Transcriber’s Note: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
DEAD MEN’S SHOES
A Novel
BY THE AUTHOR OF
‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’
ETC. ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
LONDON
JOHN MAXWELL AND CO.
4, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET
1876
[_All rights reserved._]
CONTENTS TO VOL II.
CHAP. PAGE
I. A DANGEROUS TRIUMPH 1
II. HALF CONFIDENCE 31
III. RECEIVED BY THE COUNTY 42
IV. JENNY’S VISITOR 53
V. ‘WILL FORTUNE NEVER COME WITH BOTH HANDS FULL?’ 69
VI. STARTLING INFORMATION 96
VII. TOWN TALK 116
VIII. BETWEEN LOVE AND GOLD 127
IX. SIR WILFORD HAS HIS OWN WAY 141
X. MARION IS RAISED TO DISTINCTION 159
XI. AT THE HOW 177
XII. TILBERRY STEEPLECHASE 188
XIII. JOEL PILGRIM 227
XIV. ALEXIS COMES TO GRIEF 244
XV. FALLEN BY THE WAYSIDE 265
XVI. GOOD SAMARITANS 275
XVII. BITTER ALMONDS 294
XVIII. VILLAGE SLANDER 313
DEAD MEN’S SHOES.
CHAPTER I.
A DANGEROUS TRIUMPH.
That visit of Sir Wilford Cardonnel’s to Lancaster Lodge is
followed in about ten days by a second morning call, the baronet
being supported on this occasion by his elder sister, a rather
strong-minded young woman, who rejoices in the pastoral name of Phœbe.
‘My sisters are dying to know you,’ says Sir Wilford, with a gush of
enthusiasm, after the necessary introductions have been gone through
in a slipshod way, Sir Wilford being careless of the rules and
ceremonies of polite life.
Miss Cardonnel’s countenance does not support her brother’s statement
by any gleam of light from the spirit within. She is looking round
the handsome--upholsterer’s--drawing-room with a critical air, taking
stock of the big Japanese vases, so like those in the window of the
chief grocer at Krampston, the crimson satin curtains, and sofas,
half an acre or so of looking-glass, the black boys in front of the
console table, holding up golden baskets of emptiness in their ebony
arms. A room so different from the spacious saloon at the How, with
its faded curtains and fine old pictures, its tulipwood coffee-tables
and threadbare carpets, its crystal chandeliers, and cabinets of old
English china, collected by the grandmothers and great-grandmothers
of the reigning family.
‘What a pity these commercial people have everything so fine and so
new!’ thinks Miss Cardonnel. ‘If they didn’t burst out into all this
splendour one might forget they were parvenus. The girl is pretty, I
suppose, or what most people call pretty. Features too sharply cut
for my taste.’
Miss Cardonnel’s features are of the blunt order, and her face
inclines to that type of beauty which the vulgar mind classifies as
‘puddingy.’
They have found Sibyl in the drawing-room, looking her very prettiest
in white muslin, much adorned with Valenciennes, straw-coloured bows
dotted about here and there among the flouncings and ruchings, and
a broad straw-coloured sash tied with that artistic carelessness
which is one of Sibyl’s gifts. She has a running account now at
Carmichael’s, the leading draper of Redcastle, and orders what she
likes. The account has been running for the past twelve months, and
indulgent as her millionaire uncle is, Sibyl rather dreads the hour
when the sum-total of this account shall be brought under his notice.
But in a dull provincial town what excitement can a pretty girl have
except a little extravagance in the way of dress? Even matrons whose
beauty is a matter of tradition are apt to plunge into a vortex of
millinery for want of any other whirlpool wherein to rotate.
Stephen Trenchard receives his guests with a marked graciousness,
accepts Sir Wilford’s friendly advances greedily, and tries to make
himself agreeable to Miss Cardonnel, who is rather more stony and
unimpressionable than she ought to be if she comes prepared to extend
the hand of friendship.
‘I am very glad for my niece to make pleasant--indeed distinguished
acquaintance,’ says Mr. Trenchard. ‘People in Redcastle have been
very kind, Mrs. Stormont especially, quite motherly in her goodness
to Sibyl. But I am better pleased for her to know county people,
there is a--a difference.’
‘Yes, I suppose you find it so,’ replies Miss Cardonnel coolly, as if
she felt that she belonged to another order of bipeds. ‘Mrs. Stormont
is nice, of course,’ with seraphic patronage, ‘very good family, I
believe, the Stormonts,’--this dubiously, as much as to say, ‘so they
tell me, poor creatures, but I haven’t seen the particulars in Burke.’
Sir Wilford has come to ask when Mr. Trenchard is going to drive Miss
Faunthorpe over to the How.
‘If you want to see our roses, you know, you must not lose any time,
you know,’ he adds, emphatically,--‘must they, Phœbe?’
‘The roses are nearly over now, Wilford,’ replies Miss Cardonnel,
which remark is not exactly a warm invitation.
‘Oh, stuff! why, you were saying that the Dijons were just in their
glory this very morning, while we were waiting for the phaeton. When
will you come, Miss Faunthorpe? To-morrow--Wednesday--Thursday?’
‘We dine at the Friary on Wednesday, Wilford.’
‘Ah, to be sure. To-morrow, then?’
Sibyl looks embarrassed. This marked attention from the head
of a county family kindles no flush of gratified vanity on her
cheek to-day. Sir Wilford’s admiration was pleasant enough on the
racecourse, a triumph in the sight of all Redcastle, but the matter
is now growing more serious. She begins to think that she has really
made a conquest, that Sir Wilford is disagreeably in earnest.
‘It is like the realization of my childish dream about a rich
husband, and all the bells in Redcastle ringing for my wedding,’ she
says to herself, ‘only it comes too late. I am not sorry that it is
so. I have no regret. I made my choice, and shall be proud to stand
by it when the time comes. Only it is curious that the childish
dream should come true after all.’
‘Will you come to the How to-morrow, Mr. Trenchard?’ asks Sir
Wilford. ‘We have some old pictures that you may like to see. There’s
a Vandyke my father used to think great things of, and our gardens
are worth a visit in this weather, though I’m always blowing up those
beggars of gardeners. Come early, and we can do the gardens before
luncheon, and the pictures after.’
‘My uncle so seldom goes out in the morning,’ says Sibyl, quickly, as
if eager to find an excuse for declining.
‘But this invitation is too tempting to be refused,’ interposes Mr.
Trenchard. ‘I have heard wonders of the How. Mrs. Stormont is very
fond of talking about the How vineries and the How stables.’
‘Then you’ll come to-morrow,’ exclaims Sir Wilford, delightedly.
Miss Cardonnel is lost in contemplation of the lights and shadows on
the lawn, seen under the Spanish blind, which affords but a limited
view of the garden.
‘If that day will suit Miss Cardonnel’s engagements.’
‘Oh, I shall be very happy, I’m sure,’ replies the young lady thus
directly appealed to.
After this Miss Cardonnel is tolerably civil, and talks to Sibyl a
little, questioning her about her habits and amusements--whether
she rides, is fond of croquet, archery, and so on, with rather a
district-visiting air, as of a kindly inquirer letting herself down
to the level of the lower classes.
‘You have a croquet club, or something of that sort in Redcastle,’
she says, loftily, as if she had never had the institution clearly
explained to her. ‘I rather think my sister and I are honorary
members, but we’ve never been.’
‘Yes, there is a club for croquet and archery. They meet in Sir John
Boldero’s park.’
‘Very nice for you, I dare say,’ remarks Miss Cardonnel, as much as
to say, ‘People of your class must be provided with amusements of
some kind.’
They all take a little stroll in the garden presently, and Miss
Cardonnel deigns to admire the fine old plane trees on the lawn. It
is a considerable relief to move about in the sunshine, and have
flower-beds and standard roses to look at and talk about, after that
forced conversation in the drawing-room.
‘I think your ribbon borders are better than ours,’ remarks Miss
Cardonnel. ‘Those are the stables, I suppose,’ looking at the
slated roofs which appear just above the shrubbery. ‘Have you many
saddle-horses?’
‘Only the one my uncle bought for me. The groom rides one of the
carriage horses.’
Miss Cardonnel visibly shudders.
‘And is your horse nice?’
‘She’s a darling, very pretty, and very gentle.’
‘Indeed,’ says Miss Cardonnel. ‘I hate gentle horses. I like a horse
to be lively, and give me something to do. It must be rather dull
work for you riding alone, if you’re not particularly fond of riding.’
‘Oh, but I’m very fond of riding.’
‘You don’t hunt, I suppose?’
‘No, my uncle would hardly like that, I think.’
‘I dare say not. Wilford, your roans must be very tired of waiting,
and I have some more calls to make.’
Mr. Trenchard begs his guests to stay to luncheon.
‘Thanks; you are very good, but it would be quite impossible,’
replies Miss Cardonnel, decisively. ‘I have so much to do before I go
home. Then we are to see you at the How to-morrow. Good-bye.--Come,
Wilford, pray.’
Sir Wilford, who has been gazing at Sibyl, and forgetting the
engagements of life and time, follows his sister reluctantly, after a
cordial leave-taking.
‘Well, little woman, I think there’s no doubt about your having made
a conquest there,’ says Stephen Trenchard, directly the Cardonnels
have vanished.
His tone is at once more cheerful and more affectionate than it has
been for some little time, for a period dating from that night on
which he received his nameless visitor.
‘Please don’t talk about conquests, uncle.’
‘Nonsense, child! It’s a subject I’m very glad to talk about. I want
you to marry well. I should like you to make a brilliant marriage,
Sibyl, before I am gone.’
‘Dear uncle, pray don’t----’
‘My love, I’m an old man,--tough and wiry enough, it is true, but
well on in years. I can’t expect to live for ever. And I should like
to see you well placed in life before I say my _nunc dimittis_.’
‘What does it matter, uncle?’ says Sibyl impatiently.
It is so tiresome of this old man--rolling in wealth, and of course
intending to bequeath a considerable portion of his riches to her--to
harp thus persistently upon the advantages of a good marriage. What
could a rich husband avail to one who is to be so richly dowered? Two
fortunes are no better than one if the one be large enough for every
earthly desire.
‘Believe me, dear uncle, I have no idea of marrying. I never shall
marry. And as for Sir Wilford Cardonnel,’ adds Sibyl with asperity,
‘I positively hate him.’
She has her husband’s letter in her bosom--that letter written in
the Pimlico coffee-house, and transmitted through Jane Dimond’s
toil-stained hands,--and the idea of any other man’s admiration is
revolting to her. If--if she dared but tell her uncle the truth! If
he had not this rooted hatred of his dead enemy’s race, how different
life might be!
‘Hate a fine, handsome young man--one of the best men in the
county--who has come out of his way to pay you attention! I’m ashamed
of you, Sibyl,’ exclaims Stephen Trenchard, and his bristling brows
contract threateningly over his keen dark eyes as he scrutinizes
Sibyl’s pale face.
‘I hope there is no one else in the background,’ he says, ‘no scamp
whose acquaintance you made in London. Perhaps that’s the reason why
you stayed away so long after I had asked to see you.’
Sibyl’s pale cheek grows paler.
‘There is no one, uncle,’ she says resolutely, feeling that the
situation is desperate. ‘Have you ever heard me speak of any one? All
I want is not to be worried about marrying. If you are tired of me,
if you think me an encumbrance, or a burden, send me away. I can go
back to uncle Robert, or I can be a governess again.’
This little bit of temper, or independence, pleases Mr. Trenchard.
‘Don’t fly into a passion, little one,’ he says, kindly. ‘I suppose
you know how pretty you look when you are angry. I won’t tease you
any more about getting married, but when a good chance offers don’t
refuse it. That’s all I say, my dear.’
They go in to luncheon together, and Sibyl resumes those pretty
coaxing ways that have won her uncle’s heart. She sits near him and
ministers to his wants, which are not many, never forgets to hand
him the Nepaul pepper, pours out his glass of claret--all with a
caressing tenderness which is not without its charm for him.
‘I think I shall pay a duty visit this afternoon, uncle, unless you
want me for anything.’
‘Going to see your sister and the old doctor, I suppose,’ replies Mr.
Trenchard. He speaks of Robert Faunthorpe with a touch of compassion,
as if the surgeon were considerably his senior, instead of being his
junior by about ten years.
‘Yes, uncle. Marion thinks me unkind for not going oftener. But it’s
such a long dusty walk through the town, and if I take the carriage
she does nothing but sneer at me.’
‘Poor Marion,’ says Mr. Trenchard. ‘She has all the littleness of a
girl fresh from boarding school. Let her sneer, child. We must all
live our own lives, and let people think what they like about us.
You’d better take the carriage.’
‘It’s not worth while. I should like to stop with Marion and Jenny
for a few hours. I shall be back to dinner, of course, uncle.’
‘I’m glad of that. You’ve spoiled me for lonely dinners, little one.
I miss those bright eyes of yours at the other side of the table.’
It is a broiling summer afternoon, and that long empty street below
Bar, the broad bright market-place, Little Bethel, the British
schools, the Sunday school, the Independent Chapel, the Athena Lodge,
are all glaring in the sun. Mrs. Groshen has made her house-front
a blaze of geranium and calceolaria, festoons of verdure hang
down from the encaustic flower-boxes, brass canary cages glitter
in the open windows. Dr. Mitsand’s grave old house on the shady
side of the street, brown and sombre, contrasts this variegated
glare. From this point the houses decrease in size and importance,
and a little lower down begin the shops--all of a refined and
elegant character at this end of the street. The hairdresser’s--the
stationer and bookseller’s--the fancy and Berlin wool warehouse--the
photographer’s--the fashionable pastrycook’s, in whose plate-glass
window appear a wooden wedding cake, sumptuously decorated with
fly-spotted plaster of Paris, two glass jellies, and three tall glass
jars of confectionery of the méringue and cracker bonbon order, which
have never been opened within the knowledge of the external world.
The méringues, the bonbons, the Savoy biscuits are pale with old
age. But the confectioner is not without business, for it is he who
supplies the _vol au vents à la Financière_, and the lobster cutlets
which are an inevitable feature in a Redcastle dinner.
After these genteeler repositories come the vulgar every-day
butchers and bakers, grocers, candlestick-makers, drapers, and
tallow-chandlers. The street opens into the market square, in the
middle of which stands the town hall, square and imposing, with a
façade of no particular style, and a big-faced clock which is always
at variance with the minster. Here, too, is the police station at a
corner, with a flaming bill stuck against its stony front, offering
a reward for the apprehension of the assassin in a murder case which
no one has ever heard of. That bill will disappear in a day or two,
and no one in Redcastle will ever be any the wiser about the murderer
or murder. After the market square the high street, or main artery
of the town, dwindles and grows narrow. The shops become dingy and
small. There are rows of cottages at intervals; then a row of very
ancient and shabby almshouses, whose parlours have sunk below the
level of the pavement, and whose upper chambers are no higher than
the passing pedestrian’s shoulder. Here, at the end of the street,
the centre of all this shabbiness, rising sublimely above the petty
modern town, stands the minster--one of the most perfect cathedral
churches in the land,--its ancient burial-ground stretching widely
behind it, a forge and a cluster of old-fashioned cottages for its
opposite neighbours, and beyond the white high road and the open
fields. There are a few houses and gardens on this high road, and the
second of these, on the same side as the minster, is Dr. Faunthorpe’s
dull old dwelling. The roses are in bloom in the front garden to-day,
and brighten the aspect of the house a little, but the roses and the
grass, the old cherry tree in the corner, and the jessamine against
the wall are all alike whitened with dust.
The garden gate is rarely locked, and the house door is always open
in warm weather, so Sibyl has nothing to do but walk in. She has not
seen her relatives at this end of the town since she saw them on
the racecourse, and she is quite prepared to find Marion somewhat
cantankerous. That young lady starts up from the sofa with flushed
face, rumpled hair, and a generally towzled appearance, as Sibyl
enters the every-day parlour. She has fallen asleep over a novel,
in which an impossibly lovely and accomplished heroine revolves in
a circle of dukes and duchesses, marquises and millionaires; the
male members of which patrician society fall in love with her at the
slightest provocation.
‘Oh!’ exclaims Marion, with a long yawn, ‘It’s you, is it? I didn’t
expect you’d come and see _us_ any more, now that you’ve made the
acquaintance of the county. Pray to what fortuitous combination of
circumstances do we owe this unlooked-for honour?’ she adds, with a
touch of the all-accomplished heroine’s dignity.
‘Don’t be an idiot, Marion. I wonder I ever do come to see you,
considering how execrable you make yourself.’
‘I do not enjoy _your_ opportunities,’ replies Marion, briskly. ‘_I_
am not favoured with the friendship of the Stormonts. _I_ don’t live
in a splendidly furnished house with pampered flunkeys to wait upon
me. _I_ haven’t a running account at the draper’s. In short, I’m a
low vulgar person altogether.’
‘Marion, you are too absurd!’
‘“Her manners had not the repose that marks the cast of Vere de
Vere.” You ought to pity my shortcomings. I dare say when you are
Lady Cardonnel you will cut me altogether. You looked as if you would
have liked to do it on the racecourse.’
‘And so I should, you provoking minx. The idea of taking that horrid
old rattle-trap of a pony carriage up to the racecourse, to let all
Redcastle see how often the harness has been mended, and how the
cushions have been devoured by moths!’
‘Everybody can’t have barouches and pairs,’ cries Marion, with
vixenish energy. ‘You thought I was going to stay away from the
races, did you? while you were enjoying yourself with your grand
friends. If you didn’t want me to go in uncle Robert’s pony chaise,
why didn’t you take me in uncle Trenchard’s barouche? He’s my uncle
every bit as much as he’s yours, unless I’m a changeling. I was to be
moping at home, was I, while you were decked out in new bonnets and
things, and flirting audaciously with a baronet. Cinderella’s sisters
were kindness itself compared with you.’
‘Talk as much nonsense as you like, Marion, I’m not going to quarrel
with you. The weather’s much too warm for family squabbles. I’m sure
I’ve been nearly melted between Lancaster Lodge and here.’
‘People accustomed to a barouche must find walking a trial.’
‘Where’s Jenny?’
‘Making an object of herself in the garden, I suppose,’ replies
Marion, flinging herself down upon the sofa and resuming her novel.
‘I’ll go and have a chat with her. She’s pleasanter company than you
are, at any rate.’
‘I dare say,’ says Marion contemptuously, with her back to her
sister. ‘Some people don’t like home truths.’
Sibyl goes into the garden, not displeased at being on bad terms with
Marion. Jenny is the person she has come to see, and it is vital to
her to see Jenny alone.
The long old-fashioned garden is a land flowing with milk and honey
in this blazing July weather. Gooseberry bushes bending under their
heavy load; smooth gooseberries and hairy gooseberries, green, red,
and yellow gooseberries, currants red, white, and black. The hoary
old bushes grow such fruit as you could rarely find in your orderly
modern garden. This midsummer-time is Jane Faunthorpe’s saturnalia.
She spends the long warm afternoons in a dwarf forest of prickly
shrubs, tears her frocks to absolute ribbons, neglects her stockings,
lets her long tails of brown hair go loose and ragged as a beggar
girl’s, and in her sister’s words makes an object of herself. The
fruit she eats all day, the lettuces and other green stuffs she
consumes at supper-time, would lay an ordinary mortal low, under
the deadly grip of cholera; but Jenny is none the worse for her
intemperance, and rises with renewed vigour every morning to run riot
among the gooseberry bushes. Dr. Faunthorpe remonstrates occasionally
on the subject of his youngest niece’s unkempt and down-at-heel
condition, and remarks plaintively that she is not exactly a credit
to him or to her sisters. But Marion flings the burden of blame on
Jane. She is quite incorrigible. It is useless to attempt improvement.
‘If I were to work my fingers to the bone to-day, she’d be just as
ragged to-morrow,’ argues Marion.
‘But, my love, there are rents, absolute rents in her frock which
might surely be sewn up with very little labour,’ pleads the mild
doctor.
‘Then let her sew them up herself,’ exclaims Marion, ‘she’s old
enough. I shan’t encourage her to be a tear-coat by doing all her
mending.’
The old servant and factotum, Hester, girds at both,--Jenny for her
sluttishness, Marion for her fine-ladyism.
‘You can pore your eyes out over a bit of trumpery to make yourself
smart,’ she says to the elder damsel, ‘yet you won’t thread a needle
to make your sister tidy.’
Thus Jenny is an element of discord in the house, and, conscious of
this fact, confines herself but seldom within its walls. She rambles
about the garden, or squats in dusty corners, or hides among the
gooseberry bushes all day long. She has sundry members of the animal
kingdom for her amusement, a blind jackdaw in a dilapidated old cage
in the stable, caterpillars and green beetles in paper boxes or old
pickle bottles, a family of white mice, a hutch full of rabbits. With
these companions she is perfectly happy.
Sibyl finds her youngest sister sitting on the ground in a spot where
the gooseberries grow thickest, sunburnt, disorderly, her plentiful
brown hair hanging loosely over her shoulders, no collar, no cuffs,
a dirty holland gown out at elbows and too short at the wrists, and
two stout legs stretched straight before her in wrinkled stockings,
two overgrown feet in clumsy boots making themselves ungracefully
conspicuous. Jenny Faunthorpe is not a bad-looking girl, and may
possibly develop eventually, into a good-looking woman, but in her
present wild state she has not that air of refinement which Sibyl
would like to see in her sister.
To-day, however, Sibyl is anxious to be on good terms with this young
Bohemian.
‘Well, child, burning yourself to a cinder as usual,’ she begins,
‘and you might have such a nice complexion if you would only take
care of it.’
‘I should never have _your_ complexion,’ answers the reprobate
child without looking up; ‘I’m not made of tinted marble, like Mr.
Somebody’s coloured Venus.’
‘Get up, you silly girl, and let me have a look at you.’
‘De-ah me!’ cries Jenny, ‘So you know me to-day; you didn’t seem to
recognise me on the racecourse last week, in uncle Robert’s pony
chaise. You needn’t have been so proud. We were carriage people just
as much as you. A carriage is a carriage anyhow.’
‘There are some carriages that are a great deal more disgraceful than
walking,’ exclaims Sibyl, forgetting the necessity of conciliating
this outspoken child.
‘Yes, carriages that people ride in through lick spittling, and
turning their backs on their truest benefactors,’ cries the
incorrigible Jane. ‘If it hadn’t been for uncle Robert’s goodness we
might all have died of starvation when we were tiny children. Uncle
Trenchard did not think of us then, oh dear no. But uncle Trenchard
can leave us a lot of money, and uncle Robert can’t, so we court
uncle Trenchard. At least some of us do--not a hundred miles from
this gooseberry bush.’
‘Well, Jenny, I came here this overpowering afternoon, through that
baking town, on purpose to see you, but as you’re not particularly
civil I may as well go back.’
‘No, you needn’t,’ cries Jenny, springing up from the ground and
letting a shower of gooseberry skins fall from her lap. ‘I feel
better tempered now that I’ve given you a piece of my mind, but when
you see me again in a public place, Sib, don’t you try to cut me,
because it won’t do. I’m not going to be cut by my own flesh and
blood. I’ll run and coax Hester to let us have tea in the arbour.
You know that old vine in the corner; it doesn’t grow grapes, but
it grows lots of leaves; me and Tom Sprig have made an arbour, and
trained that old vine over it.’
‘I should say Tom Sprig and I.’
‘Should you? I shouldn’t. If I’m not of more consequence than a boy
that comes to litter the pony for eighteen-pence a week, I don’t know
English grammar. Such an awfully jolly arbour, Sib. I’ll run and see
about tea.’
There is a vision of legs whirling wildly down the garden walk,
and Jane is gone to hold parley with honest old Hester, who stands
at a wash-tub by the back kitchen window, the perspiration pouring
down her toilworn face. There are women in the world who bear all
the burden of family cares without the sweets of kindred, and this
faithful old servant is one of these. She has toiled and striven for
Dr. Faunthorpe’s nieces as if they were her own flesh and blood; has
scolded and praised them, worked for them and thought for them, risen
early and gone to bed late; and except that she is recognised in a
general way as a good creature, too fond of using her tongue, she has
not much reward for her labours in this sublunary sphere.
‘Tea in the arbour!’ cries her shrill voice, ‘and on a washing day!
Who ever heard of such a thing? You’re never happy unless you’re
giving trouble.’
‘But we must have tea somewhere, mustn’t we, stupid? And what’s the
difference of our having it in the arbour if I carry out the tray?’
‘Yes, and smash half the cups and saucers.’
‘Oh dear yes; I’m always smashing things, ain’t I? Who was it broke
the pie-dish yesterday? Not me.’
The damsel opens a cupboard, takes out loaf and butter-dish, whisks
a tea-tray from its shelf, and arranges cups and saucers with a
tremendous clatter, while the longsuffering Hester is wiping her
shrivelled hands. There is a good deal of squabbling, but the tray is
laid between the disputants, the tea made, a plateful of bread and
butter, and another plate of plain currant cake cut, and Hester bears
the tray off to the garden, Jenny following with the cake and bread
and butter, radiant at her victory.
The arbour, in an angle of the crumbling red brick wall, is not
altogether a bad place after its fashion. An ancient fig tree, which
grows anyhow, and bears innumerable figs that never ripen, shields it
on one side, the vine covers the other side, and trails over the top.
Tom Sprig, the stable boy, has exercised his mechanical genius in
constructing a rude table and bench out of old packing cases--Jenny
has painted bench and table a vivid green.
Here Hester places the tea-tray, under protest, after a passing
nod--not a very friendly salutation--to Sibyl.
‘If you like earwigs in your teas you’ll have ’em in plenty,’ she
says, as she surveys the rustic banquet. ‘There’s no accounting for
tastes;’ and with this remark she returns to her wash-tub.
‘I’ll run and fetch Marion,’ says Jenny.
‘Not just this minute, dear,’ says Sibyl, stopping her. ‘I want to
have a few words with you alone.’
For an instant or so Jenny apprehends a lecture, but as Sibyl winds
her arm caressingly round her sister’s waist, Jenny opines that she
is wanted to share some agreeable confidence.
‘You are going to tell me about _him_,’ she cries eagerly. ‘Do, Sib.
When is it to be?’
‘Whom do you mean by _him_?’
‘Sir Wilford Cardonnel, of course. Anybody could see that it was a
case of smite.’
‘Jenny, what horrid language!’
‘I mean to say that he was smitten. And he has called on you with
Mrs. Stormont, too. That must mean something.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Hester knows a young woman that’s housemaid at Mrs. Stormont’s, and
she tells us all that goes on Above Bar. Oh, we’re not quite cut off
from the world of fashion, though we do live at the shabby end of the
town. When is it to be, Sib?’
They are walking slowly up and down the path by the old red wall, and
the border where clove carnations and cabbage roses grow in wildest
luxuriance.
‘When is _what_ to be, child?’
‘Your wedding. When are you going to be Lady Cardonnel? You’ll let
me be bridesmaid, won’t you, Sib? I’ll try to be graceful. I’ll take
such pains with myself for a month beforehand, and I’m your own
sister, you know. It stands to reason I ought to be bridesmaid; I’ve
just as good a right as Marion. When is it going to be, Sib?’
‘Never,’ cries Sibyl, turning upon her angrily; ‘and if you allow
your tongue to run on in this ridiculous manner I shan’t come to see
you any more.’
‘But you’d marry him if he asked you, sure to goodness,’ exclaims
Jane. ‘Sure to goodness’ is a favourite ejaculation of Hester’s.
‘No, I should not, Jenny;’ and, in a gush of feeling or remorse, or
utter helplessness, Sibyl flings her arms round Jane Faunthorpe’s
neck, and sobs upon her shoulder.
‘Sibyl, whatever _is_ the matter?’
‘I’ll tell you presently. Oh, Jenny, I’m very miserable.’
‘Miserable, with that lovely hat, and with all that Madeira work on
your dress?’
‘Yes, Jane. I want some one to help me, some one to pity me, and I
would rather trust you than Marion.’
‘Trust me, then. You might trust me with high treason,’ cries Jenny,
vehemently, her notions of history being for the most part derived
from Mr. Ainsworth’s novels. ‘If I had my flesh torn off with red-hot
pincers, or my feet screwed up in iron boots, I wouldn’t tell. You’d
get no Rye House Plot out of me.’
‘Yes, I think I can trust you, Jenny,’ says Sibyl, drying her tears.
‘You were always my favourite sister, you know.’
‘I didn’t know it, though I remember you said so when I told you
about that man.’
‘Yes, dear, I always loved you best.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it, Sib; and I shall be your bridesmaid,
shan’t I, when you marry, and wear white muslin over white silk,
a pink sash, and a wreath of pink daisies? That’s _my_ idea of a
bridesmaid’s dress.’
‘I shall never have any bridesmaids, Jenny.’