MOTLEY THE ONLY WEAR.
For better far than passion's glow,
Or aught of worldly choice,
To listen His own will to know,
And, listening, hear his voice.
The Angel of Marriage--REV. I. WILLIAMS.
The friendships that grew up out of sight were far more effective than
anything that Lady Conway could accomplish on the stage. Miss King and
the Miss Faithfulls found each other out at once, and the governess was
entreated to knock at the door at the bottom of the stairs whenever her
pupils could spare her.
Then came eager wishes from her pupils to be admitted to the snuggery,
and they were invited to see the curiosities. Isabel believed the
'very good' was found, and came with her sisters. She begged to be
allowed to help in their parish work, under Miss Mercy Faithfull's
guidance; and Sir Roland stood still, while she fancied she was
learning to make little frocks, but really listening to their
revelations of so new a world. She went out with Miss Mercy--she
undertook a class and a district, and began to be happier than ever
before; though how much of the absolute harder toil devolved on Miss
King, neither she nor the governess understood.
This led to intercourse with Mary Ponsonby; and Isabel was a very
different person in that homely, friendly parlour, from the lofty,
frigid Miss Conway of the drawing-room. Cold hauteur melted before
Mary's frank simplicity, and they became friends as fast as two ladies
could beyond the age of romantic plunges, where on one side there was
good-will without enthusiasm, on the other enthusiasm and reserve.
They called each other 'Miss Conway' and 'Miss Ponsonby,' and exchanged
no family secrets; but they were, for all that, faster friends than
young ladies under twenty might imagine.
One winter's day, the crisp, exhilarating frost had lured them far
along the high road beyond Mr. Calcott's park palings, talking over
Isabel's favourite theme, what to wish for her little brother, when the
sound of a large clock striking three made Isabel ask where she was.
'It was the stable clock at Ormersfield,' said Mary, 'did you not know
we were on that road?'
'No, I did not.' And Isabel would have turned, but Mary begged her to
take a few steps up the lane, that they might see how Lord
Fitzjocelyn's new cottages looked. Isabel complied, and added, after a
pause, 'Are you one of Lord Fitzjocelyn's worshippers?'
'I should not like to worship any one,' said Mary, looking
straightforward. 'I am very fond of him, because I have known him all
my life. And he is so good!'
'Then I think I may consider you exempt! It is the only fault I have
to find with Northwold. You are the only person who does not rave
about him--the only person who has not mentioned his name.'
'Have I not? I think that was very unkind of me--'
'Very kind to me,' said Isabel.
'I meant, to him,' said Mary, blushing; 'if you thought that I did not
think most highly of him--'
'Don't go on! I was just going to trust to you for a calm,
dispassionate statement of his merits, and I shall soon lose all my
faith in you.'
'My mother--' began Mary; but just then Lord Ormersfield came forth
from one of the cottages, and encountered the young ladies. He
explained that Fitzjocelyn was coming home next week, and he had come
to see how his last orders had been executed, since Frampton and the
carpenter had sometimes chosen to think for themselves. He was very
anxious that all should be right, and, after a few words, revealed a
perplexity about ovens and boilers, in which Mary's counsel would be
invaluable. So, with apologies and ceremonies to Miss Conway, they
entered, and Isabel stood waiting in the dull kitchen, smelling of raw
plaster, wondering at the extreme eagerness of the discussion with the
mason over the yawning boiler, the Earl referring to his son's letter,
holding it half-a-yard off, and at last giving it to Mary to decipher
by the waning light.
So far had it waned, that when the fixtures had all been inspected,
Lord Ormersfield declared that the young ladies must not return alone,
and insisted on escorting them home. Every five minutes some one
thought of something to say: there was an answer, and by good luck a
rejoinder; then all died away, and Mary pondered how her mother would
in her place have done something to draw the two together, but she
could not. She feared the walk had made Isabel more adverse to all
connected with Ormersfield than even previously; for the Ormersfield
road was avoided, and the question as to Fitzjocelyn's merits was never
renewed.
Mary thought his cause would be safest in the hands of his great
champion, who was coming home from Oxford with him, and was to occupy
his vacation in acting tutor to little Sir Walter Conway. Louis came,
the day after his return, with his father, to make visits in the
Terrace, and was as well-behaved and uninteresting as morning calling
could make him. He was looking very well--his general health quite
restored, and his ankle much better; though he was still forbidden to
ride, and could not walk far.
'You must come and see me, Aunt Kitty,' he said; 'I am not available
for coming in to see you. I'm reading, and I've made a resignation of
myself,' he added, with a slight blush, and debonnaire shrug, glancing
to see that his father was occupied with James.
They were to dine with Lady Conway on the following Tuesday. In the
interim, no one beheld them except Jem, who walked to Ormersfield once
or twice for some skating for his little pupil Walter, and came back
reporting that Louis had sold himself, body and soul, to his father.
Clara came home, a degree more civilized, and burning to confide to
Louis that she had thought of his advice, had been the less miserable
for it, and had much more on which to consult him. She could not
conceive why even grandmamma would not consent to her accompanying the
skaters; though she was giving herself credit for protesting that she
was not going on the ice, only to keep poor Louis company, while the
others were skating.
She was obliged to defer her hopes of seeing him until Tuesday, when
she had been asked to drink tea in the school-room, and appear in the
evening. Mrs. Frost had consented, as a means of exempting herself
from the party. And Clara's incipient feminine nature began to flutter
at her first gaiety. The event was magnified by a present from Jem, of
a broad rose-coloured sash and white muslin dress, with a caution that
she was not to consider the tucks up to the waist as a provision for
future growth.
She flew to exhibit the finery to the Miss Faithfulls, and to consult
on the making-up, and, to her consternation, was caught by Miss Conway
kneeling on the floor, being measured by Miss Salome. To Isabel, there
was a sort of touching novelty in the simplicity that could glory in
pink ribbon when embellished by being a brother's gift; she looked on
with calm pleasure at such homely excitement, and even fetched some
bows of her own, for examples, and offered to send Marianne down with
patterns.
Clara was enchanted to recognise in Miss Conway the vision of the
Euston-square platform. The grand, quiet style of beauty was exactly
fitted to impress a mind like hers, so strongly imbued with sentiments
like those of Louis, and regarding Isabel as necessarily Louis's
destiny, she began to adore her accordingly, with a girl-reverence,
quite as profound, far more unselfish, and little less ardent than that
of man for woman. That a female vision of perfection should engross
Clara's imagination, was a step towards softening her; but, poor child!
the dawn of womanhood was to come in a painful burst.
Surprised at her own aspect, with her light hair dressed by Jane and
wreathed with ivy leaves by grandmamma, and her skirts so full that she
could not refrain from making a gigantic cheese, she was inspected and
admired by granny and Jane, almost approved by Jem himself; and,
exalted by the consciousness of being well-dressed, she repaired to the
school-room tea at the House Beautiful.
Virginia and Louisa were, she thought, very poor imitations of Louis's
countenance--the one too round, the other too thin and sallow; but both
they, their brother, and Miss King were so utterly unlike anything at
school, that she was at once at ease, and began talking with Walter
over schoolboy fun, in which he could not be a greater proficient than
herself. Walter struck up a violent friendship for her on the spot,
and took to calling her 'a fellow,' in oblivion of her sex; and
Virginia and Louisa fell into ecstasies of laughter, which encouraged
Clara and Walter to compote with each other which should most astonish
their weak minds.
In the drawing-room, Lady Conway spoke so graciously, that Clara, was
quite distressed at looking over her head. Mary looked somewhat
oppressed, saying her mother had not been so well that day; and she was
disposed to keep in the background, and occupy herself with Clara; but
it was quite contrary to the Giraffe's notions to be engrossed by any
one when Louis was coming. As if she had divined Mary's intentions of
keeping her from importuning him, she was continually gazing at the
door, ready at once to claim his attention.
At first, the gentlemen only appeared in a black herd at the door,
where Mr. Calcott had stopped Lord Ormersfield short, in his eagerness
to impress on him the views of the county on a police-bill in course of
preparation for the next session. The other magistrates congregated
round; but James Frost and Sydney Calcott had slipped past, to the
piano where Lady Conway had sent Miss Calcott and Isabel. 'Why did not
Fitzjocelyn, come too?' was murmured by the young group in the recess
opposite the door; and when at last he became visible, leaning against
the wall, listening to the Squire, Virginia declared he was going to
serve them just as he used at Beauchastel.
'Oh, no! he shan't--I'll rescue him!' exclaimed Clara; and leaping up
to her cameleopard attitude, she sprang forward, and, with a voice
audible in an unlucky lull of the music, she exclaimed, 'Louis! Louis!
don't you see that I am here?'
As he turned, with a look of surprise and almost rebuke, her own words
came back to her ears as they must have sounded to others; her face
became poppy-coloured, nothing light but her flaxen eyebrows; and she
scarcely gave her hand to be shaken. 'No, I did not know you were
coming,' he said; and almost partaking her confusion, as he felt all
eyes upon her, he looked in vain for a refuge for her.
How welcome was Mary's kind face and quiet gesture, covering poor
Clara's retreat as she sank into a dark nook, sheltered by the old
black cabinet! Louis thanked Mary by a look, as much as to say, 'Just
like you,' and was glad to perceive that James had not been present.
He had gone to ask Miss Faithfull to supply the missing stanzas of a
Jacobite song, and just then returned, saying that she knew them, but
could not remember them.
Fitzjocelyn, however, capped the fragment, and illustrated it with some
anecdotes that interested Miss Conway. James had great hopes that she
was going to see him to the best advantage, but still there was a great
drawback in the presence of Sydney Calcott. Idolized at home,
successful abroad, young Calcott had enough of the prig to be a
perpetual irritation to Jem Frost, all the more because he could never
make Louis resent, nor accept, as other than natural, the goodnatured
supercilious patronage of the steady distinguished senior towards the
idle junior.
Jacobite legends and Stuart relics would have made Miss Conway
oblivious of everything else; but Sydney Calcott must needs divert the
conversation from that channel by saying, 'Ah! there Fitzjocelyn is in
his element. He is a perfect handbook to the byways of history.'
'For the diffusion of useless knowledge?' said Louis.
'Illustrated by the examination, when the only fact you could adduce
about the Argonauts was that Charles V. founded the order of the Golden
Fleece.'
'I beg your pardon; it was his great-grandfather. I had read my
Quentin Durward too well for that.'
'I suspect,' said Isabel, 'that we had all rather be examined in our
Quentin Durward than our Charles V.
'Ah!' said young Calcott, 'I had all my dates at my fingers' ends when
I went up for the modern history prize. Now my sister could beat me.'
'A proof of what I always say,' observed Louis, 'that it is lost labour
to read for an examination.'
'From personal experience?' asked Sydney.
'A Strasburg goose nailed down and crammed before a fire, becomes a
Strasburg pie,' said Louis.
Never did Isabel look more bewildered, and Sydney did not seem at once
to catch the meaning. James added, 'A goose destined to fulfil the
term of existence is not crammed, but the pie stimulus is not required
to prevent it from starving.'
'Is your curious and complimentary culinary fable aimed against reading
or against examinations?' asked Sydney.
'Against neither; only against the connecting preposition.'
'Then you mean to find a superhuman set of students?'
'No; I'm past that. Men and examinations will go on as they are; the
goose will run wild, the requirements will be increased, he will nail
himself down in his despair; and he who crams hardest, and has the
hottest place will gain.'
'Then how is the labour lost?' asked Isabel.
'You are new to Fitzjocelyn's paradoxes,' said Sydney; as if glorying
in having made Louis contradict himself.
'The question is, what is lost labour?' said Louis.
Both Sydney Calcott and Miss Conway looked as if they thought he was
arguing on after a defeat. 'Calcott is teaching her his own
obtuseness!' thought James, in a pet; and he exclaimed, 'Is the aim to
make men or winners of prizes?'
'The aim of prizes is commonly supposed to be to make men,' loftily
observed Sydney.
'Exactly so; and, therefore, I would not make them too analogous to the
Strasburg system,' said Louis. 'I would have them close, searching,
but not admitting of immediate cramming.'
'Pray how would you bring that about?'
'By having no subject on which superficial knowledge could make a show.'
'Oh! I see whither you are working round! That won't do now, my dear
fellow; we must enlarge our field, or we shall lay ourselves open to
the charge of being narrow-minded.'
'You have not strength of mind to be narrow-minded!' said Louis,
shaking his head. 'Ah! well, I have no more to say; my trust is in the
narrow mind, the only expansive one--'
He was at that moment called away; Lord Ormersfield's carriage had been
announced, and his son was not in a quarter of the room where he wished
to detain him. James could willingly have bitten Sydney Calcott for
the observation, 'Poor Fitzjocelyn! he came out strong to-night.'
'Very clever,' said Isabel, wishing to gratify James.
'Oh yes, very; if he had ever taken pains,' said Sydney. 'There is
often something in his paradoxes. After all, I believe he is reading
hard for his degree, is he not, Jem? His feelings would not be hurt by
the question, for he never piqued himself upon his consistency.'
Luckily for the general peace, the Calcott household was on the move,
and Jem solaced himself on their departure by exclaiming, 'Well done,
Strasburg system! A high-power Greek-imbibing machine, he may be, but
as to comprehending Fitzjocelyn--'
'Nay,' said Isabel, 'I think Lord Fitzjocelyn ought to carry about a
pocket expositor, if he will be so very startling. He did not stay to
tell us what to understand by narrow minds.'
'Did you ever hear of any one good for anything, that was not accused
of a narrow mind?' exclaimed James.
'If that were what he meant,' said Isabel,--'but he said his trust was
in the narrow mind--'
'In what is popularly so called,' said James.
'I think,' said Mary, leaning forward, and speaking low, 'that he did
not mean it to be explained away. I think he was going to say that the
heart may be wide, but the mind must be so far narrow, that it will
accept only the one right, not the many wrong.'
'I thought narrowness of mind consisted in thinking your own way the
only right one,' said Isabel.
'Every one says so,' said Mary, 'and that is why he says it takes
strength of mind to be narrow-minded. Is not the real evil, the
judging people harshly, because their ways are not the same; not the
being sure that the one way is the only right! Others may be better
than ourselves, and may be led right in spite of their error, but
surely we are not to think all paths alike--
'And is that Lord Fitzjocelyn's definition of a narrow mind?' said
Isabel. 'It sounds like faith and love. Are you sure you did not make
it yourself, Miss Ponsonby?'
'I could not,' said Mary, blushing, as she remembered one Sunday
evening when he had said something to that effect, which had insensibly
overthrown the theory in which she had been bred up, namely, that all
the sincere were right, and yet that, practically every one was to be
censured, who did not act exactly like Aunt Melicent.
She rose to take leave, and Clara clung to her, emerging from the shade
of her cabinet with colour little mitigated since her disappearance.
James would have come with them, but was detained by Lady Conway for a
few moments longer than it took them to put on their shawls; and Clara
would not wait. She dragged Mary down the steps into the darkness, and
groaned out, 'O Mary, he can never speak to me again!'
'My dear! he will not recollect it. It was very awkward, but new
places and new people often do make us forget ourselves.'
'Everybody saw, everybody heard! O, I shall never bear to meet one of
them again!'
'I think very few saw or heard--' began Mary.
'He did! I did! That's enough! The rest is nothing! I have been as
bad as any one at school! I shall never hold up my head there again as
I have done, and Louis! Oh!'
'Dear child, it will not be remembered. You only forgot how tall you
were, and that you were not at home. He knows you too well to care.'
James shouted from behind to know why they had not been let into the
house; and as Clara rushed in at the door and he walked on with Mary to
leave her at home and fetch his grandmother, who had been spending the
evening with Mrs. Ponsonby, he muttered, 'I don't know which is most
intolerable! He neglects her, talks what, if it be not nonsense, might
as well be; and as if she were not ready enough to misunderstand,
Sydney Calcott must needs thrust in his wits to embroil her
understanding. Mary! can't you get her to see the stuff he is made of?'
'If she cannot do that for herself, no persuasion of mine will make
her,' said Mary.
'No! you do not half appreciate him either! No one does! And yet you
could, if you tried, do something with her! I see she does not think
you prejudiced. You made an impression to-night.'
Mary felt some consternation. Could it depend on her? She could
speak naturally, and from her heart in defence of Louis when occasion
served; but something within her forbade the thought of doing so on a
system. Was that something wrong! She could not answer; but contented
herself with the womanly intuition that showed her that anything of
persuasion in the present state of affairs would be ineffectual and
unbecoming.
Meantime, Clara had fled to her little room, to bid her childhood
farewell in a flood of bitter tears.
Exaggerated shame, past disdain of the foibles of others, the fancy
that she was publicly disgraced and had forfeited Louis's good opinion,
each thought renewed her sobs; but the true pang was the perception
that old times were passed for ever. He might forgive, he would still
be friend and cousin; but womanhood had broken on her, and shown that
perfect freedom was at an end. Happy for her that she wept but for the
parting from a playfellow! Happy that her feelings were young and
undeveloped, free from all the cruel permanence that earlier vanity or
self-consciousness might have given; happy that it could be so freely
washed away! When she had spent her sobs, she could resolve to be wise
and steady, so as to be a fit governess to his children; and the tears
flowed at the notion of being so distant and respectful to his
lordship. But what stories she could tell them of his boyhood! And in
the midst of--'Now, my dears, I will tell you about your papa when he
was a little boy,' she fell asleep.
That party was a thing to be remembered with tingling cheeks for life,
and Clara dreaded her next meeting with Louis; but the days passed on
without his coming to the Terrace, and the terror began to wear off,
especially as she did not find that any one else remembered her
outbreak. Mary guarded against any unfavourable impression by a few
simple words to Isabel and Miss King as to the brotherly terms that had
hitherto prevailed, and poor Clara's subsequent distress. Clara came in
for some of the bright tints in which her brother was viewed at the
House Beautiful; Walter was very fond of her, and she had been drawn
into a friendship for Virginia, cemented in the course of long walks,
when the schoolroom party always begged for Mr. and Miss Dynevor,
because no one else could keep Walter from disturbing Louisa's nerves
by teasing her pony or sliding on dubious ice.
As Mrs. Ponsonby often joined in Lady Conway's drive, Mary and Isabel
were generally among the walkers; and Mary was considered by Louisa as
an inestimable pony-leader, and an inexhaustible magazine of stories
about sharks, earthquakes, llamas, and icebergs.
James and Miss Conway generally had either book or principle to
discuss, and were usually to be found somewhat in the rear, either with
or without Miss King. One day, however, James gave notice that he
should not be at their service that afternoon; and as soon as Walter's
lessons had been despatched, he set out with rapid steps for
Ormersfield Park, clenching his teeth together every now and then with
his determinate resolution that he would make Louis know his own mind,
and would 'stand no nonsense.'
'Ah! James, good morning,' said the Earl, as he presented himself in
the study. 'You will find Louis in his room. I wish you would make
him come out with you. He is working harder than is good for him.'
He spoke of his son far differently from former times; but Jem only
returned a judiciously intoned 'Poor fellow.'
Lord Ormersfield looked at him anxiously, and, hesitating, said, 'You
do not think him out of spirits?'
'Oh, he carries it off very well. I know no one with so strong a sense
of duty,' replied Jem, never compassionate to the father.
Again the Earl paused, then said, 'He may probably speak more
unreservedly to you than to me.'
'He shuns the topic. He says there is no use in aggravating the
feelings by discussion. He would fain submit in heart as well as in
will.'
Lord Ormersfield sighed, but did not appear disposed to say more; and,
charitably hoping that a dagger had been implanted in him, Jem ran
up-stairs, and found Louis sitting writing at a table, which looked as
if Mary had never been near it.
'Jem! That's right! I've not seen you this age.'
'What are you about?'
'I wanted particularly some one to listen. It is an essay on the
Police--'
'Is this earnest?'
'Sober earnest. Sir Miles and all that set are anxious to bring the
matter forward, and my father has been getting it up, as he does
whatever he may have to speak upon. His eyes are rather failing for
candle-light work, so I have been helping him in the evening, till it
struck me that it was a curious subject to trace in history,--the
Censors, the attempts in Germany and Spain, to supply the defective
law, the Spanish and Italian dread of justice. I became enamoured of
the notion, and when I have thrown all the hints together, I shall try
to take in my father by reading them to him as an article in the
Quarterly.'
'Oh, very well. If your soul is there, that is an end of the matter.'
'Of what matter?'
'Things cannot run on in this way. It is not a thing to lay upon me to
go on working in your cause with her when you will not stir a step in
your own behalf.'
'I am very much obliged to you, but I never asked you to work in my
cause. I beg your pardon, Jem, don't fly into a Welsh explosion. No
one ever meant more kindly and generously--' He checked himself in
amaze at the demonstration he had elicited; but, as it was not
accompanied with words, he continued, 'No one can be more grateful to
you than I; but, as far as I can see, there is nothing for it but to be
thankful that no more harm has been done, and to let the matter drop;'
and he dropped his hand with just so much despondency as to make Jem
think him worth storming at, instead of giving him up; and he went over
the old ground of Louis being incapable of true passion and unworthy of
such a being if he could yield her without an effort, merely for the
sake of peace.
'I say, Jem,' said Louis, quietly, 'all this was bad enough on neutral
ground; it is mere treason under my father's own roof, and I will have
no more of it.'
'Then,' cried James, with a strange light in his eyes, 'you henceforth
renounce all hopes--all pretensions?'
'I never had either hope or pretension. I do not cease to think her,
as I always did, the loveliest creature I ever beheld. I cannot help
that; and the state I fell into after being with her on Tuesday,
convinced me that it is safest to stay here and fill up time and
thought as best I may.'
'For once, Fitzjocelyn,' said James, with a gravity not natural to him,
'I think better of your father than you do. I would neither treat him
as so tyrannical nor so prejudiced as your conduct supposes him.'
'How? He is as kind as possible. We never had so much in common.'
'Yes. Your submission so far, and the united testimony of the Terrace,
will soften him. Show your true sentiments. A little steadiness and
perseverance, and you will prevail.'
'Don't make me feverish, Jem.'
A summons to Lord Fitzjocelyn to come down to a visitor in the library
cut short the discussion, and James took leave at once, neither cousin
wishing to resume the conversation.
The darts had not been injudiciously aimed. The father and son were
both rendered uneasy. They had hitherto been unusually comfortable
together, and though the life was unexciting, Louis's desire to be
useful to his father, and the pressing need of working for his degree,
kept his mind fairly occupied. Though wistful looks might sometimes be
turned along the Northwold road, when he sallied forth in the twilight
for his constitutional walk, he did not analyse which number of the
Terrace was the magnet, and he avoided testing to the utmost the powers
of his foot. The affection and solicitude shown for him at home
claimed a full return; nor had James been greatly mistaken in ascribing
something to the facility of nature that yielded to force of character.
But Jem had stirred up much that Louis would have been contented to
leave dormant; and the hope that he had striven to excite came almost
teazingly to interfere with the passive acquiescence of an indolent
will. Perturbed and doubtful, he was going to seek counsel as usual of
the open air, as soon as the visitor was gone, but his father followed
him into the hall, asking whither he was going.
'I do not know. I had been thinking of trying whether I can get as far
as Marksedge.'
Marksedge would be fatal to the ankle, solitude to the spirits, thought
the Earl; and he at once declared his intention of walking with his son
as far as he should let him go.
Louis was half vexed, half flattered, and they proceeded in silence,
till conscious of being ruffled, and afraid of being ungracious, he
made a remark on the farm that they were approaching, and learnt in
return that the lease was nearly out, the tenant did not want a
renewal, and that Richardson intended to advertise.
He breathed a wish that it were in their own hands, and this led to a
statement of the condition of affairs, the same to which a year before
he had been wilfully deaf, and to which he now attended chiefly for the
sake of gratifying his father, though he better understood what
depended on it. At least, it was making the Earl insensible to the
space they were traversing, and the black outlines of Marksedge were
rising on him before he was aware. Then he would have turned, but
Louis pleaded that having come so far, he should be glad to speak to
Madison's grandfather, and one or two other old people, and he
prevailed.
Lord Ormersfield was not prepared for the real aspect of the hamlet.
'Richardson always declared that the cottages were kept in repair,' he
said.
'Richardson never sees them. He trusts to Reeves.'
'The people might do something themselves to keep the place decent.'
'They might; but they lose heart out of sight of respectability. I
will just knock at this door--I will not detain you a moment.'
The dark smoky room, damp, ill-paved floor, and cracked walls produced
their effect; and the name and voice of the inmate did more. Lord
Ormersfield recognised a man who had once worked in the garden, and
came forward and spoke, astonished and shocked to find him prematurely
old. The story was soon told; there had been a seasoning fever as a
welcome to the half-reclaimed moorland; ague and typhus were frequent
visitors, and disabling rheumatism a more permanent companion to
labourers exhausted by long wet walks in addition to the daily toil.
At an age less than that of the Earl himself, he beheld a bowed and
broken cripple.
Fitzjocelyn perceived his victory, and forebore to press it too
hastily, lest he should hurt his father's feelings; and walked on
silently, thinking how glad Mary would be to hear of this expedition,
and what a pity it was that the unlucky passage of last August should
have interfered with their comfortable friendship. At last the Earl
broke silence by saying, 'It is very unfortunate;' and Louis echoed,
'Very.'
'My poor Uncle Dynevor! He was, without exception, the most
wrong-headed person I ever came in contact with, yet so excessively
plausible and eager that he carried my poor father entirely along with
him. Louis! nothing is so ruinous as to surrender the judgment.'
Fully assenting, Louis wondered whether Marksedge would serve no
purpose save the elucidation of this truism, and presently another
ensued.
'Mischief is sooner done than repaired. As I have been allowing you,
there has never been ready money at command.'
'I thought there were no more mortgages to be paid off. The rents of
the Fitzjocelyn estate and the houses in the lower town must come to
something.'
He was then told how these, with his mother's fortune, had been set
apart to form a fund for his establishment, and for the first time he
was shown the object of arrangements against which he had often in
heart rebelled. His first impulse was to exclaim that it was a great
pity, and that he could not bear that his father should have denied
himself on his account.
'Do you think these things are sacrifices to me?' said the Earl. 'My
habits were formed long ago.'
'Mine have been formed on yours,' said Louis. 'I should be encumbered
by such an income as you propose unless you would let me lay it out in
making work for the men and improving the estate, and that I had rather
you undertook, for I should be certain to do something preposterous,
and then be sorry.'
'Mrs. Ponsonby judged rightly. It was her very advice.'
'Then!' cried Louis, as if the deed were done.
'You would not find the income too large in the event of your marriage.'
'A most unlikely event!'
His father glanced towards him. If there had been a symptom of
unhappiness, relenting was near, but it so chanced that Marksedge was
reigning supreme, and he was chiefly concerned to set aside the
supposition as an obstacle to his views. The same notion as James
Frost's occurred to the Earl, that it could not be a tenacious
character which could so easily set aside an attachment apparently so
fervent, but the resignation was too much in accordance with his
desires to render him otherwise than gratified, and he listened with
complacency to Louis's plans. Nothing was fixed, but there was an
understanding that all should have due consideration.
This settled, Louis's mind recurred to the hint which his father had
thrown out, and he wondered whether it meant that the present
compliance might be further stretched, but he thought it more likely to
be merely a reference to ordinary contingencies. Things were far too
comfortable between him and his father to be disturbed by discussion,
and he might ultimately succeed better by submitting, and leaving facts
and candour to remove prejudice.
To forget perplexity in the amusement of a mystification, he brought
down his essay, concealing it ingeniously within a review flanked by
blue-books, and, when Lord Ormersfield was taking out a pair of
spectacles with the reluctance of a man not yet accustomed to them, he
asked him if he would like to hear an article on the Police question.
At first the Earl showed signs of nodding, and said there was nothing
to the purpose in all the historical curiosities at the outset, so that
Louis, alarmed lest he should absolutely drop asleep, skipped all his
favourite passages, and came at once to the results of the recent
inquiries. The Earl was roused. Who could have learnt those facts?
That was telling--well put, but how did he get hold of it. The very
thing he had said himself--What Quarterly was it? Surely the Christmas
number was not out. Hitherto Louis had kept his countenance and voice,
but in an hiatus, where he was trying to extemporize, his father came
to look over his shoulder to see what ailed the book, and, glancing
upwards with a merry debonnaire face, he made a gesture as if convicted.
'Do you mean that this is your own composition?'
'I beg your pardon for the pious fraud!'
'It is very good! Excellently done!' said Lord Ormersfield. 'There
are redundancies--much to betray an unpractised hand--but--stay, let me
hear the rest--' Very differently did he listen now, broad awake,
attacking the logic of every third sentence, or else double shotting it
with some ponderous word, and shaking his head at Utopian views of
crime to be dried up at the fountain head. Next, he must hear the
beginning, and ruthlessly picked it to pieces, demolishing all the
Vehme Gericht and Santissima Hermandad as irrelevant, and, when he had
made Louis ashamed and vexed with the whole production, astonishing him
by declaring that it would tell, and advising him to copy it out fair
with these _little_ alterations.
These _little_ alterations would, as he was well aware, evaporate all
the spirit, and though glad to have pleased his father, his
perseverance quailed before the task; but he said no more than thank
you. The next day, before he had settled to anything, Lord Ormersfield
came to his room, saying, 'You will be engaged with your more important
studies for the next few hours. Can you spare the paper you read to me
last night?'
'I can spare it better than you can read it, I fear,' said Louis,
producing a mass of blotted MS in all his varieties of penmanship, and
feeling a sort of despair at the prospect of being brought to book on
all his details.
His father carried it off, and they did not meet again till late in the
day, when the first thing Louis heard was, 'I thought it worth while to
have another opinion on your manuscript before re-writing it. I tried
to read it to Mrs. Ponsonby, but we were interrupted, and I left it
with her.'
Presently after. 'I have made an engagement for you. Lady Conway
wishes that you should go to luncheon with her to-morrow. I believe
she wants to consult you about some birth-day celebration.'
Louis was much surprised, and somewhat entertained.
'When will you have the carriage?' pursued the Earl.
'Will not you come?'
'No, I am not wanted. In fact, I do not see how you can be required,
but anything will serve as an excuse. In justice, however, I should
add that our friends at the Terrace are disposed to think well of the
younger part of the family.'
Except for the cold constraint of the tone, Louis could have thought
much ground gained, but he was sure that his holiday would be damped by
knowing that it was conceded at the cost of much distress and
uneasiness.
Going to Northwold early enough for a call at No. 5, he was greeted by
Mrs. Frost with, 'My dear! what have you been about? I never saw your
father so much pleased in his life! He came in on purpose to tell me,
and I thought it exceedingly kind. So you took him in completely.
What an impudent rogue you always were!'
'I never meant it to go beyond the study. I was obliged to write it
down in self-defence, that I might know what he was talking of.'
'I believe he expects you to be even with Sydney Calcott after all. It
is really very clever. Where did you get all those funny stories?'
'What! you have gone and read it!'
'Ah, ha! Mrs. Ponsonby gave us a pretty little literary soiree. Don't
be too proud, it was only ourselves, except that Mary brought in Miss
Conway. Jem tried to read it, but after he had made that Spanish
Society into 'Hammer men dead,' Mary got it away from him, and read
through as if it had been in print.'
'What an infliction!'
'It is very disrespectful to think us so frivolous. We only wished all
reviews were as entertaining.'
'It is too bad, when I only wanted to mystify my father.'
'It serves you right for playing tricks. What have you been doing to
him, Louis? You will turn him into a doting father before long.'
'What have you done with Clara?'
'She goes every day to read Italian with Miss Conway, and the governess
is so kind as to give her drawing lessons. She is learning far more
than at school, and they are so kind! I should hardly know how to
accept it, but Jem does not object, and he is really very useful there,
spends a great deal of time on the boy, and is teaching the young
ladies Latin.'
'They are leaving you lonely in the holidays! You ought to come to
Ormersfield, your nephews would take better care of you.'
'Ah! I have my Marys. If I were only better satisfied about the dear
old one. She is far less well than when she came.'
'Indeed! Is Mary uneasy?'
'She says nothing, but you know how her eye is always on her, and she
never seems to have her out of her thoughts. I am afraid they are
worried about Lima. From what Oliver says, I fear Mr. Ponsonby goes on
worse than ever without either his family or his appointment to be a
restraint.'
'I hope they do not know all! Mary would not believe it, that is one
comfort!'
'Ah, Louis! there are things that the heart will not believe, but which
cut it deeply! However, if that could be any comfort to them, he
wishes them to spare nothing here. He tells them they may live at the
rate of five thousand pounds a-year, poor dears. Indeed, he and Oliver
are in such glory over their Equatorial steam navigation, that I expect
next to hear of a crash.'
'You don't look as if it would be a very dreadful sound.'
'If it would only bring my poor Oliver back to me!'
'Yes--nothing would make Jem so civil to him as his coming floated in
on a plank, wet through, with a little bundle in one hand and a parrot
in the other.'
Mrs. Frost gave one of her tender laughs, and filled up the picture.
'Jane would open the door, Jane would know Master Oliver's black eyes
in a moment--'No, no. _I_ must see him first! If he once looked up I
could not miss him, whatever colour he may have turned. I wonder
whether he would know me!'
'Don't you know that you grow handsomer every year, Aunt Kitty?'
'Don't flatter, sir.'
'Well, I most go to my aunt.'
He tarried to hear the welcome recital of all the kind deeds of the
house of Conway. He presently found Lady Conway awaiting him in the
drawing-room, and was greeted with great joy. 'That is well! I hoped
to work on your father by telling him I did not approve of young men
carrying industry too far--'
'That is not my habit.'
'Then it is your excuse for avoiding troublesome relations! No, not a
word! I know nothing about the secret that occupied Isabel at Mrs.
Ponsonby's select party. But I really wanted you. You are more au
fait as to the society here than the Ponsonbys and Dynevors. Ah! when
does that come off?'
'What is to come off?'
'Miss Ponsonby and Mr. Dynevor. What a good creature he is!'
'I cannot see much likelihood of it, but you are more on the scene of
action.'
'She could do much better, with such expectations, but on his account I
could not be sorry. It is shocking to think of that nice young sister
being a governess. I think it a duty to give her every advantage that
may tend to form her. With her connexions and education, I can have no
objection to her as a companion to your cousins, and with a few
advantages, though she will never be handsome, she might marry well.
They are a most interesting family. Isabel and I are most anxious to do
all in our power for them.'
'Clara is obliged,' said Louis, with undetected irony, but secret
wonder at the dexterity with which the patronage must have been
administered so as not to have made the interesting family fly off at a
tangent.
Isabel made her appearance in her almost constant morning dress of soft
dove-coloured merino entirely unadorned, and looking more like a maiden
in a romance than ever. She had just left Adeline standing on the
steps of a stone cross, exhorting the Provencals to arm against a
descent of Moorish corsairs, and she held out her hand to Fitzjocelyn
much as Adeline did, when the fantastic Viscount professed his
intention of flying instead of fighting, and wanted her to sit behind
him on his courser.
Lady Conway pronounced her council complete, and propounded the fete
which she wished to give on the 12th of January in honour of Louisa's
birthday. Isabel took up a pencil, and was lost in sketching wayside
crosses, and vessels with lateen sails, only throwing in a word or two
here and there when necessary. Dancing was still, Lady Conway feared,
out of the question with Fitzjocelyn.
'And always will be, I suspect. So much for my bargain with Clara to
dance with her at her first ball!'
'You like dancing?' exclaimed Isabel, rejoiced to find another
resemblance to the fantastic Viscount.
'Last year's Yeomanry ball was the best fun in the world!'
'There, Isabel,' said Lady Conway, 'you ought to be gratified to find a
young man candid enough to allow that he likes it! But since that
cannot be, I must find some other plan--'
'What cannot be?' exclaimed Louis. 'You don't mean to omit the
dancing--'
'It could not be enjoyed without you. Your cousins and friends could
not bear to see you sitting down--'
Isabel's lips were compressed, and the foam of her waves laughed
scornfully under her pencil.
'They must get accustomed to the melancholy spectacle,' said Louis. 'I
do not mean to intermit the Yeomanry ball, if it take place while I am
at home. The chaperons are the best company, after all. Reconsider it,
my dear aunt, or you will keep me from coming at all.'
Lady Conway was only considering of tableaux, and Louis took fire at
the notion: he already beheld Waverley in his beloved Yeomanry suit,
Isabel as Flora, Clara as Davie Gellatley--the character she would most
appreciate. Isabel roused herself to say that tableaux were very dull
work to all save the actors, and soon were mere weariness to them. Her
stepmother told her she had once been of a different mind, when she had
been Isabel Bruce, kneeling in her cell, the ring before her. 'I was
young enough then to think myself Isabel,' was her answer, and she drew
the more diligently because Fitzjocelyn could not restrain an
interjection, and a look which meant, 'What an Isabel she must have
been!'
She sat passive while Lady Conway and Louis decked up a scene for Flora
MacIvor; but presently it appeared that the Waverley of the piece was
to be, according to Louis, not the proper owner of the Yeomanry
uniform, but James Frost. His aunt exclaimed, and the rehearsals were
strong temptation; but he made answer, 'No--you must not reckon on me:
my father would not like it.'
The manful childishness, the childish manfulness of such a reply, were
impenetrable. If his two-and-twenty years did not make him ashamed of
saying so, nothing else could, and it covered a good deal. He knew that
his father's fastidious pride would dislike his making a spectacle of
himself, and thought that it would be presuming unkindly on to-day's
liberty to involve himself in what would necessitate terms more
intimate than were desired.
The luncheon silenced the consultation, which was to be a great secret
from the children; but afterwards, when it was resumed, with the
addition of James Frost, Fitzjocelyn was vexed to find the tableaux
discarded; not avowedly because he excluded himself from a share, but
because the style of people might not understand them. The
entertainment was to be a Christmas-tree--not so hackneyed a spectacle
in the year 1848 as in 1857--and Louis launched into a world of
couplets for mottoes. Next came the question of guests, when Lady
Conway read out names from the card-basket, and Fitzjocelyn was in
favour of everybody, till Jem, after many counter-statements, assured
Lady Conway that he was trying to fill her rooms with the most
intolerable people in the world.
'My aunt said she wanted to give pleasure.'
'Ah! there's nothing so inconvenient to one's friends as good nature.
Who cares for what is shared indiscriminately?'
'I don't think I can trust Fitzjocelyn with my visiting-list just yet,'
said Lady Conway. 'You are too far above to be sensible of the grades
beneath, with your place made for you.'
'Not at all,' said Louis. 'Northwold tea-parties were my earliest,
most natural dissipation; and I spoke for these good people for my own
personal gratification.'
'Nay, I can't consent to your deluding Lady Conway into Mrs. Walby.'
'If there be any one you wish me to ask, my dear Fitzjocelyn--' began
Lady Conway.
'Oh no, thank you; Jem is quite right. I might have been playing on
your unguarded innocence; but I am the worst person in the world to
consult; for all the county and all the town are so kind to me, that I
don't know whom I could leave out. Now, the Pendragon there will help
you to the degree of gentility that may safely be set to consort
together.'
'What an unkind fling!' thought Isabel.
Louis took leave, exclaiming to himself on the stairs, 'There! if
comporting oneself like a donkey before the object be a token, I've
done it effectually. Didn't I know the exclusiveness of the woman?
Yet, how could I help saying a word for the poor little Walbys? and,
after all, if they were there, no one would speak to them but Aunt
Kitty and I. And Isabel, I am sure she scorned the fastidious
nonsense; I saw it in her eye and lip.'
After a quarter of an hour spent in hearing her praises from Miss
Faithfull, he betook himself to Mrs. Ponsonby's, not quite without
embarrassment, for he had not been alone with the mother and daughter
since August.
'I am glad you did not come before,' said Mary, heartily; 'I have just
done:' and she returned to her writing-table, while her mother was
saying,
'We like it very much.'
'You have not been copying that wretched concern!' exclaimed Louis.
'Why, Mary, you must have been at it all night. It is a week's work.'
'Copying is not composing,' said Mary.
'But you have mended it, made it consecutive! If I had guessed that my
father meant to trouble any one with it!'
'If you take pains with it, it may be very valuable,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby. 'We have marked a few things that you had better revise
before it goes to Oakstead.'
'Goes to Oakstead!' said Louis, faintly.
'Your father talks of sending it, to see if Sir Miles does not think it
might tell well in one of the Reviews.'
'I hope not. I should lose all my faith in anonymous criticism, if
they admitted such a crude undergraduate's omnium gatherum! Besides,
what an immense task to make it presentable!'
'Is that the root of your humility?'
'Possibly. But for very shame I must doctor it, if Mary has wasted so
much time over it. It does not look so bad in your hand!'
'It struck me whether you had rendered this Spanish story right.'
'Of course not. I never stuck to my dictionary.'
A sound dose of criticism ensued, tempered by repetitions of his
father's pleasure, and next came some sympathy and discussion about the
farm and Marksedge, in which the ladies took their usual earnest part,
and Mary was as happy as ever in hearing of his progress. He said no
word of their neighbours; but he could not help colouring when Mary
said, as he wished her good-bye, 'We like the party in the House
Beautiful so much! Miss Conway is such an acquisition to me! and they
are doing all you could ever have wished for Clara.'
Mary was glad that she had said it. Louis was not so glad. He thought
it must have been an effort, then derided his vanity for the
supposition.