place--the two who would the most enjoy it.'
'Your going to see her will be as good as the spring morning.'
'Poor child! I dread it!' sighed Jem.
It was his first voluntary mention of his sister. He had always turned
the conversation when Mrs. Ponsonby or Mary had tried to inquire for
her, and Mary was glad to lead him on to say more.
'I remember her last when you were teaching her to run alone, and
letting none of us touch her, because you said she was your child, and
belonged to no one else.'
'I should not be so ungrateful, now that I am come to the sense of my
responsibility in teaching her to go alone.'
'But she has Aunt Catherine,' said Mary, thinking that he was putting
the natural guardian out of the question as much now as in the days
referred to.
'My grandmother never had to do with any girl before, and does not
profess to understand them. She let Clara be regularly a boy in
school, at first learning the same lessons, and then teaching; and
whatever I tried to impress in the feminine line, naturally, all went
for nothing. She is as wild as a hare, and has not a particle of a
girl about her!'
'But she is very young.'
'There it is again! She grows so outrageously. She is not sixteen,
and there she is taller than granny already. It is getting quite
absurd.'
'What advice do you want on that head?'
'Seriously, it is a disadvantage, especially to that sort of girl, who
can't afford to look like a woman before her time. Well, as she must
probably depend on herself, I looked out for as good a school as could
be had for the means, and thought I had succeeded, and that she would
be brought into some sort of shape. Granny was ready to break her
heart, but thought it quite right.'
'Then, does it not answer?'
'That is just what I can't tell. You have been used to schools: I wish
you could tell me whether it is a necessary evil, or Clara's own
idiosyncrasy, or peculiar to the place.'
'Whether what is?'
'Her misery!'
'Misery! Why, there is nothing of that in her letters to my aunt.
There is not a complaint.'
'She is a brave girl, who spares granny, when she knows it would be of
no use to distress her. Judge now, there's the sort of letter that I
get from her.'
Mary read.
'DEAREST JEMMY,--Write to me as quick as ever you can, and tell me how
Louis is; and let me come home, or I shall run mad. It is no good
telling me to command my feelings; I am sure I would if I could, for
the girls are more detestable than ever; but what can one do when one
cannot sleep nor eat? All the screaming and crying has got into one
bump in my throat, because I can't get it out in peace. If I could
only shy the inkstand at the English teacher's head! or get one moment
alone and out of sight! Let me come home. I could at least run
messages; and it is of no use for me to stay here, for I can't learn,
and all the girls are looking at me. If they were but boys, they would
have sense! or if I could but kick them! This will make you angry, but
do forgive me; I can't help it, for I am so very unhappy. Louis is as
much to me as you are, and no one ever was so kind; but I know he will
get well--I know he will; only if I knew the pain was better, and could
but hear every minute. You need not come to fetch me; only send me a
telegraph, and one to Miss Brigham. I have money enough for a
second-class ticket, and would come that instant. If you saw the eyes
and heard the whispers of these girls, I am sure you would. I should
laugh at such nonsense any other time, but now I only ask to be
wretched quietly in a corner.
'Your affectionate, nearly crazy, sister,
'CLARA FROST DYNEVOR.'
Mary might well say that there was nothing more expedient than going to
see Clara, and 'much,' said poor James, 'he should gain by that,'
especially on the head that made him most uneasy, and on which he could
only hint lightly--namely, whether the girls were 'putting nonsense in
her head.'
'If they had done her any harm, she would never have written such a
letter,' said Mary.
'True,' said Jem. 'She is a mere child, and never got that notion into
her head for a moment; but if they put it in, we are done for! Or if
the place were ever so bad, I can't remove her now, when granny is thus
occupied. One reason why I made a point of her going to school was,
that I thought doing everything that Fitzjocelyn did was no preparation
for being a governess.'
'Oh! I hope it will not come to that! Mr. Oliver Dynevor talks of
coming home in a very few years.'
'So few, that we shall be grey before he comes. No; Clara and I are
not going to be bound to him for the wealth heaped up while my
grandmother was left in poverty. We mean to be independent.'
Mary was glad to revert to Clara.
'I must do the best I can for her for the present,' said Jem,--'try to
harden her against the girls, and leave her to bear it. Poor dear! it
makes one's heart ache! And to have done it oneself, too! Then, in the
holidays, perhaps, you will help me to judge. You will be her friend,
Mary; there's nothing she needs so much. I thought she would have
found one at school but they are not the right stamp of animal. She
has been too much thrown on Louis; and though he has made a noble thing
of her, that must come to an end, and the sooner the better.'
Certainly, it was a perplexity for a young elder brother; but there
could not but remain some simple wonder in Mary's mind whether the
obvious person, Mrs. Frost, had not better have been left to decide for
her granddaughter.
The building operations gave full occupation to the powers of the two
cousins, and in good time before breakfast, all was successfully
completed,--a hand-rail affixed, and the passage cleared out, till it
looked so creditable, as well as solid, that there was no more to wish
for but that Louis should be able to see their handiwork.
James went away in the better spirits for having been allowed to shake
Louis by the hand and exchange a few words with him. Mary augured that
it would be the better for Clara and for the pupils.
All that further transpired from him was a cheerful letter to Mrs.
Frost, speaking of Clara as perfectly well, and beginning to
accommodate herself to her situation, and from this Mary gathered that
he was better satisfied.
The days brought gradual improvement to the patient, under Mrs. Frost's
tender nursing, and his father's constant assiduity; both of which, as
he revived, seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure, and were
requited with the utmost warmth and caressing sweetness towards his
aunt, and towards his father with ever-fresh gratitude and delight.
Lord Ormersfield was like another man, in the sick-room, whence he
never willingly absented himself for an hour.
One day, however, when he was forced to go to Northwold on business,
Louis put on a fit of coaxing importunity. Nothing would serve him but
some of Jane Beckett's choice dried pears, in the corner of the oaken
cupboard, the key of which was in Aunt Kitty's pocket, and no one must
fetch them for him but Aunt Kitty herself, he was so absurdly earnest
and grave about them, that Jane scolded him, and Mrs. Frost saw
recovery in his arch eyes; understanding all the time that it was all
an excuse for complimenting Jane, and sending her to air herself, visit
the Faithfull sisters, and inspect the Lady of Eschalott. So she
consented to accompany Lord Ormersfield, and leave their charge to Mrs.
Ponsonby, who found Louis quite elated at the success of his
manoeuvre--so much disposed to talk, and so solicitous for the good of
his nurses, that she ventured on a bold stroke.
His chamber was nearly as much like a lumber-room as ever; for any
attempt to clear away or disturb his possessions had seemed, in his
half-conscious condition, to excite and tease him so much, that it had
been at once relinquished. Although the room was large, it was always
too much crowded with his goods; and the tables and chairs that had
been brought in during his illness, had added to the accumulation which
was the despair of Mrs. Beckett and Mr. Frampton. Mrs. Ponsonby thought
it was time for Louis to make a sacrifice in his turn, and ventured to
suggest that he was well enough to say where some of his things might
be bestowed; and though he winced, she persevered in representing how
unpleasant it must be to his father to live in the midst of so much
confusion. The debonnaire expression passed over his face, as he
glanced around, saying, 'You are right. I never reflected on the
stretch of kindness it must have been. It shall be done. If I lose
everything, it will not be soon that I find it out.'
It evidently cost him a good deal, and Mrs. Ponsonby proposed that Mary
should come and deal with his treasures; a plan at which he caught so
eagerly, that it was decided that no time was like the present, and
Mary was called. He could move nothing but his hands; but they were
eagerly held out in welcome: and his eyes glittered with the bright
smile that once she had feared never to see again. She felt a moisture
in her own which made her glad to turn aside to her task even while he
complimented her with an allusion to the labours of Hercules. It did
not seem uncalled-for, when she began by raising a huge sheet of paper
that had been thrown in desperation to veil the confusion upon the
table, and which proved to be the Ordnance map of the county,
embellished with numerous streaks of paint. 'The outlines of the old
Saxon wappentakes,' said Louis: 'I was trying to make them out in blue,
and the Roman roads in red. That mark is spontaneous; it has been
against some paint.'
Which paint was found in dried swamps in saucers, while cakes of lake
and Prussian blue adhered to the drawing-board.
'The colour-box is probably in the walnut-press; but I advise you not
to irritate that yet. Let me see that drawing, the design for the
cottages that Frampton nipped in the bud--'
'How pretty and comfortable they do look!' exclaimed Mary, pleased to
come to something that was within her sphere of comprehension. 'If they
were but finished!'
'Ah! I thought of them when I was lying there in the dell! Had they
been allowed to stand where I wanted them, there would have been no
lack of people going home from work; but, 'Quite impracticable' came in
my way, and I had no heart to finish the drawing.'
'What a pity!' exclaimed Mary.
'This was Richardson's veto, two degrees worse than Frampton's; and I
shall never be able to abuse Frampton again. I have seen him in his
true light now, and never was any one more kind and considerate. Ha,
Mary, what's that?'
'It looks like a rainbow in convulsions.'
'Now, Mary, did not I tell you that I could not laugh? It is a diagram
to illustrate the theory of light for Clara.'
'Does she understand _that_?' cried Mary.
'Clara? She understands anything but going to school--poor child! Yes,
burn that map of the strata,--not that--it is to be a painted window
whenever I can afford one, but I never could make money stay with me.
I never could think why--'
The _why_ was evident enough in the heterogeneous mass--crumpled
prints, blank drawing-paper, and maps heaped ruinously over and under
books, stuffed birds, geological specimens, dislocated microscopes,
pieces of Roman pavement, curiosities innumerable and indescribable;
among which roamed blotting-books, memorandum-books, four pieces of
Indian rubber, three pair of compasses, seven paper-knives, ten knives,
thirteen odd gloves, fifteen pencils, pens beyond reckoning, a purse, a
key, half a poem on the Siege of Granada, three parts of an essay upon
Spade Husbandry, the dramatis personae of a tragedy on Queen
Brunehault, scores of old letters, and the dust of three years and a
half.
Louis owned that the arrangements conduced to finding rather than
losing, and rejoiced at the disinterment of his long-lost treasures;
but either he grew weary, or the many fragments, the ghosts of departed
fancies, made him thoughtful; for he became silent, and only watched
and smiled as Mary quietly and noiselessly completed her reforms, and
arranged table and chairs for the comfort of his father and aunt. He
thanked her warmly, and hoped that she would pursue her kind task
another day,--a permission which she justly esteemed a great testimony
to her having avoided annoying him. It was a great amusement to him to
watch the surprised and pleased looks of his various nurses as each
came in, and a real gratification to see his father settle himself with
an air of comfort, observing that 'they were under great obligations to
Mary.' Still, the sight of the arrangements had left a dreary,
dissatisfied feeling with Louis: it might have been caught from Mary's
involuntary look of disappointment at each incomplete commencement that
she encountered,--the multitude of undertakings hastily begun, laid
aside and neglected--nothing properly carried out. It seemed a mere
waste of life, and dwelt on his spirits, with a weariness of himself
and his own want of steadfastness--a sense of having disappointed her
and disappointed himself, and he sighed so heavily several times, that
his aunt anxiously asked whether he were in pain. He was, however, so
much better, that no one was to sit up with him at night--only his
father would sleep on a bed on the floor. As he bade him good night,
Louis, for the first time, made the request that he might have his
Bible given to him, as well as his little book; and on his father
advising him not to attempt the effort of reading, he said, 'Thank you;
I think I can read my two verses: I want to take up my old habits.'
'Have you really kept up this habit constantly?' asked his father, with
wonder that Louis did not understand.
'Aunt Catharine taught it to us, he said. 'I neglected it one
half-year at school; but I grew so uncomfortable, that I began again.'
The Earl gave the little worn volume, saying, 'Yes, Louis, there has
been a thread running through your life.'
'Has there been one thread?' sadly mused Louis, as he found the weight
of the thick book too much for his weak hands, and his eyes and head
too dizzy and confused for more than one verse:--
'I am come that they might have life,
And that they might have it more abundantly.''
The Bible sank in his hands, and he fell into a slumber so sound and
refreshing, that when he opened his eyes in early morning, he did not
at first realize that he was not awakening to health and activity, nor
why he had an instinctive dread of moving. He turned his eyes towards
the window, uncurtained, so that he could see the breaking dawn. The
sky, deep blue above, faded and glowed towards the horizon into gold,
redder and more radiant below; and in the midst, fast becoming merged
in the increasing light, shone the planet Venus, in her pale, calm
brilliance.
There was repose and delight in dwelling on that fair morning sky, and
Louis lay dreamily gazing, while thoughts passed over his mind, more
defined and connected than pain and weakness had as yet permitted.
Since those hours in which he had roused his faculties to meet with
approaching death, he had been seldom awake to aught but the sensations
of the moment, and had only just become either strong enough, or
sufficiently at leisure for anything like reflection. As he watched
the eastern reddening, he could not but revert to the feelings with
which he had believed himself at the gate of the City that needs
neither sun nor moon to lighten it, and, for the first time, he
consciously realized that he was restored to this world of life.
The sensation was not unmixed. His youthful spirit bounded at the
prospect of returning vigour, his warm heart clung round those whom he
loved, and the perception of his numerous faults made him grateful for
a longer probation; but still he had a sense of having been at the
borders of the glorious Land, and thence turned back to a tedious,
doubtful pilgrimage.
There was much to occasion this state of mind. His life had been
without great troubles, but with many mortifications; he had never been
long satisfied with himself or his pursuits, his ardour had only been
the prelude to vexation and self-abasement, and in his station in the
world there was little incentive to exertion. He had a strong sense of
responsibility, with a temperament made up of tenderness, refinement,
and inertness, such as shrank from the career set before him. He had
seen just enough of political life to destroy any romance of
patriotism, and to make him regard it as little more than party spirit,
and dread the hardening and deadening process on the mind. He had a
dismal experience of his own philanthropy; and he had a conscience that
would not sit down satisfied with selfish ease, pleasure, or
intellectual pursuits. His smooth, bright, loving temper had made him
happy; but the past was all melancholy, neglect, and futile enterprise;
he had no attaching home--no future visions; and, on the outskirts of
manhood, he shrank back from the turmoil, the temptations, and the
roughness that awaited him--nay, from the mere effort of perseverance,
and could almost have sighed to think how nearly the death-pang had
been over, and the home of Love, Life, and Light had been won for
ever:--
'I am come that they might have life,
And that they might have it more abundantly.'
The words returned on him, and with them what his father had said, 'You
have had a thread running through your life.' He was in a state
between sleeping and waking, when the confines of reflection and
dreaming came very near together, and when vague impressions, hardly
noticed at the time they were made, began to tell on him without his
own conscious volition. It was to him as if from that brightening
eastern heaven, multitudes of threads of light were floating hither and
thither, as he had often watched the gossamer undulating in the
sunshine. Some were firm, purely white, and glistening here and there
with rainbow tints as they tended straight upwards, shining more and
more into the perfect day; but for the most part they were tangled
together in inextricable confusion, intermingled with many a broken
end, like fleeces of cobweb driven together by the autumn wind,--some
sailing aimlessly, or with shattered tangled strands-some white, some
dark, some anchored to mere leaves or sprays, some tending down to the
abyss, but all in such a perplexed maze that the eye could seldom trace
which were directed up, which downwards, which were of pure texture,
which defiled and stained.
In the abortive, unsatisfactory attempt to follow out one fluctuating
clue, not without whiteness, and heaving often upwards, but frail,
wavering, ravelled, and tangled, so that scarcely could he find one
line that held together, Louis awoke to find his father wondering that
he could sleep with the sun shining full on his face.
'It was hardly quite a dream,' said Louis, as he related it to Mrs.
Frost.
'It would make a very pretty allegory.'
'It is too real for that just now,' he said. 'It was the moral of all
my broken strands that Mary held up to me yesterday.'
'I hope you are going to do more than point your moral, my dear. You
always were good at that.'
'I mean it,' said Louis, earnestly. 'I do not believe such an
illness--ay, or such a dream--can come for nothing.'
So back went his thoughts to the flaws in his own course; and chiefly
he bewailed his want of sympathy for his father. Material obedience
and submission had been yielded, but, having little cause to believe
himself beloved, his heart had never been called into action so as to
soften the clashings of two essentially dissimilar characters. Instead
of rebelling, or even of murmuring, he had hid disappointment in
indifference, taken refuge in levity and versatility, and even consoled
himself by sporting with what he regarded as prejudice or unjust
displeasure. All this cost him much regret and self-reproach at each
proof of the affection so long veiled by reserve. Never would he have
given pain, had he guessed that his father could feel; but he had grown
up to imagine the whole man made up of politics and conventionalities,
and his new discoveries gave him at least as much contrition as
pleasure.
After long study of the debates, that morning, his father prepared to
write. Louis asked for the paper, saying his senses would just serve
for the advertisements, but presently he made an exclamation of
surprise at beholding, in full progress, the measure which had brought
Sir Miles Oakstead to Ormersfield, one of peculiar interest to the
Earl. His blank look of wonder amused Mrs. Ponsonby, but seemed
somewhat to hurt his father.
'You did not suppose I could attend to such matters now?' he said.
'But I am so much better!'
Fearing that the habit of reserve would check any exchange of feeling,
Mrs. Ponsonby said, 'Did you fancy your father could not think of you
except upon compulsion?'
'I beg your pardon, father,' said Louis, smiling, while a tear rose to
his eyes, 'I little thought I was obstructing the business of the
nation. What will Sir Miles do to me?'
'Sir Miles has written a most kind and gratifying letter,' said Lord
Ormersfield, 'expressing great anxiety for you, and a high opinion of
your powers.'
Louis had never heard of his own powers, except for mischief, and the
colour returned to his cheeks, as he listened to the kind and cordial
letter, written in the first shock of the tidings of the accident. He
enjoyed the pleasure it gave his father far more than the commendation
to himself; for he well knew, as he said, that 'there is something
embellishing in a catastrophe,' and he supposed 'that had driven out
the rose-coloured pastor.'
'There is always indulgence at your age,' said the Earl. 'You have
created an impression which may be of great importance to you
by-and-by.'
Louis recurred to politics. The measure was one which approved itself
to his mind, and he showed all the interest which was usually stifled,
by such subjects being forced on him. He was distressed at detaining
his father when his presence might be essential to the success of his
party, and the Earl could not bear to leave him while still confined to
his bed. The little scene, so calm, and apparently so cold, seemed to
cement the attachment of father and son, by convincing Louis of the
full extent of his father's love; and his enthusiasm began to invest
the Earl's grey head with a perfect halo of wisdom slighted and
affection injured; and the tenor of his thread of life shone out bright
and silvery before him, spun out of projects of devoting heart and soul
to his father's happiness, and meriting his fondness.
The grave Earl was looking through a magnifying-glass no less powerful.
He had not been so happy since his marriage; the consciousness of his
own cold manner made him grateful for any demonstration from his son,
and the many little graces of look and manner which Louis had inherited
from his mother added to the charm. The sense of previous injustice
enhanced all his good qualities, and it was easy to believe him
perfect, while nothing was required of him but to lie still
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