AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL.
"And travel finishes the fool."
Gay.
Mrs. Peter Melcombe, all unconscious of the unfavourable impression her
son had made on his late host, continued to think a good deal of the
agreeable widower. She made Peter write from time to time to little
Janie Mortimer and report the progress of the puppy, at the same time
taking care to mention his dear mamma in a manner that she thought would
be advantageous.
It cost Peter a world of trouble to copy and recopy these epistles till
his mother was satisfied with them; but she always told him that he
would not be remembered so well or invited again unless he wrote; and
this was true.
His little friends wrote in reply, but by no means such carefully-worded
letters; they also favoured him with shoals of Christmas cards and
showers of valentines, but his letters never got beyond the schoolroom;
and if John Mortimer's keen eyes had ever fallen on them, it would have
availed nothing. He would have discovered at once that they were not the
child's sole production, and would have been all the more decided not to
invite him again.
When first Mrs. Melcombe came home she perceived a certain change in
Laura, who was hardly able to attend to Peter's lessons, and had fits
of elation that seemed to alternate with a curious kind of shame. Mrs.
Peter Melcombe did not doubt that Laura fancied she had got another
lover, but she was so tired of Laura's lovers that she determined to
take no notice; and if Laura had anything to say, to make her say it
without assistance. It seemed to her so right and natural and proper
that she should wish to marry again herself, and so ridiculous of Laura
to fancy that she wished to marry also.
On Valentine's day, however, Laura had a letter, flushed high, and while
trying to look careless actually almost wept for joy; for the moment
Mrs. Melcombe was thrown off her guard, and she asked a question.
Laura, in triumph, handed the valentine to her sister-in-law. "It's
strange," she said tremulously, "very strange; but what is a woman to do
when she is the object of such a passion?"
It was a common piece of paper with two coloured figures on it taking
hands and smiling; underneath, in a clear and careful hand, was
written--
"What would he give, your lover true,
Just for one little sight of you?
"J.S."
"J.S.?" said Mrs. Melcombe, in a questioning tone.
"It's Joseph, dear," replied Laura, hanging down her head and smiling.
Joseph was the head plumber who had been employed about the now finished
house, and Mrs. Melcombe's dismay was great when she found that Joseph,
having discovered how the young lady thought he was in love with her,
was actually taking up the part of a lover, she dreaded to think what
might occur in consequence. Joseph was a very clever young workman, of
excellent character, and Laura was intolerably foolish and to the last
degree credulous.
If the young man had been the greatest scamp and villain, but in her own
rank of life, it would have been nothing to compare with this, in the
eyes of Mrs. Melcombe, or indeed in most people's eyes. She turned pale,
and felt that she was a stricken woman.
She was not well educated herself, and she had not been accustomed to
society, but she aspired to better things. The house was just finished,
she had written to Mr. Mortimer to tell him so. She thought of giving a
house-warming; for several of the families round, whose fathers and
mothers had been kept at arms' length by old Madam Melcombe till their
children almost forgot that there was such a person, had now begun
kindly to call on the lonely ladies, and express a wish to see something
of them.
Also she had been rubbing up her boarding-school French, and hoped to
take a trip to Paris, for she wanted to give herself and her son all the
advantages that could be got with money. She knew there was something
provincial about herself and her sister-in-law, as there had been about
the old grandmother; and indeed about all the Melcombes. She wished to
rise; and oh what should she do, how could she ever get over it, if
Laura married the plumber?
Her distress was such that she took the only course which could have
availed her--she was silent.
"I was afraid, dear, you might, you would, you must think it very
imprudent," said Laura, a little struck by this silence; "but what is to
be done? Amelia, he's dying for me."
Still Mrs. Melcombe was silent.
"He told me himself, that if I wouldn't have him it would drive him to
drink."
"Laura!" exclaimed Mrs. Melcombe with vehemence, "it's not credible that
you can take up with a lout who courts you in such fashion as that. O
Laura!" she exclaimed in such distress as to give real pathos to her
manner, "I little thought to see this day, I could not have believed it
of you;" and she burst into an agony of tears.
"And here's a letter," she presently found voice enough to say, "here's
a letter from Mr. Mortimer, to say that his brother's coming to look at
the house. Perhaps Mr. John Mortimer will come with him. Oh, what shall
I do if they hear of this?"
Laura was very much impressed. If scorn, or anger, or incredulity had
confronted her, she would have held to her intentions; but this alarm
and grief at least had the merit of allowing all importance to the
affair, and consequently to her.
Her imagination conjured up visions of her sister-in-law's future years.
She saw her always wringing her hands, and she was touched for her. "And
then so happy as we meant to be, having a foreign tour, and seeing
Paris, and so as we had talked it over together. And such friends as we
always are."
This was perfectly true; Mrs. Melcombe and Laura were not of the nagging
order of women, they never said sarcastic or ill-natured things to one
another, the foibles of the one suited the other; and if they had a few
uncomfortable words now and then between themselves, they had enough
_esprit de corps_ to hide this from all outsiders.
An affecting scene took place, Laura rose and threw herself into
Amelia's arms weeping passionately.
"You'll give it up, Laura dear, for my sake, and for our poor dear
Peter's sake, who's gone."
No; Laura could not go quite so far in heroic self-sacrifice as that;
but she did promise solemnly, that however many times Joseph might say
he was dying for her, she would--what? She would promise to decide
nothing till she had been to Paris.
She was very happy that morning; Amelia had not made game of her, and
there had been such a scene. Laura enjoyed a scene; and Amelia had
pleaded so hard and so long with her for that promise. At last she had
given it. If she had not been such a remarkably foolish woman, she would
have known she was glad on the whole that the promise had been extorted
from her. As it was she thought she was sorry, but after a little more
urging and pleading she gave up the precious valentine, and saw it
devoured by the flames. It had a Birmingham postmark, and Mrs. Melcombe
heard with pleasure that Joseph would be away at least a fortnight.
Laura had wanted a little excitement, just the least amusement; and if
not that, just the least recognition of her place in nature as a woman,
and a young one. At present, her imagination had not been long at work
on this unpromising payer of the tribute. If some one, whose household
ways and daily English were like her own, had come forward she would
soon have forgotten Joseph; for he himself, as an individual, was almost
nothing to her, it was only in his having paid the tribute that his
power lay.
Late in the afternoon Mr. Augustus Mortimer arrived. He was received by
Mrs. Melcombe almost, as it seemed, with the devotion of a daughter.
The room was strewed with account-books and cards. It had been intended
that he should make some remark about them, and then she was to say,
with careless ease, "Only the accounts of the parish charities." But he
courteously feigning to see none of the litter, she was put out.
He presently went to inspect the repairs and restorations, to look over
the garden and the stables; and it was not till the next morning that
she found occasion to ask some advice of him.
The cottages on the land were let with the farms, so that the farmers
put their labourers into them, charged, it is true, very little rent,
but allowed them to get very much out of repair. It was the farmers'
duty to keep them in repair; but there was no agent, no one to make them
do it. Moreover, they would have it that no repairs worth mentioning
were wanted. Did Mr. Mortimer think if she spent the money she had
devoted to charity in repairing these cottages, she could fairly
consider that she had spent it in charity?
It was a nice point, certainly, for it would be improving her son's
property, and avoiding disputes with valuable and somewhat unmanageable
tenants; and, on the other hand, it would be escaping the bad precedent
of paying for repairs out of the estate; so she went on laying this
casuistry before the old man while he pulled down his shaggy white
brows, and looked very stern over the whole affair. "Some of the poor
old women do suffer so sadly from rheumatism," she continued, "and our
parish doctor says it comes from the damp places they live in, and then
there is so much fever in the lower part of the hamlet."
"You had better let me see the farmers and the cottagers," said old
Augustus. "I will go into the whole affair, and tell you what I think of
it."
Accordingly he went his way among the people, and if he had any
sorrowful reason for being glad of what rendered it his duty to pick up
all the information he could, this did not make him less energetic in
fighting the farmers.
Very little, however, could be done with them; an obvious hole in a roof
they would repair, a rotting door they would replace, but that was all,
and he felt strongly the impolicy of taking money out of the estate to
do all the whitewashing, plastering, carpenters' work, and painting that
were desirable; besides which, he was sure the water was not pure that
the people drank, and that they ought to have another well.
When Mrs. Melcombe heard his report of it all, and when he acknowledged
that he could do hardly anything with the farmers, she wished she had
not asked his advice, particularly as he chose to bring certain
religious remarks into it. He was indeed a most inconveniently religious
man; his religion was of a very expensive kind, and was all mixed up
with his philanthropy, as if one could not be religious at all without
loving those whom God loved and as if one could not love them without
serving them to the best of one's power.
She listened with dismay. If it was useless to expect much of the
farmers, and impolitic to take much out of the estate, what was the use
of talking? But Mr. Augustus Mortimer did talk for several minutes;
first he remarked on the expressed wish of his mother that all needful
repairs should be attended to, then he said his brother began to feel
the infirmities of age, and also was a poor man; then he made Mrs.
Melcombe wince by observing that the condition of the tenements was
perfectly disgraceful, and next he went on to say that, being old
himself, he did not wish to waste any time, for he should have but
little, and therefore as he was rich he was content to do what was
wanted himself.
"This house," he continued, "is a great deal too large for the small
income your son will have. Very large sums have been spent, as the will
directed, in putting it into perfect repair. I am not surprised,
therefore, that you have felt perplexed, but now, if you have no
objection, I will have estimates made at once."
Excessively surprised, a little humiliated, but yet, on the whole,
conscious that such an offer relieved her of a great responsibility,
Mrs. Peter Melcombe hesitated a moment, then said in a low voice--
"Thank you, Mr. Mortimer, but you will give me a little time to think of
this."
"Certainly," he answered, with all composure, "till to-morrow morning;"
then he went on as if that matter was quite settled, and enough had been
said about it. "There is one person whom I should much like to point out
to you as an object for your charity--the old shepherd's wife who is
bedridden. If you were inclined to provide some one to look after
her----"
"Oh, Becky Maddison," interrupted Mrs. Melcombe; "the dear grandmother
did not approve of that woman. She used to annoy her by telling an
absurd ghost story."
"Indeed!"
"But still, as you think I ought to do something for her, I certainly
will."
"I shall go and see her myself this afternoon," answered Mr. Augustus
Mortimer hastily. "I will not fail to report to you how I find her."
"Her talk was naturally painful to the dear grandmother," continued Mrs.
Melcombe.
Mr. Mortimer looked keenly attentive, but he did not ask any question,
and as she said no more, he almost immediately withdrew, and walked
straight across the fields to the cottage of this old woman.
Nothing more was said that evening concerning the repairs, or concerning
this visit; but the next morning Mr. Mortimer renewed his proposition,
and after a little modest hesitation, she accepted it; then, remembering
his request concerning old Becky, she told him she had that morning sent
her a blanket and some soup. "And, by-the-bye, Mr. Mortimer, did she
tell you the story that used to annoy the dear grandmother?" she
inquired.
Mr. Mortimer was so long in answering, that she looked up at him, and
when he caught her eye he answered. "Yes."
"He doesn't like it any more than his mother did," she thought, so she
said no more, and he almost immediately went away to give orders about
the proposed estimates.
Mrs. Melcombe and Laura made Mr. Mortimer very comfortable, and when he
went away he left them highly pleased, for, having been told of their
intended journey to Paris, he had proposed to them to come and spend a
few days at his house, considering it the first stage of their tour.
So he departed, and no more dirt was thrown at him. The tide began to
turn in favour of the Mortimers, people had seen the mild face and
venerable gentleness of the Mortimer who was poor, they had now handled
the gold of the one that was rich.
"Old Madam was a saint," they observed, "but she couldn't come and look
arter us _hersen_, poor dear. Farmers are _allers_ hard on poor folk. So
he was bent on having another well atop o' the hill 'stead o' the
bottom. Why let him, then, if he liked! Anyhow, there was this good in
it--the full buckets would be to carry down hill 'stead of up. As to the
water o' the ould well being foul and breeding fevers, it might be, and
then again it might not be; if folks were to be for ever considering
whether water was foul, they'd never drink in peace!"
The moment he was gone, Mrs. Melcombe turned her thoughts to Laura's
swain, and excited such hopes of pleasure from the visit to Paris in the
mind of her sister-in-law, that Joseph's devotion began to be less
fascinating to her, besides which there was something inexpressibly
sweet to her imaginative mind in the notion of being thwarted and
watched. She pictured to herself the fine young man haunting the lonely
glen, hoping to catch a sight of her, and smiting his brow as men do in
novels, sighing and groaning over his lowly birth and his slender means.
She wished Joseph would write that her sister-in-law might rob her of
the letter; but Joseph didn't write, he knew better. At the end of the
fortnight he appeared; coming to church, and sitting in full view of the
ladies, looking not half so well in his shining Sunday clothes of
Birmingham make, as he had done in his ordinary working suit.
Laura was a good deal out of countenance, but Mrs. Melcombe perceived,
not without surprise, that while she felt nothing but a feminine
exultation in being admired, the young man's homage was both deep and
real. Nothing was either fancied or feigned.
So by Monday morning Mrs. Melcombe had got ready a delightful plan to
lay before Laura--she actually offered to take her to London, and fired
her imagination with accounts of the concerts, the theatres and all
that they were to do and see.
No mortal plumber could hold his own against such a sister-in-law. Laura
let herself be carried off without having any interview with Joseph, who
began to think "it was a bad job," and did not know how his supposed
faithless lady wept during the railway journey. But then he did not know
how completely when she went to her first oratorio she was delighted and
consoled.
The longer they stayed in London the more delighted they were; so was
Peter; the Polytechnic alone was worth all the joys of the country put
together; but when they came back again at the end of April, and all the
land was full of singing-birds, and the trees were in blossom, and the
sweet smiling landscape looked so full of light, and all was so fresh
and still, then the now absent Joseph got hold of Laura's imagination
again; she went and gazed at the window that he had been glazing, when,
as she passed, he lifted up his fine eyes and looked at her in such a
particular manner.
What really had taken place was this. Joseph, with a lump of putty in
his palm, was just about to dig a bit out of it with a knife that he
held in his other hand. Laura passed, and when the young man looked up,
she affected to feel confused, and turned away her face with a sort of
ridiculous self-consciousness. Joseph was surprised, and the knife held
suspended in his hand, he was staring at her when she glanced again, and
naturally he was a little put out of countenance.
So Laura now walked about the place, recalled the romantic past, and if
Joseph had appeared (which he did not, because he had no means of
knowing that she had returned), it is highly doubtful whether Laura
would ever have seen Paris.
As it was, with sighs and smiles, with regrets over a dead nosegay that
the young man had given her, and with eager longings to see Paris, and
perhaps Geneva, Laura spent the next fortnight, and then, taking leave
of Melcombe again, was received in due time by Mr. Augustus Mortimer on
the steps of his house, his son being with him.
It was nearly dinner-time, she and her sister-in-law were delighted to
meet this gentleman, and find that he was going to dine that day with
his father. Peter, too, was as happy as a king, for he hoped Mr. John
Mortimer would and could give him information concerning all the
well-remembered puppies, kittens, magpies, and white mice that he had
made acquaintance with during his happy visit to the little Mortimers.
Mr. Augustus Mortimer's house was just outside the small town of
Wigfield; it appeared to be quite in the country, because it was on the
slope of a hill, and was so well backed up with trees that not a chimney
could be seen from any of its windows. It was built with its back to the
town, and commanded a pretty view over field, wood, and orchard, and
also over its own beautiful lawn and slightly-sloping garden, which was
divided from some rich meadows by the same little river that ran nearly
two miles further on, past the bottom of John Mortimer's garden. "And
there," said John Mortimer, after dinner, pointing out a chimney which
could be seen against the sky, just over the tops of some trees--"there
lives my uncle Daniel, in a house which belongs to his stepson, Giles
Brandon; his house is just two miles from this, and mine is two miles
from each of them, so that we form a triangle."
Mr. Mortimer's daughter came the next day to call on the relatives from
Melcombe; she brought his step-daughters with her; and these young
ladies when they returned home gave their step-brothers a succinct
account of the impressions they had received.
"Provincial, both of them. The married one looks like a faded piece of
wax-work. Laura Melcombe is rather pretty, but unless she is a goose,
her manners, voice, and whole appearance do her the greatest injustice
possible."
Mrs. Melcombe and Laura also gave judgment in the same manner when these
visitors were gone.
"Mrs. Henfrey looks quite elderly. She must be several years past fifty;
but I liked her kind, slow way of talking; and what a handsome gown she
had on, Laura, real lace on it, and a real Maltese lace shawl!"
"She has a good jointure," said Laura; "she can afford to dress well.
The girls, the Miss Grants, have graceful, easy manners, just the kind
of manners I should like to have; but I can't say I thought much of
their dress. I am sure those muslins must have been washed several
times. In fact, they were decidedly shabby. I think it odd and
old-fashioned of them always to call Mrs. Henfrey 'Sister.'"
"I do not see that; she is older than their mother was; they could not
well address her by her Christian name. They do not seem to be a
marrying family, and that is odd, as their mother married three times.
The Grants are the children of the second marriage, are they not?"
"Yes; but three times! Did she marry three times? Ah, I remember--how
shocking!"
"Shocking," exclaimed Mrs. Melcombe, "O, Laura, I consider it quite
irreligious of you to say that."
Laura laughed. "But only think," she observed, "what a number of names
one must remember in consequence of her three marriages. First, there is
Uncle Daniel's own daughter, Mrs. Henfrey; I do not mind her; but then
there is Mr. Brandon, the son of Aunt Mortimer's first husband; then
these Grants, the children of her second husband; and then Valentine,
uncle's son and hers by this third marriage. It's a fatigue only to
think of them all!"