BETWEEN TWO STOOLS.
“Do any of you happen to know when Arthur is going to be married?”
The question was Lady Millicent’s, and she asked it of her three younger
children one day towards the end of May, when Arthur was absent for a
few days in London, and the family dinner--not a very lively one--had
been just concluded. The servants--two of them in plush and powder, with
their chief in all the dignity of a white tie and glittering studs--had
left the room, and milady, looking as usual fat, fair, and comfortable
in her dark dress, a little _passée de mode_, ensconced her double chin
within the palm of her puffy white hand, and quietly awaited a response.
The girls from either side of the richly-furnished table glanced
furtively at each other, and Horace, who was feeling especially bright,
in consequence of having that day received the long-looked-for
notification that his examination would take place in the following
week, tapped his fingers lightly against the mahogany table, with an
assumed air of taking no interest in the question. He was seated in his
brother’s place, a half smile--a smile in which there was much latent
satire--playing over his intelligent face. Probably Lady Millicent’s
real or affected interest in her son’s proceedings rather amused than
disturbed him.
“Can’t anyone answer?” said Lady Millicent, who, like all great people,
had an objection to being kept waiting, and who was apt to be what is
vulgarly called “put out” by any apparent absence of obsequious respect.
“It doesn’t give much trouble to say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and Arthur is
so extremely mysterious that I am unfortunately obliged to address
myself to others for information.”
“I think it depends a good deal on his coming of age,” said Horace, who,
in spite of a certain vein of cynicism which occasionally gave
bitterness to his words, was sincerely attached to his brother, and ever
ready to give him a helping hand.
“I don’t suppose that old Dub will make any objection to its being a
case of no settlements on _our_ side--he’s such an uncommon liberal old
fellow; but, as Atty says,--and upon my word I think he’s right,--it is
awfully disgusting to owe everything to a woman.”
“Your poor father was of a different opinion,” said Lady Millicent
drily, and with her voice lowered to the properly pathetic tone in which
alone she allowed herself to speak of her dead husband. Horace turned
very red at this unexpected and, as he mentally called it, indelicate
remark. He was by nature an observant character, and young as he had
been at the time of his father’s fatal accident, he had, without
entertaining any desire to spy into peccant places, into the _rifts_,
great or small, of his parents’ inner life, already seen enough with
those keen eyes of his to convince him that only the outside surface of
things was smooth in his stately and prosperous home. The two lads had
during Cecil Vavasour’s lifetime been accustomed to hear much obsequious
praise and prosternating flattery of their mother. For years they had
grown up in the faith of her prudence, her large-mindedness, her
liberality, and her cleverness; and it was not till long after they were
fatherless that either Horace or Arthur became entirely convinced that
Lady Millicent had shone with reflected lustre only, and that the good
gifts for which the world had given her credit were not _hers_, but
those of the husband who had borne his faculties through life with such
a meek and unobtrusive grace. How far Lady Millicent was at that time
aware of the fact that the eyes of not only her children but the world
were opened to her shortcomings we need not now inquire. Proud and
arrogant though she was, “milady” would have been very far from pleased
could she have learned the truth, and known what a “falling-off was
there,” where but a few short years before all tongues, both male and
female, great and small, were wagging in her praise.
“Please, dear mother,” Horace said, with the angry spot deepening on his
brow, “to remember that my poor father’s name can never be brought
in--in--this way without giving pain to all of us. I always feel that
the opinions of one that is dead should be held even more sacred than
those of a person who is absent. The latter _may_ come back either to
uphold or to deny them, while--”
“My dear Horace,” interrupted Lady Millicent haughtily, “this will never
do; you will be thought--pardon me for saying so--a terrible bore in
society if you take to laying down the law in this prosy way. I little
thought when I asked you a simple question about your brother what I was
bringing upon myself.”
Horace laughed good-humouredly. Like most young men, he hated a _scene_
of any kind, and was very apt, for his sisters’ sake as well as his own,
to turn off Lady Millicent’s attacks with a joke.
“Thank you, ma’am, for the hint,” he said good-humouredly. “It _was_ a
great mistake on my part dogmatising in such a ponderous fashion. As to
your question, my dear mother, I really believe that Arthur is waiting
to learn something of your wishes on the subject. As we all know, he
will be twenty-one next month.”
“Yes, the parish register could have told you that,” put in Lady
Millicent sarcastically; “but I confess to seeing no connection whatever
between your brother’s age and his marriage.”
She fixed her eyes firmly on her son as she spoke. They were large,
handsome, defiant eyes, the only good feature in her face--good, that
is, if a feature can be called so which assists to give a hard and
unfeminine expression to its owner’s countenance. Again Horace
endeavoured to pass the matter lightly and playfully off.
“Well, it _is_ very absurd, I daresay,” he said; “but somehow or other,
though, the two _do_ seem to be connected. Perhaps, as I said before,
Arthur does not quite like marrying _in forma pauperis_. He may expect
that the tremendously important event of his coming of age would be
ushered in by a ‘ceremony’ which would require his presence. You can
understand, my dear mother,” Horace went on rather hurriedly, for he
felt that he was treading on dangerous ground,--“you can understand that
this is rather an--an awkward subject to talk over with you; and
besides, you will, I am sure, enter into his feelings about Mr. Duberly.
He is, as I said before, a capital old fellow; but, nevertheless, he
_may_ perhaps take it into his head to think that Arthur’s family
might--might come forward--”
“Come forward! Why, the man’s father was a cowkeeper, or a butterman, or
something of that kind! You don’t mean to say that _they_ are going to
make difficulties?”
“Not _difficulties_. O, no. Mr. Duberly would never run the risk of
‘dear Sophy’ losing what she had set her heart on. I believe that if she
wished to marry the chimney-sweep--”
“Which would be not at all an unsuitable alliance.”
They all laughed, following Lady Millicent’s lead, that lady evidently
thinking that she had made rather a happy hit. Kate, however, who was
growing nervous, telegraphed to her brother a hint that he should be
silent--a caution which the wilful Horace utterly disregarded.
“Poor old Atty,” Horace said, very impertinently his mother thought (in
fact, it was really surprising how greatly his approaching emancipation
was awakening the spirit of self-assertion in his juvenile
breast),--“poor old Atty, it is terrible to think that he should be
driven at his time of life by force of circumstances and adverse fate
to such awful _encanaillement_ as this!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘adverse circumstances,’” said Lady
Millicent, looking very stern, and rising from her chair with a
considerable accession of dignity; “if young men will be extravagant and
get into debt, they must take the consequences;” and having so said,
Lady Millicent, after signing to her daughters to remain where they
were, swept grandly out of the room.
“O, Horace, how could you!” exclaimed Kate in an awe-struck whisper.
“How could I!” mimicked Horace. “How could I what? Why, you little
goose, when shall I make you understand that it is always better to take
(metaphorically speaking, of course) the bull by the horns? You ought to
know _that_ by this time; but, as you don’t, I can only repeat what I
have said fifty times before--that, what with your grimaces and Rhoda’s
tears, you are about the two silliest young women in Christendom.--Now,
Roe dear,” he went on, addressing his eldest sister in a tone of mock
displeasure which, together with the quaint name which he had bestowed
upon the quiet and slightly sentimental girl, set Kate off--no unusual
occurrence--into what Horace called a fit of the giggles,--“now, Roe
dear, what in the world are you crying about now?”
“I wasn’t crying, Horace,” said Rhoda. She was rather a pretty
pale-faced girl, whose tears--for her nerves were weak--came at very
slight provocation to her eyelids. She had wiped one furtively away
while her brother began to “chaff” her about this well-known propensity,
and then was quite ready to say tremulously: “I wasn’t crying, only
everything seems so uncomfortable; and it is so odd, not knowing when
Arthur is to be married. I believe he has told you! Now, has he, Horace?
Don’t be ill-natured;” and both the girls at once set to work to kiss
and coax him.
“Paws off!” cried Horace, laughing. “No, then, he hasn’t--upon my word,
he hasn’t. There! I hate not knowing the truth as much as you do; and I
only wish he was to be married next week.”
“And why?” Kate eagerly exclaimed; “you usen’t to like--”
“_Usen’t!_ What grammar! You’ll want Miss Bates back again if you can’t
speak your mother-tongue better than that.”
“Never mind my mother-tongue,” Kate began impatiently. “I want to be
told--”
“You want to be told a thousand things that you’ve no business to know.
You are both as curious as a couple of magpies; but you may chatter
till midnight without getting a word out of me. I’m off to the stable
for a smoke; so you needn’t bother me any more.”
In spite of the cheerful air and janty manner with which he endeavoured
to conceal his troubles, Horace Vavasour did not smoke on that especial
evening “the pipe of contentment;” nor could the corn-bin on which he
sat be in the smallest degree considered as typical of that well-known
“carpet of hope” on which the lethargic Turk is supposed to take his
ease.
“It is all my mother’s fault,” he murmured to himself, as he kicked his
dangling heels disconsolately against the solid oak. “If my mother would
but behave like other people! If she had kept up her house and
establishment in London, or even if she had given Arthur the means of
living like a gentleman, I never will believe that he _could_ have got
into these awful scrapes. What will happen if he does not marry soon,
God knows; and yet _for_ that poor girl’s sake one ought not to wish it.
I was sure how it would all be if once--” He drew a long whistling
breath, and threw down the end of his cigar, crushing its last spark out
with the heel of his boot. It was nine o’clock now, and the great
church-like stable-bell had already called the “faithful” to evening
prayers; and from force of habit, it is to be feared, rather than from
a higher and more Christian cause, Horace Vavasour hurried back to the
Castle. He did not seem to himself, however, to care much whether he
infringed Lady Millicent’s rules on that sweet May evening or not. He
was a man now, with a man’s profession, a man’s cares, and, to a certain
extent, a man’s responsibilities. For years--very long years they
appeared now as he looked back to them--he had nightly seen that long
array of serving men and women lining the old oak wall, and, as it were,
praying. He had heard his lady mother read many a blessing over their
heads; but somehow or other the ceremony had not seemed to bring a
blessing with it; and Horace was certainly rather consoled than
otherwise with the reflection that from that day forward, for many a
night to come, he would be allowed to spend his evening hours as he
pleased.