NOT QUITE FOR MONEY.
“How like my mother to be patronising this wedding--just the thing she
is certain to do! That sort of popularity costs nothing--not five
shillings, or trust Milady for staying away.”
“O, but, Arthur, you forget the present,” said Kate Vavasour--“the
present that cost, O, _such_ a quantity of money!--mamma did not say how
much. But it’s a brooch like a bull’s-eye, only flat, with a white
stripe across it; and it came from the jeweller’s at Leigh, with several
others to choose from, and mamma kept the biggest. She said it was ‘just
the thing,’ but I can’t say that I admired it much.”
“I should think not,” said her brother scornfully--“a wretched Scotch
pebble as a wedding present for the wife of such a tenant as John
Beacham--a man whose father and grandfather were born and bred on the
land! Such a favourite of my father’s too;” and Arthur Vavasour, who
had just returned from a nine-months’ foreign tour, and who, in the
company of a pleasant and amenable tutor, had lost for a time the memory
of Lady Millicent’s “wholesome retrenchments,” made a mental resolve to
contrast her niggardly _cadeau_ to Honor Blake with an offering of his
own which would be more worthy of the bride’s acceptance. He and his
favourite sister Kate, a lively girl, but without any great pretensions
to beauty, and who, in Lady Millicent’s opinion, required a good deal of
keeping under, were sauntering through the once beautifully kept
conservatory, where now--infinitely to Arthur’s disgust--he could trace
the same “odious system of dirty economy” which everywhere met his eye.
“It isn’t nice, certainly,” Kate said, stooping while she spoke to pick
off the dead leaves of a neglected pelargonium; “I am afraid they will
all think it so mean. Much better to have given nothing. However, I am
glad we’re going; we so seldom do anything lively, that even this seems
quite a change. Besides, Atty, you will like to see the bride. She was
away last year with the Clay’s Farm children for change of air, after
they had scarlet-fever,” continued Kate, who was a great picker-up of
local news, a peculiarity in a young lady of “position,” for which Lady
Millicent’s treatment of her children was in a great degree the cause.
“You missed seeing her then, I remember. But, Arthur, do tell me, is
there no chance of the Castle growing livelier, do you think? What a
time it is now since things have been as they used to be! and then that
dismal half-mourning! It can’t be,” lowering her voice, “for my poor
father all this time. Don’t you think now, Arthur, that mamma will
surely make _some_ change at Gillingham soon?”
“Can’t say,” said Arthur, throwing the end of the cigar he had been
smoking upon the ill-cleaned mosaic pavement of the conservatory; “I
never attempt either to understand my mother or to make the slightest
guess as to what she is going to do. But about this wonderful beauty who
is to be made a wife of to-day--who is she? And what do people know
about her?”
“Not much, I believe. The Pembertons’ housekeeper, Mrs. Bainbridge, who
has lived with them for ages, and who is a great friend of the Clays,
recommended Miss Blake, who is her niece, to them as nursery governess
to their children, and--”
“Governess, indeed! By Jove, what will that class of people come to
next? However, I suppose it will be thought a civil thing to go and see
John Beacham turned off. There never was a better fellow either in his
line or out of it; and then, as I said before, he was such an uncommon
favourite of my father.”
“Yes, wasn’t he?” Kate said eagerly. She was a little thoughtless child
of twelve when Cecil Vavasour died; but the kind father, with his mild
face and winning voice, lived in her memory still, had taught her to
like and appreciate all that he, in his useful lifetime, had seemed to
value. “Wasn’t dear papa fond of the Beachams? How often he used to
trudge away over the fields, with the thick ash stick that stands in the
corner of the inner hall in his hand, to visit the Beachams at the farm!
Poor dear papa! he used to say that he placed John first of the few
honest men he knew. But, Arthur dear,” and she put her arm coaxingly
within her brother’s, “do you really think that Rhoda will come out this
year, and--”
“And will Miss Katherine Vavasour, as a natural sequence to that event,
beam out upon the London world the year following--a consummation so
devoutly to be wished? Upon my word, Kitty, though I am pretty well up
to your crafty ways and clever little dodges, you have come to the very
last person in the world who is likely even to give a guess at my lady’s
plans. And as to asking her--why she would think such questions,
especially from the heir-apparent, to the last degree indelicate,
presuming--in the worst possible taste, in short. But here comes
Horace. He can, perhaps, throw some light upon the matter. He has twice
the pluck that I have when it comes to tackling my lady. I don’t think,
for some reason or other, that she hates him quite as much as she does
me.--I say, old fellow,” he continued, as Horace Vavasour, a
fair-complexioned, intelligent-looking young man, came loungingly
towards them, with his hands thrust into his trousers-pockets, “do you
happen to know anything of the prospects of this cheerful family of
ours? Here is Kate, at sixteen and a half--isn’t that about the mark,
eh, Kitty?--naturally crazy to know when there is any chance of her
being married. Don’t laugh; it’s a serious business, as I have no doubt
Rhoda thinks too, though she hasn’t the brass, like you, to ask leading
questions on the subject. However, what do _you_ say it is to be?
London, or no London? Husbands, or no husbands? It is really time that
these poor girls should know their fate.”
Horace, thus appealed to, shook his head ominously. “I am as much in the
dark as you can be,” was his unsatisfactory exordium. “Milady will be
long enough before she either chooses confidants from among her
children, or holds a _conseil de famille_ as to their individual hopes
and wishes. In the mean time,” he added, stretching himself wearily,
“what a bore this life is! I declare I would rather break stones upon
the road than go on as we do at Gillingham. No creature except the
clergyman and the London lawyer ever asked to the house, and my mother
so awfully serious and gloomy! I declare, since the day when I was
supposed to have finished my education, and when old Collins took his
final leave with a handsome present of my father’s photograph as a
testimony of my lady’s regard and esteem, I have never once enjoyed the
unpurchasable luxury of a laugh. The best chance to get one is to spend
an hour with Thady Nolan in the stables. He’s an importation since your
time, Arthur, and I assure you, from personal experience, that you would
find his society quite a resource. He is full of genuine Irish
humour--quite a character in his way--and never, by any chance, takes
liberties.”
“I am glad,” Arthur said, “that my mother hasn’t reduced the stable
establishment to quite the same miserable footing as everything else
about this miserable place. Individually, it doesn’t so much signify to
me; not personally, I mean. When a man is going to be married--”
“Then it is true? O, Atty!” exclaimed Kate, and her eyes filled with
tears, for she loved that prodigal and _tant soit peu_ unprincipled
brother, of whose faults she knew so little, very dearly, and the idea
of his marriage was, in some undefinable way, a blow to her.
“_True!_ Of course it is. What was there besides for me to do? There was
that season in London, two years ago now--how time does fly!--when you
were all living so quietly in the country here, and when I--but there’s
no earthly use in going over it all again. All I ask of you is, whether
you, Kate, or you, Horace, or anyone that knows us both, would suspect
me of marrying Sophy Duberly, unless--unless I couldn’t help myself?”
“I can’t see that exactly,” Horace said. “She’s a very fine-looking
girl, and always jolly, with plenty to say for herself. I only wish that
I had the good fortune to make an impression on just such another. I
like your talking like a victim, Arthur! Heiresses to twenty thousand a
year are not as plenty as blackberries, and Sophy Duberlys don’t grow on
every hedge, to be had for the picking.”
“Well, that’s true enough, and I daresay it will all answer very well.
Sophy is, I believe, what is generally called a ‘nice girl,’ and has an
idea that she is fond of me, which may, or may not, be an illusion. Of
the two, father or daughter, I confess I think old Dub himself the best
fellow. I like the house too. There’s a _laissez-aller_ about it that
is perfectly delicious when contrasted with our home. There is not an
atom of _gêne_ at Thanes Court. One may say and do and look as one likes
at Mr. Duberly’s house. There are no cranky speeches; no domineering
determination that only one person in the house is to lay down the law.
I declare that if _our_ home had been the least like that--if our mother
resembled in anything that jolly old boy at Thanes Court--I, at the
unripe age of--under twenty-one--should probably not be about to tie
myself for life--a thing to which, at present, I feel not the least
inclination--to a young woman for whom at present--well, there is no use
in being over-confidential--if Sophy were as lovely as the Calipegean
Venus, or even as attractive and charming as John Beacham’s Irish bride,
I shall probably not look much at her face when she has been my wife a
year.
‘Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?’”
he repeated to himself as he walked slowly away through a rarely-used
but admirably-proportioned billiard-room into an apartment on the ground
floor, which, by prescriptive right, he considered as his own.
“Poor Arthur!” Horace said, when he and his sister were left alone; “I
had no idea that he cared so little about her. I wonder what my mother
will say when she hears it is all settled?”
“I wonder, too. Be glad, I should think: but she won’t say so, and will
be angry because she was not told while it was going on. _You_ were, I
suppose, you close, ill-natured, unbrotherly boy! Of course, those long
letters from Atty while he was at Cannes, and which you kept so
provokingly to yourself, were all about Sophy Duberly. Now, tell me,
Horace--there’s a good, dear boy--didn’t he propose then? I am sure he
did, and that he told you all about what he said to Sophy, and what she
answered, and--”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kate; _men_” (Horace was nineteen, and the _down_
was beginning to darken on his chin) “are not in the habit of wasting
letter-paper on such nonsense. Arthur made running at Cannes, of course,
but nothing was settled till he and the Duberlys met the other day in
Paris. I am sure that no one ought to wonder at his marrying. People
will stare, of course--I mean those who can’t look behind the scenes.
They will think it extraordinary that the heir to such a property as my
mother’s should marry when he is only one-and-twenty _for money_.”
“Not quite for money only. You said just now, yourself, that Sophy was
nice--”
“Did I? Well, so she is; and if I were half as good-looking a fellow as
Atty, I should look out for a girl a quarter as nice, with an eighth
part of Sophy’s expectations; and if she accepted me, I should think
myself a deuced lucky dog. Heigh ho! What an age it seems before the
examination time! I wonder how long my mother thinks one can endure such
a horrible existence as this.”
“It can’t last for ever,” Kate said; “and it is quite as bad for us as
it is for you; and yet you never hear either Rhoda or me lamenting over
our fate as you do over yours.”
“O, girls are different! Women are meant to live in the country, and
stay at home.”
It was not the first time that Katherine Vavasour had listened to the
enunciation of this popular aphorism, and, as usual, it provoked her
excessively. In her opinion, the “lines” that had fallen to Horace were
very pleasant compared to those hard ones which had been meted out to
herself and her sister. He was permitted a certain kind of liberty, had
a horse to ride, and provided that the hours for meals were not
infringed on, or the family-prayer bell neglected, he was allowed to go
and come pretty much as he liked. As regarded her daughters, however,
Lady Millicent’s family rules and arrangements were far more strict.
Since the simultaneous dismissal (for the flagrant offence of joint
matrimonial attentions) of Mr. Collins and Kate’s steady middle-aged
governess, Lady Millicent had deemed it her duty to still further
circumscribe the narrow circle of her daughters’ pleasures. She was a
woman who disliked trouble, so that a few “general orders,” such as that
_no_ books from the circulating library were to be read, and no walks
outside the park walls were to be taken, formed the staple of her very
stringent form of government. Against these retrenchments, as well as
against the daily dulness of their monotonous existence, Kate Vavasour
(Rhoda was made of more submissive stuff) was perpetually chafing. She
dreaded the moment, too, when Horace would be emancipated from the yoke
which so sorely galled her own youthful shoulders. His education had
been principally a home one, a private tutor having for the last three
years been busily employed at the Castle in preparing the younger sons
for the ordeal of a civil-service examination. Horace had been very
impatient of the home restraints which during those three years had been
imposed upon him. Often had he been seized with an almost irresistible
longing to fly from the tedious sameness, the almost unendurable
routine, of his home life. Had Lady Millicent been only tolerably
sympathetic--had she entered the least into their feelings--been but a
few degrees less hard, less self-engrossed, and less unwilling to allow
her children a few of the pleasures to which young flesh believes itself
to be heir--it is more than probable that Horace would have been less
anxious to escape from an existence which after all contained, as in
later years he was ready to acknowledge, so many of the elements of
happiness. That he did not so endeavour to escape was owing partly to
the affection of Horace Vavasour for his sisters, who were wont to
protest with tears that they could not endure their fate if he, the only
one who kept their house alive, were to desert them; and partly to the
_habit_ of submission which had grown with his growth and strengthened
with his strength. Before Lady Millicent’s second son also there was a
road in life marked out--a point in the horizon on which his eyes and
hopes were fixed. That point in the future was the competitive
examination for which he had been so long and diligently preparing
himself; that road in life was the one that led, through mental effort,
as a “government servant,” to distinction. The career chosen for Horace
Vavasour was that of a “public man;” how far an almost strictly private
education was calculated to fit him for that career may remain an open
question.