AMONG THE LADIES
It would have surprised the stout Captain Stubbard, who thought no small
beer of his gunnery, to hear that it was held in very light esteem by
the “Frenchified young man overhead,” as he called Caryl Carne, to his
landlady. And it would have amazed him to learn that this young man was
a captain of artillery, in the grand army mustering across the sea, and
one of the most able among plenty of ability, and favoured by the great
First Consul.
In the gully where the Tugwell boats were built, behind a fringe
of rough longshore growth, young Carne had been sitting with a good
field-glass, observing the practice of the battery. He had also been
able to observe unseen the disobedient practices of young ladies, when
their father is widely out of sight. Upon Faith, however, no blame could
fall, for she went against her wish, and only to retrieve the rebellious
Dolly.
Secure from the danger, these two held council in the comfort of the
Admiral's Round-house. There Miss Dolly, who considered it her domain,
kept sundry snug appliances congenial to young ladies, for removing
all traces of sudden excitement, and making them fit to be seen again.
Simple and unfashionable as they were in dress, they were sure to have
something to do to themselves after the late derangement, ere ever they
could run the risk of meeting any of the brave young officers, who were
so mysteriously fond of coming for orders to Springhaven Hall.
“You look well enough, dear,” said Faith at last, “and much better than
you deserve to look, after leading me such a dance by your self-will.
But one thing must be settled before we go back--are we to speak of this
matter, or not?”
“How can you ask such a question, Faith?” Miss Dolly loved a bit of
secrecy. “Of course we must rather bite our tongues out, than break the
solemn pledges which we have given.” She had cried a good deal, and she
began to cry again.
“Don't cry, that's a darling,” said the simple-hearted sister. “You
make the whole world seem so cruel when you cry, because you look so
innocent. It shall be as you please, if I can only think it right. But
I cannot see how we gave a pledge of any sort, considering that we ran
away without speaking. The question is--have we any right to conceal it,
when father has a right to know everything?”
“He would be in such a sad passion,” pleaded Dolly, with a stock of
fresh tears only waiting, “and he never would look again at poor Captain
Stubbard, and what would become of all his family?”
“Father is a just and conscientious man,” replied the daughter who
inherited those qualities; “he would not blame Captain Stubbard; he
would blame us, and no others.”
“Oh, I could not bear to hear you blamed, Faith. I should have to
say that it was all my fault. And then how I should catch it, and be
punished for a month! Confined to the grounds for a month at least,
and never have a bit of appetite. But I am not thinking of myself, I am
quite sure of that. You know that I never do that much. I am thinking of
that heroic gentleman, who stamped out the sparks so cleverly. All the
time I lay on the sand I watched him, though I expected to be blown
to pieces every single moment. Oh! what a nasty sensation it was! I
expected to find all my hair turned grey. But, thank Heaven, I don't see
a streak in it!” To make sure of that, she went to the glass again.
“If all mine had turned grey, 'twould be no odds to nobody--as Captain
Zeb says about his income--because I am intended for an old maid.” Miss
Darling, whose beauty still lacked many years of its prime, turned away
for a moment, because her eyes were glistening, and her sister was
tired of the subject. “But for yours there are fifty to weep, Dolly.
Especially perhaps this young gentleman, towards whom you feel so much
gratitude.”
“How unkind you are, Faith! All the gratitude I owe him is for saving
your life. As for myself, I was flat upon the sand, with a heap of
sea-weed between me and the thing. If it had gone off, it would have
gone over me; but you chose to stand up, like a stupid. Your life was
saved, beyond all doubt, by him; and the way you acknowledge it is to go
and tell his chief enemy that he was there observing him!”
“Well, I never!” Faith exclaimed, with more vigour than grace of
language. “A minute ago you knew nothing of him, and even wondered who
he was, and now you know all about his enemies! I am afraid that you
stick at nothing.”
“I don't stick thinking, as you do, Miss,” Dolly answered, without
abashment, and knowing that the elder hated to be so addressed; “but
things come to me by the light of nature, without a twelvemonth of
brown-study. When I said what you remind me of, in such a hurry, it was
perfectly true--so true that you need have no trouble about it, with all
your truth. But since that, a sudden idea flashed across me, the sort of
idea that proves itself. Your hero you are in such a hurry to betray can
be nobody but the mysterious lodger in Widow Shanks' dimity-parlour, as
she calls it; and Jenny has told me all she knows about him, which is
a great deal less than she ought to know. I meant to have told you, but
you are so grand in your lofty contempt of what you call gossip, but
which I call good neighbourly intercourse! You know that he is Mr. Caryl
Carne, of course. Everybody knows that, and there the knowledge seems to
terminate. Even the Twemlows, his own aunt and uncle, are scarcely ever
favoured with his company; and I, who am always on the beach, or in the
village, have never had the honour of beholding him, until--until it
came to this”--here she imitated with her lips the spluttering of the
fuse so well that her sister could not keep from laughing. “He never
goes out, and he never asks questions, any more than he answers them,
and he never cares to hear what fish they have caught, or anything else,
about anybody. He never eats or drinks, and he never says a word about
the flowers they put upon his table; and what he does all day long
nobody knows, except that he has a lot of books with him. Widow Shanks,
who has the best right to know all about him, has made up her mind that
his head has been turned by the troubles of his family, except for
his going without dinner, which no lunatic ever does, according to her
knowledge. And he seems to have got 'Butter Cheeseman,' as they call
him, entirely at his beck and call. He leaves his black horse there
every morning, and rides home at night to his ancestral ruins. There,
now, you know as much as I do.”
“There is mischief at the bottom of all this,” said Faith; “in these
dangerous times, it must not be neglected. We are bound, as you say,
to consider his wishes, after all that he has done for us. But the
tale about us will be over the place in a few hours, at the latest. The
gunners will have known where their bad shot fell, and perhaps they will
have seen us with their glasses. How will it be possible to keep this
affair from gossip?”
“They may have seen us, without seeing him at all, on account of the
smoke that came afterwards. At any rate, let us say nothing about it
until we hear what other people say. The shell will be washed away
or buried in the sand, for it fell upon the shingle, and then rolled
towards the sea; and there need be no fuss unless we choose to make it,
and so perhaps ruin Captain Stubbard and his family. And his wife has
made such pretty things for us. If he knew what he had done, he would go
and shoot himself. He is so excessively humane and kind.”
“We will not urge his humanity to that extreme. I hate all mystery, as
you know well. But about this affair I will say nothing, unless there is
cause to do so, at least until father comes back; and then I shall tell
him if it seems to be my duty.”
“It won't be your duty, it can't be your duty, to get good people into
trouble, Faith. I find it my duty to keep out of trouble, and I like to
treat others the same as myself.”
“You are such a lover of duty, dear Dolly, because everything you
like becomes your duty. And now your next duty is to your dinner. Mrs.
Twemlow is coming--I forgot to tell you--as well as Eliza, and Mrs.
Stubbard. And if Johnny comes home in time from Harrow, to be Jack among
the ladies, we shall hear some wonders, you may be quite sure.”
“Oh, I vow, I forgot all about that wicked Johnny. What a blessing that
he was not here just now! It is my black Monday when his holidays begin.
Instead of getting steadier, he grows more plaguesome. And the wonder of
it is that he would tie your kid shoes; while he pulls out my jaconet,
and sits on my French hat. How I wish he was old enough for his
commission! To-morrow he will be dancing in and out of every cottage,
boat, or gun, or rabbit-hole, and nothing shall be hidden from his eyes
and ears. Let him come. 'I am accustomed to have all things go awry,'
as somebody says in some tragedy. The only chance is to make him fall
in love, deeply in love, with Miss Stubbard. He did it with somebody for
his Easter week, and became as harmless as a sucking dove, till he found
his nymph eating onions raw with a pocketful of boiled limpets. Maggie
Stubbard is too perfect in her style for that. She is twelve years old,
and has lots of hair, and eyes as large as oysters. I shall introduce
Johnny to-morrow, and hope to keep him melancholy all his holidays.”
“Perhaps it will be for his good,” said Faith, “because, without some
high ideas, he gets into such dreadful scrapes; and certainly it will be
for our good.”
After making light of young love thus, these girls deserved the shafts
of Cupid, in addition to Captain Stubbard's shells. And it would have
been hard to find fairer marks when they came down dressed for dinner.
Mrs. Twemlow arrived with her daughter Eliza, but without her husband,
who was to fetch her in the evening; and Mrs. Stubbard came quite
alone, for her walkable children--as she called them--were all up at the
battery. “Can't smell powder too young in such days as these,” was the
Captain's utterance; and, sure enough, they took to it, like sons of
guns.
“I should be so frightened,” Mrs. Twemlow said, when Johnny (who sat at
the foot of the table representing his father most gallantly) had said
grace in Latin, to astonish their weak minds, “so nervous all the time,
so excessively anxious, the whole time that dreadful din was proceeding!
It is over now, thank goodness! But how can you have endured it, how
can you have gone about your household duties calmly, with seven of your
children--I think you said--going about in that fiery furnace?”
“Because, ma'am,” replied Mrs. Stubbard, who was dry of speech, and fit
mother of heroes, “the cannons are so made, if you can understand, that
they do not shoot out of their back ends.”
“We are quite aware of that”--Miss Twemlow came to her mother's relief
very sharply--“but still they are apt to burst, or to be overloaded, or
badly directed, or even to fly back suddenly, as I have heard on good
authority.”
“Very likely, miss, when they are commanded by young women.”
Eliza Twemlow coloured, for she was rather quick of temper; but she did
not condescend to pay rudeness in kind.
“It would hardly be a lady-like position, I suppose,” she answered, with
a curve of her graceful neck--the Carnes had been celebrated for their
necks, which were longer than those of the Darlings; “but even under
the command of a most skilful man, for instance Captain Stubbard, little
accidents will happen, like the fall of a shell upon the beach this
afternoon. Some people were close to it, according to the rumour; but
luckily it did not explode.”
“How providential!” cried Mrs. Twemlow; “but the stupid people would
have gone without much pity, whatever had befallen them, unless they
were blind, or too ignorant to read. Don't you think so, Faith, my
dear?”
“I don't believe a single word of that story,” Mrs. Stubbard cut short
the question; “for the simple reason that it never could have happened.
My husband was to direct every gun himself. Is it likely he would have
shelled the beach?”
“Well, the beach is the proper place for shells; but if I had only known
it, wouldn't I have come a few hours earlier?” said Johnny. “Even now
there must be something left to see; and I am bound to understand that
sort of thing. Ladies, I entreat you not to think me rude, if I go
as soon as ever you can do without me. I think I have got you nearly
everything you want; and perhaps you would rather be without me.”
With many thanks and compliments--such a pretty boy he was--the ladies
released him gladly; and then Mrs. Twemlow, having reasons of her own,
drew nigh to Mrs. Stubbard with lively interest in her children. At
first, she received short answers only; for the Captain's wife had drawn
more sour juices than sweet uses from adversity. But the wife of the
man of peace outflanked the better half of the man of war, drove in her
outposts, and secured the key of all her communications.
“I can scarcely believe that you are so kind. My dear Mrs. Twemlow, how
good you are! My Bob is a nice boy, so manly and clever, so gentle and
well-behaved, even when he knows that I am not likely to find him out.
But that you should have noticed it, is what surprises me--so few
people now know the difference! But in the House of God--as you so well
observe--you can very soon see what a boy is. When I tell him that he
may ride your grey pony, I wish you could be there to watch the fine
expression of his face. How he does love dumb animals! It was only last
Saturday, he knocked down a boy nearly three times his own size for
poking a pin into a poor donkey with the fish. And Maggie to have a
flower-bed on your front lawn! They won't let her touch a plant, at our
cottage, though she understands gardening so thoroughly. She won't
sleep a wink to-night, if I tell her, and I had better keep that for the
morning. Poor children! They have had a hard time of it; but they have
come out like pure gold from the fire--I mean as many of them as can use
their legs. But to be on horseback--what will Bob say?”
“You must have met with very little kindness, Mrs. Stubbard, to attach
any importance to such mere trifles. It makes me blush to think that
there can be a spot in England where such children as yours could pass
unnoticed. It is not a question of religious feeling only. Far from
it; in fact, quite the opposite; though my husband, of course, is quite
right in insisting that all our opinions and actions must be referred
to that one standard. But I look at things also from a motherly point
of view, because I have suffered such sad trials. Three dear ones in the
churchyard, and the dearest of all--the Almighty only knows where he is.
Sometimes it is more than I can bear, to live on in this dark and most
dreadful uncertainty. My medical man has forbidden me to speak of it.
But how can he know what it is to be a mother? But hush! Or darling
Faith may hear me. Sometimes I lose all self-command.”
Mrs. Twemlow's eyes were in need of wiping, and stout Mrs. Stubbard's
in the same condition. “How I wish I could help you,” said the latter,
softly: “is there anything in the world that I can do?”
“No, my dear friend; I wish there was, for I'm sure that it would be
a pleasure to you. But another anxiety, though far less painful, is
worrying me as well just now. My poor brother's son is behaving most
strangely. He hardly ever comes near us, and he seems to dislike my dear
husband. He has taken rooms over your brave husband's Office, and he
comes and goes very mysteriously. It is my duty to know something about
this; but I dare not ask Captain Stubbard.”
“My dear Mrs. Twemlow, it has puzzled me too. But thinking that you knew
all about it, I concluded that everything must be quite right. What
you tell me has surprised me more than I can tell. I shall go to work
quietly to find out all about it. Mystery and secrecy are such hateful
things; and a woman is always the best hand at either.”