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.