A VISIT.
"DEAR MAY,
"Young Copperhead, the young fellow whom you have
undertaken to coach, is coming to the Hall for a few days
before he enters upon his studies, and Anne wishes me to
ask you to come over on Tuesday to dine and sleep, and to
make acquaintance with him. You can carry him back with you
if it suits you. In my private opinion, he is a cub of the
most disagreeable kind; but the girls like his mother, who
is a kind of cousin, as you know. It is not only because he
has failed to take his degree (you know how I hate the
hideous slang in which this fact is generally stated), but
that his father, who is one of the rich persons who abound
in the lower circles of society, is ambitious, and would
like to see him in Parliament, and that sort of thing--a
position which cannot be held creditably without some sort
of education: at least, so I am myself disposed to think.
Therefore, your pleasing duty will be to get him up in a
little history and geography, so that he may not get quite
hopelessly wrong in any of the modern modifications of
territory, for instance; and in so much Horace as may
furnish him with a few stock quotations, in case he should
be called upon, in the absence of any more hopeful
neophyte, to move the Address. He is a great hulking
fellow, not very brilliant, you may suppose, but not so
badly mannered as he might be, considering his parentage. I
don't think he'll give you much trouble in the house; but
he will most probably bore you to death, and in that case
your family ought to have a claim, I should think, for
compensation. Anyhow, come and see him, and us, before you
begin your hard task.
"Very truly yours,
"R. DORSET."
"Anne makes me open my letter to say that Ursula must come
too. We will send a carriage to meet you at the station."
This letter caused considerable excitement in the Parsonage. It was the
first invitation to dinner which Ursula had ever received. The
dinner-parties in Carlingford were little frequented by young ladies.
The male population was not large enough to afford a balance for the
young women of the place, who came together in the evening, and took all
the trouble of putting on their pretty white frocks, only to sit in rows
in the drawing-room, waiting till the old gentlemen came in from the
dining-room, after which everybody went away. There were no young
gentlemen to speak of in Carlingford, so that when any one was bold
enough to attempt a dancing-party, or anything of an equally amusing
description, friends were sent out in all directions, as the beaters are
sent into the woods to bring together the unfortunate birds for a
_battue_, to find men. These circumstances will explain the flutter in
Ursula's innocent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.
May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at
periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On
this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family
reckoning, and yet he was more kind than any one had ever known him.
Instead of making any objections, he decided at once that Ursula must
go, and told her to put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look
very nice.
"You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her," he said.
"Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is worth having."
"Oh, papa!" cried Janey, "when you are always calling her an old maid!"
"L'un n'empêche pas l'autre," he said, which puzzled Janey, whose French
was very deficient. Even Ursula, supposed to be the best French scholar
in the family, was not quite sure what it meant; but it was evidently
something in favour of Cousin Anne, which was sweet to the grateful
girl.
Janey, though suffering bitterly under the miserable consciousness of
being only fourteen, and not asked anywhere, helped with disinterested
zeal to get her sister ready, and consoled herself by orders for
unlimited muffins and cake for tea.
"There will only be the children," she said, resignedly, and felt
herself _incomprise_; but indeed, the attractions of a good romp
afterwards, no one being in the house to restrain the spirits of the
youthful party, made even Janey amends.
As for Reginald, who was not asked, he was, it must be allowed, rather
sulky too, and he could not solace himself either with muffins or romps.
His rooms at the College were very pleasant rooms, but he was used to
home; and though the home at the Parsonage was but faded, and not in
such perfect order as it might have been, the young man felt even his
wainscoted study dull without the familiar voices, the laughter and
foolish family jokes, and even the little quarrels which kept life
always astir. He walked with Ursula to the station, whither her little
box with her evening dress had gone before her, in a half-affronted
state of mind.
"What does he want with a pupil?" Reginald was saying, as he had said
before. "A fellow no one knows, coming and taking possession of the
house as if it belonged to him. There is plenty to do in the parish
without pupils, and if I were not on the spot he would get into trouble,
I can tell you. A man that has been ploughed, 'a big hulking fellow'
(Sir Robert says so, not I). Mind, I'll have no flirting, Ursula; that
is what always happens with a pupil in the house."
"Reginald, how dare you--"
"Oh, yes, I dare; my courage is quite equal to facing you, even if you
do shoot thunderbolts out of your eyes. Mind you, I won't have it. There
is a set of fellows who try it regularly, and if you were above them,
would go in for Janey; and it would be great fun and great promotion for
Janey; she would feel herself a woman directly; so you must mind her as
well as yourself. I don't like it at all," Reginald went on. "Probably
he will complain of the dinners you give him, as if he were in an inn.
Confound him! What my father means by it, I can't tell."
"Reginald, you ought not to swear," said Ursula. "It is dreadfully
wicked in a clergyman. Poor papa meant making a little more money. What
else could he mean? And I think it is very good of him, for it will
bother him most. Mr. Copperhead is very nice, Reginald. I saw him in
London, you know. I thought he was very----".
"Ah! oh!" said Reginald, "I forgot that. You met him in London? To be
sure, and it was there you met Miss Beecham. I begin to see. Is he
coming here after her, I should like to know? She doesn't look the sort
of girl to encourage that sort of thing."
"The sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing! How strangely you
talk when you get excited: isn't that rather vulgar? I don't know if he
is coming after Miss Beecham or not," said Ursula, who thought the
suggestion uncalled for, "but in a very short time you can judge for
yourself."
"Ah--indignation!" said the big brother, who like most big brothers
laughed at Ursula's exhibition of offended dignity; "and, by the way,
Miss Beecham--you have not seen her since that night when she was sent
for. Will not she think it strange that you never sent to inquire?"
"I sent Betsey--"
"But if Miss Beecham had been somebody else, you would have gone
yourself," he said, being in a humour for finding fault. "If poor old
Mrs. Tozer had been what you call a lady--"
"I thought you were much more strong than I am against the Dissenters?"
said Ursula, "ever since that man's speech; and, indeed, always, as long
as I can recollect."
"She is not a mere Dissenter," said Reginald. "I think I shall call as I
go home. She is the cleverest girl I ever met; not like one of you
bread-and-butter girls, though she is not much older than you. A man
finds a girl like that worth talking to," said the young clergyman,
holding himself erect. Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown
ever so much more self-important since he got a living of his own.
"And if I was to say, 'Mind, I won't have it, Reginald?'" cried Ursula,
half-laughing, half-angry. "I think that is a great deal worse than a
pupil. But Miss Beecham is very dignified, and you may be sure she will
not think much of a call from you. Heaven be praised! that is one thing
you can't get into your hands; we girls are always good for something
there. Men may think themselves as grand as they please," said Ursula,
"but their visits are of no consequence; it is ladies of the family who
must _call_!" After this little out-break, she came down at once to her
usual calm. "I will ask Cousin Anne what I ought to do; I don't think
Miss Beecham wanted me to go then--"
"I shall go," said Reginald, and he left Ursula in her father's keeping,
who met them at the station, and went off at once, with a pleasant sense
of having piqued her curiosity, to Grange Lane.
It was still early, for the trains which stopped at the little country
station next to the Hall were very few and inconvenient, and the sun,
though setting, was still shining red from over St. Roque's upon Grange
Lane. The old red walls grew redder still in the frosty night, and the
sky began to bloom into great blazing patches of colour upon the wintry
clearness of the blue. There was going to be a beautiful sunset, and
such a thing was always to be seen from Grange Lane better than anywhere
else in Carlingford. Reginald went down the road slowly, looking at it,
and already almost forgetting his idea of calling on Miss Beecham. To
call on Miss Beecham would be to call on old Tozer, the butterman, to
whom alone the visit would be naturally paid; and this made him laugh
within himself. So he would have passed, no doubt, without the least
attempt at intruding on the privacy of the Tozers, had not the
garden-door opened before he got so far, and Phoebe herself came out,
with her hands in her muff, to take a little walk up and down as she did
daily. She did not take her hand out of its warm enclosure to give it to
him; but nodded with friendly ease in return to his salutation.
"I have come out to see the sunset," said Phoebe; "I like a little air
before the day is over, and grandmamma, when she is poorly, likes her
room to be very warm."
"I hope Mrs. Tozer is better. I hope you have not been anxious."
"Oh, no! it is chronic; there is no danger. But she requires a great
deal of attendance; and I like to come out when I can. Oh, how fine it
is! what colour! I think, Mr. May, you must have a _spécialité_ for
sunsets at Carlingford. I never saw them so beautiful anywhere else."
"I am glad there is something you like in Carlingford."
"Something! there is a very great deal; and that I don't like too," she
said with a smile. "I don't care for the people I am living among,
which is dreadful. I don't suppose you have ever had such an experience,
though you must know a great deal more in other ways than I. All the
people that come to inquire about grandmamma are very kind; they are as
good as possible; I respect them, and all that, but----Well, it must be
my own fault, or education. It is education, no doubt, that gives us
those absurd ideas."
"Don't call them absurd," said Reginald, "indeed I can enter into them
perfectly well. I don't _know_ them, perhaps, in my own person; but I
can perfectly understand the repugnance, the distress--"
"The words are too strong," said Phoebe, "not so much as that;
the--annoyance, perhaps, the nasty disagreeable struggle with one's self
and one's pride; as if one were better than other people. I dislike
myself, and despise myself for it; but I can't help it. We have so
little power over ourselves."
"I hope you will let my sister do what she can to deliver you," said
Reginald; "Ursula is not like you; but she is a good little thing, and
she is able to appreciate you. I was to tell you she had been called
suddenly off to the Dorsets', with whom my father and she have gone to
pass the night--to meet, I believe, a person you know."
"Oh, Clarence Copperhead; he is come then? How odd it will be to see him
here. His mother is nice, but his father is----Oh, Mr. May! if you only
knew the things people have to put up with. When I think of Mr.
Copperhead, and his great, ugly, staring wealth, I feel disposed to hate
money--especially among Dissenters. It would be better if we were all
poor."
Reginald said nothing; he thought so too. In that case there would be a
few disagreeable things out of a poor clergyman's way, and assaults like
that of Northcote upon himself would be impossible; but he could
scarcely utter these virtuous sentiments.
"Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age," he
said at length, with a half-laugh at himself for his stiff speech.
"You may say it is not an ascetic age; but yet I suppose the
Ritualists----. Perhaps you are a Ritualist yourself, Mr. May? I know as
little personally about the church here, as you do about Salem Chapel. I
like the service--so does papa--and I like above all things the
independent standing of a clergyman; the feeling he must have that he is
free to do his duty. That is why I like the church; for other things of
course I like our own body best."
"I don't suppose such things can be argued about, Miss Beecham. I wish
I knew something of my father's new pupil. I don't like having a
stranger in the house; my father is fond of having his own way."
"It is astonishing how often parents are so," said Phoebe, demurely; "and
the way they talk of their experience! as if each new generation did not
know more than the one that preceded it."
"You are pleased to laugh, but I am quite in earnest. A pupil is a
nuisance. For instance, no man who has a family should ever take one. I
know what things are said."
"You mean about the daughters? That is true enough, there are always
difficulties in the way; but you need not be afraid of Clarence
Copperhead. He is not the fascinating pupil of a church-novel. There's
nothing the least like the Heir of Redclyffe about him."
"You are very well up in Miss Yonge's novels, Miss Beecham."
"Yes," said Phoebe; "one reads Scott for Scotland (and a few other
things), and one reads Miss Yonge for the church. Mr. Trollope is good
for that too, but not so good. All that I know of clergymen's families I
have got from her. I can recognize you quite well, and your sister, but
the younger ones puzzle me; they are not in Miss Yonge; they are too
much like other children, too naughty. I don't mean anything
disagreeable. The babies in Miss Yonge are often very naughty too, but
not the same. As for you, Mr. May----"
"Yes. As for me?"
"Oh, I know everything about you. You are a fine scholar, but you don't
like the drudgery of teaching. You have a fine mind, but it interferes
with you continually. You have had a few doubts--just enough to give a
piquancy; and now you have a great ideal, and mean to do many things
that common clergymen don't think of. That was why you hesitated about
the chaplaincy? See how much I have got out of Miss Yonge. I know you as
well as if I had known you all my life; a great deal better than I know
Clarence Copperhead; but then, no person of genius has taken any trouble
about him."
"I did not know I had been a hero of fiction," said Reginald, who had a
great mind to be angry. All this time they were walking briskly backward
and forward before Tozer's open door, the Anglican, in his long black
coat, following the lively movements of Tozer's granddaughter, only
because he could not help himself. He was irritated, yet he was pleased.
A young man is pleased to be thought of, even when the notice is but
barely complimentary. Phoebe must have thought of him a good deal before
she found him out in this way; but he was irritated all the same.
"You are, however," she answered lightly. "Look at that blaze of
crimson, Mr. May; and the blue which is so clear and so unfathomable.
Winter is grander than summer, and even warmer--to look at; with its
orange, and purple, and gold. What poor little dirty, dingy things we
are down here, to have all this exhibited every evening for our
delight!"
"That is true," he said; and as he gazed, something woke in the young
man's heart--a little thrill of fancy, if not of love. It is hard to
look at a beautiful sunset, and then see it reflected in a girl's face,
and not to feel something--which may be nothing, perhaps. His heart gave
a small jump, not much to speak of. Phoebe did not talk like the other
young ladies in Grange Lane.
"Mr. May, Mr. May!" she cried suddenly, "please go away! I foresee a
disastrous encounter which alarms me. You can't fight, but there is no
saying what you might do to each other. Please go away!"
"What is the matter?" he said. "I don't understand any encounter being
disastrous here. Why should I go away?"
She laughed, but there was a certain fright in her tone. "Please!" she
said, "I see Mr. Northcote coming this way. He will stop to speak to me.
It is the gentleman who attacked you in the Meeting. Mr. May," she added
entreatingly, between laughter and fright, "do go, please."
"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Reginald, roused; "I am not
afraid. Let him come on. This wall shall fly from its firm base as soon
as I."
Phoebe clasped her hands in dismay, which was partially real. "The
typical churchman," she said, with a glance at Reginald's figure, which
was not displeasing to him, "and the typical Dissenter! and what am I to
do between them? Oh, I wish you would go away."
"Not an inch," said the young champion. Phoebe was frightened, but she
was delighted. "I shall introduce him to you," she said threatening.
"I don't mind," he replied; "nothing on earth should induce me to fly."