The friendship which Bruce at this time conceived for Josiah was
uncommonly warm and sudden. Though always well disposed towards the
worthy Curate, he had not, while Rosa was living at the Heronry, taken
much pains to seek his society, but he now became of a sudden a frequent
visitor to the Parsonage. He showed great interest in flowers, though he
hardly knew a dahlia from a polyanthus; he listened to details of parish
matters with an attention quite wonderful, considering how little taste
he had that way; and he became enamoured of those old English authors
who were Josiah’s especial favourites. Finding these manifold pretences
insufficient to account for the frequency of his visits, he hit upon a
project for rendering them quite plausible. He insisted on subscribing
fifty pounds towards a school-house that was to be built in the village
under the Curate’s auspices; and when Josiah protested against this
liberality as indiscreet and uncalled for, he hinted that it was not
altogether disinterested—that his classical knowledge was getting
rusty—that he perceived Josiah to be often unoccupied for an hour or two
of a morning—and proposed they should read some Latin together.
The Curate liked the project much; it would divert his thoughts from
painful subjects—his own classics wanted rubbing up—he had a great
regard for Bruce, whose openness, vivacity, and good-nature had quite
won his heart, and the readings commenced forthwith.
They were carried on upon a plan which, however agreeable to the master
and his disciple, was scarcely calculated to answer the proposed end.
Bruce and Josiah would sit down together with their Horace, or their
Virgil, or their Terence before them, and for a time would read away
with tolerable diligence. Presently Rosa, coming into the room from some
household avocation, would trip across it softly, not to disturb
them—get what she was in quest of, perhaps a cookery-book, and go off in
the same silent fashion, with a nod and a smile at Bruce. At this stage
of the lesson the student’s attention would begin to waver; he would
look a good deal oftener at the door than upon his page. Perhaps shortly
after Rosa would re-enter, to request Josiah to get from the garden some
celery, parsnip, or other winter vegetable, of which she stood in need
for culinary purposes. “Why didn’t you ask me before, when I was in the
garden, my child?” the Curate would say, which, indeed, she might very
well have done; and Josiah, rising with a sigh to comply with her
request, would be forcibly reseated by Bruce, who would desire him to
try again at that crabbed bit of Latinity, while _he_ went to get what
Miss Rosa wanted. Whereupon he and Rosa would repair to the garden
together, she pointing out what she wanted, while Bruce supplied her
with it; and the Curate, after looking dreamily about for their
re-entrance, would forget them altogether, plunging either into a
reverie or into a book.
Sometimes Bruce found the Curate absent on some clerical or parochial
errand, and on these occasions he thought no apology necessary for his
stay, nor did Rosa expect one. If she was too busy to talk to him in the
study, he would repair to the kitchen, and even take a share in the
culinary mysteries to which that region is sacred, though his presence
did not perhaps, on the whole, contribute to the excellence of the
cookery. I have always suspected that King Alfred, when he let the cakes
burn, was making love to the herdsman’s wife, and that the idea of her
scolding him for negligence was devised to conceal her share in the
delinquency.
Mr Oates, seeing the state of affairs between them, grew quite morose,
and would hardly speak to Bruce at breakfast-time. He addicted himself
to the society of Suckling, and attempted to divert his thoughts by
getting up a scratch pack of harriers, and hunting them himself; and
might be heard two or three times a-week in the woods about Doddington,
attended by the fast spirits of the place, hallooing, and pouring
through the mellow horn his pensive soul.
Rosa had none of the dignity which in Lady Lee and Orelia could always
have kept the most impassioned lovers under a certain restraint. It is
well known to be the duty of young ladies to affect total ignorance of
the fact that they are objects of adoration, and to harrow up the souls
of their admirers with affectation of indifference, at any rate until
coming to the point of proposal. Rosa, however, showed undisguised
pleasure at Bruce’s visits, and one day, when he came in with a
melancholy face, and told her the detachment was to leave Doddington
immediately, she began to cry.
The Curate was from home that morning, and Bruce had found Rosa in the
kitchen, rolling paste for mince-pies, while the cat Pick, whom she had,
when leaving the Heronry, brought with her to the Parsonage, sat on the
table, watching the process, and occasionally putting out his paw to
arrest the motion of the rolling-pin. The smile with which she looked up
at Bruce’s entrance turned to a look of sympathetic sadness, as she
perceived his sorrowful aspect. He stood by her at the end of the table,
and told her the news which had come that morning.
“You see what a life ours is,” said Bruce, trying to smile; “here
to-day, gone to-morrow. And when we were going to spend such a pleasant
winter too!”
“And won’t you be here at Christmas?” said Rosa; “and won’t you have any
of the mince-pies after all? And is there to be an end of our rides, and
walks, and evening readings?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Bruce, shaking his head. “The troop that relieves
us will be here to-morrow week—though, in my opinion,” he added, with a
faint attempt at pleasantry, “the best way to relieve us would be to let
us alone.”
“And won’t you be coming back?” asked Rosa, with sorrow shining moistly
in her blue eyes.
“I fear not,” said Bruce, “though, to be sure, it might be managed. But
you won’t wish that when you’ve made acquaintance with our successors.
The new-comers will take the place of your old friends, and you’ll
forget us—won’t you, Miss Rosa?”
This highly sincere speech was too much for Rosa. “No—oh, no—ne—never!”
sobbed she, sinking on a chair, and burying her face on her plump arms
as they lay folded on the table.
Bruce had certainly supposed she would be sorry to hear he was going,
but this display of sympathy surpassed his expectations. He stooped down
over her—he whispered that nothing should prevent him from coming
back—he also mentioned that she was “a dear little thing,” and spying a
little white space amid her hair, between her ear and her cheek, and the
whispering having brought his lips into that neighbourhood, he thought
he would kiss it, and did so. Rosa wept on, which distressed the humane
young man so much, that, after begging her, in vain, to look up and be
comforted, he managed to insinuate his hand between her cheek and her
arms, and to turn her face, using the chin as a handle, gently towards
him. A flushed, tearful, glistening face it was; and really, considering
the temptation and proximity, one can’t altogether blame him for kissing
it, which he did both on the eyes and lips; and then, turning it so that
his left cheek rested against hers, with only the tresses between, as he
whispered in her left ear, while her glistening eyes appeared over his
shoulder, he did his best to pacify her. And so absorbed was he in
whispering, and she in listening, that the cat Pick, advancing along the
flat paste (from which he had only been kept before by the terror of the
rolling-pin), and leaving his foot-marks on the soft substance,
proceeded, with the utmost effrontery, to lick up, under their very
noses, the little dabs of butter dotted thereon. He made a good deal of
noise in doing so; but as Bruce, between the whispers, made a noise not
altogether dissimilar (for there were constantly fresh tears requiring
to be attended to), Pick finished the butter with perfect impunity, and
sat up in the middle of the paste, much about the same time that Rosa
pushed Bruce gently away, and removed the last moisture from her eyes
with her apron.
The two having, by this time, come to an understanding, Bruce suggested
that he would write to his father, who, he assured her, was a splendid
old fellow, and who would, no doubt, enter into the spirit of the thing
immediately, and give his consent like a trump.
Accordingly, he fetched pen, ink, and paper from the study, and sitting
at one end of the kitchen-table, while Rosa rolled fresh paste at the
other, he indited a very eloquent and enthusiastic epistle to his
parent, and having folded and directed it to “The Very Rev. the Dean of
Trumpington,” put it with great confidence in his pocket.
After this their conversation took a more cheerful turn, and Rosa worked
so diligently at her task that the mince-pies were made, after a receipt
which Bruce read out to her from a cookery-book, and were ready for
dinner that very day, and Bruce stayed to eat them.
That splendid old fellow the Dean of Trumpington got the letter in due
time. It was brought in after dinner by his butler when he was chatting,
in a pleasant digestive sort of way, with a couple of old Canons over a
bottle of port. He put on his spectacles to peruse it, and as his wife
was in the room, and the Canons old friends and admirers of Harry, he
proceeded to read it aloud, and had got pretty well into the matter
before he discovered its interesting nature. “Why, bless my soul!”
interpolated the Reverend Doctor Bruce, in the middle of a warm passage,
“the boy’s fallen in love!”
“My dearest Harry!” exclaimed Mrs Bruce; and then eagerly added, “go on,
love!”
While the reading proceeded, one old Canon, who was married and had a
large family, looked fiercely at his glass of port, as he held it
between him and the light, and cried “hum!” or “ha!” at the most
touching passages; while the other, who was a bachelor, rubbed his hands
as he listened, and chuckled aloud.
“Her brother, Mr Young, is a member of your own profession,” read the
Dean over again slowly. “Sillery” (to the bachelor Canon), “oblige me by
touching the bell. Bring the Clergy List,” said the Dean to the butler,
when the latter entered.
“Y,” read the Dean, running his finger down the list, when he got
it—“Yorke—Youatt—Young—here you are: Young, George, Vicar of Feathernest
(is that him, I wonder? good living Feathernest)—Young, Henry,
Prebendary of Durham—Young, Josiah, Curate of Lanscote—that must be the
man,” said the Dean, referring to the letter; “he dates from Lanscote,
near Doddington.”
“There was a Young at Oxford with me,” said Dr Macvino, the married
Canon, in a deep, oily, sententious voice. “He left college on coming
into six thousand a-year. He might have a daughter,” said the Canon,
looking round as he propounded the theory. “And,” added the Canon, “he
might also have a son in the Church. He was a tall fellow, who once
pulled the stroke oar in a match, as I remember—he gave remarkably good
breakfasts.”
“Dear boy!” said Mrs Bruce, apostrophising Harry, “I’m certain he
wouldn’t make other than a charming choice. I’m certain she’s a sweet
girl.”
“Harry knows what’s what,” said the Dean; “I’ve confidence in that boy.”
“Plenty of good sense,” said the bachelor Canon.
“Good stuff,” said Dr Macvino, who, sipping his wine before he gave the
opinion, left it doubtful whether he was praising Bruce junior or the
port.
“Harry’s got something here,” said the Dean, pointing to his forehead.
“He’s almost thrown away in his present profession. He ought to have
come into the Church.”
“Decidedly he ought,” said Dr Macvino, who thought himself an example to
teach other clever fellows how to choose a profession.
“He’s the most sensible darling!” said Mrs Bruce; “and I, too, was sorry
that he hadn’t chosen a learned profession, till I saw him in his
uniform. His mustache promised to be beautiful” (there had been perhaps
four hairs in it when she last saw him,) “and ’tis very becoming.”
“Suits him to a hair,” said the bachelor Canon, who was a wag in a mild
way.
“The boy’s letter is a little high-flown,” said the Dean, “but that was
to be expected, perhaps. I remember describing Mrs Bruce there to my
family in such terms, that, when I brought her home, they were rather
disappointed at finding her without wings. But I’ve no doubt the young
lady is a most proper person.”
“A young man like my Harry ought to get a wife with twenty thousand
pounds any day,” said his mother.
“There were two things, I remember,” said Dr Bruce, “that Harry was very
fastidious about in women—dress and manner: I venture to prophecy that
our future daughter-in-law is irreproachable in both.”
“A tall girl, I suspect,” said Mrs Bruce.
“Tall, and with a good deal of the air noble—perhaps a little proud,”
the Doctor went on.
“But not disagreeably so,” said Mrs Bruce.
“Certainly not,” said the Doctor. “A hauteur of manner merely. I like to
see a woman keep up her dignity.”
“I wish he had said something about her fortune,” said Mrs Bruce.
“So do I,” said the Doctor, “and I think I’ll go down to Doddington
to-morrow, and see what he’s about. I’m rather in want of change of
air.” And the two canons drank success to his journey in another bottle
of port.
Accordingly, the next day the Doctor went down to Doddington, three
counties off, and not finding Harry at his lodgings, got a conveyance
and a man to take him over to Lanscote. Bruce was there of course—he had
rushed away from the parade that morning, and, without changing his
dress, galloped to Lanscote at a tremendous pace. He was not sorry to
find the Curate absent, and, going clanking into the kitchen in his
spurs, found Rosa there with a great pinafore on, making a tart.
For about ten minutes after his arrival the manufacture of the tart
proceeded but slowly; and Rosa, to keep him out of her way, begged him
to superintend the re-boiling of some preserves, which Jennifer’s
economy had left to spoil in their jars. “You’ve nothing to do,” said
she, “but to sit still before the fire, and skim the pan from time to
time with this spoon; and I’ll get you something to keep your uniform
clean, while you’re doing it.” So Rosa went and got a small table-cloth,
and causing him to seat himself in the desired position in front of the
fire, she pinned it round his neck as if he was going to be shaved—his
brass shoulder-scales sticking out rather incongruously from under the
vestment.
“I ought to hear from my father, to-day,” said Harry, skimming away at
the pan with his spoon.
“He won’t be angry, I hope,” said Rosa, putting a strip of paste round
the edge of her tart-dish.
“Angry,” said Bruce, “not he. If he was, I should just show you to him,
and if he were the most peppery old man in existence, he’d come to the
down charge directly, like a well-bred pointer—just as the lion did
before Una. He’d love you directly—I’m certain he would—he must, you
know—he couldn’t help himself.”
“I’m sure I shall love _him_,” said Rosa, smiling at Bruce as she took
the spoon from him in order to taste the jam, and see how it was getting
on.
“Of course you will,” said Harry. “As I said before, he’s a splendid old
fellow.”
At this moment a step was heard on the gravel in front of the house,
followed by a tapping at the door of the porch, which was open.
“Come in!” cried Bruce. “Come in, can’t you!” he repeated, as the
tapping was renewed. “I _can’t_ go to the door in this way,” he said to
Rosa, looking down at his table-cloth.
“It’s only the butcher, or Josiah’s clerk, or some of those people,”
said Rosa; “come in, if you please.”
At this the step advanced along the passage, and came to the kitchen
door. Bruce, skimming away at his pan, didn’t turn round till he heard a
voice he knew exclaim behind him, “God bless my soul!” The spoon fell
into the brass pan, and disappeared in the seething fruit.
“Why, in heaven’s name,” said the Doctor, “what is the boy about?”
The boy in question, standing up in great confusion to the height of six
feet, with the table-cloth descending like a large cloud about his
person, hiding all of it except his military-looking arms and legs, did
not make any reply. Rosa, when she tasted the jam, had left some on her
lips, and somehow a splash of it had got transferred to Bruce’s face.
“What prank is this, sir?” asked the Dean sternly. “Who is this person?”
pointing his thick yellow cane at Rosa. “Is it the cook or the
dairymaid?”
“That, sir,” said Bruce, coming to Rosa’s rescue, “is Miss Young—the
lady I wrote to you about.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the Doctor, who had not found the answers to the
inquiries he made in Doddington as to the worldly condition of the house
of Young at all to his mind, and who, at the sight of the Parsonage, had
been more struck with its diminutiveness than its picturesqueness.
“You’re a pretty fellow! Don’t you think you’re a pretty fellow? Answer
me, puppy!”
“I’m not doing any harm, sir,” said Bruce, his handsome face looking
very red over the table-cloth, which he struggled to unpin.
“Not doing any harm, sir!” sung the Dean after him, through his nose.
“Are you making an ass of yourself, sir, do you think? Come, sir, I’m
waiting for ye. Come along with me, sir.”
Bruce having got rid of the table-cloth, went up to console Rosa, who
was now sobbing in a chair.
“Are ye coming, sir?” shouted the Dean from the door; and Bruce, with a
last whisper of comfort, went to join his parent, who, lifting his
shovel-hat, said, “Ma’am, I wish you a very good morning!” As they went
through the passage, Rosa heard the Doctor say something about “What a
shock to your poor mother!”
When Josiah returned, he found Rosa weeping by the kitchen fire, now
sunk to embers, the jam reduced to a sort of dark concrete, and the tart
still in an elemental state.
“Harry’s papa has been here,” sobbed Rosa; “and he’s been so angry; and
he’s carried Harry away, and I shall ne—never—see him—any mo—re.”
The Dean kept such strict watch over his son while the troop remained at
Doddington, lecturing him all the time, that he never got the smallest
glimpse of Rosa before quitting the place, though he managed to write
her some tender and consoling letters. His only other consolation was in
confiding his grief to Mr Titcherly, the old antiquary. They had become
intimate and fond of one another—“a pair of friends, though he was
young, and Titcherly seventy-two.” Bruce had sympathised with the old
gentleman’s pursuits, and aided them—he had, moreover, made drawings
illustrative of the great work on the antiquities of Doddington, which
were now being engraved for a second edition; and when the troop left
the town, nobody missed him more, nor thought more kindly of him, next
to Rosa, than Mr Titcherly.
Bruce had nourished in his secret heart an intention of getting leave
when they got to headquarters, and coming back to see Rosa. This was
defeated by the vigilance of his parent, who, suspecting the design,
made it a particular request to the Colonel that he would allow his son
no leave of absence, hinting at an indiscreet attachment; and the
Colonel, in the most friendly way, promised to comply with the Dean’s
wishes. Afterwards the Dean went home, and told his wife (he being a
pious man, and familiar with the ways of Providence) that he considered
the moving of the detachment from Doddington in the light of a special
interference.