Helpmates and hearthmates, gladdeners of gone years,
Tender companions of our serious days,
Who colour with your kisses, smiles, and tears,
Life’s worn web woven over wonted ways.--LYTTON.
“How does he seem now?” said Geraldine, as Lancelot came into the
drawing-room of St. Andrew’s Rock at Rockquay, in the full glare of a
cold east windy May evening.
“Pretty well fagged out, but that does not greatly matter. I say,
Cherry, how will you stand this? Till I saw you in this den, I had no
notion how shabby, and dull, and ugly it is.”
“My dear Lance, if you did but know how refreshing it is to see anything
shabby, and dull, and ugly,” Mrs. Grinstead answered with imitative
inflections, which set Anna Vanderkist off into a fit of laughter,
infecting both her uncle and aunt. The former gravely said--
“If you had only mentioned it in time, I could have gratified you more
effectually.”
“I suppose it is Aunt Cherry’s charity,” said Anna, recovering. “The
reflection that but for her the poor natives would never have been able
to go to their German baths.”
“Oh, no such philanthropy, my dear. It is homeliness, or rather
homeyness, that is dear to my bourgeoise mind. I was afraid of
spick-and-span, sap-green aestheticism, but those curtains have done
their own fading in pleasing shades, that good old sofa can be lain
upon, and there’s a real comfortable crack on that frame; while as to
the chiffonier, is not it the marrow of the one Mrs. Froggatt left us,
where Wilmet kept all the things in want of mending?”
“Ah! didn’t you shudder when she turned the key?” said Lance.
“Not knowing what was good for me.”
“But you will send for some of our things and make it nice,” entreated
Anna, “or Gerald will never stay here.”
“Never fear; we’ll have it presentable by the vacation. As for Uncle
Clement, he would never see whether he was in a hermit’s cell, if he
only had one arm-chair and one print from Raffaelle.”
There was a certain arch ring in her voice that had long been absent,
and Anna looked joyous as she waited on them both.
“I am glad you brought her,” said Lance, as she set off with Uncle
Clement’s tea.
“Yes, she would not hear of the charms of the season.”
“So much the better for her. She is a good girl, and will be all
the happier down here, as well as better. There’s a whole hive of
Merrifields to make merry with her; and, by the bye, Cherry, what should
you think of housing a little chap for the school here where Fergus
Merrifield is?”
“Your dear little Felix? Delightful!”
“_Ouf_! No, he is booked for our grammar school.”
“The grammar school was not good for any of you, except the one whom
nothing hurt.”
“It is very different now. I have full confidence in the head, and the
tone is improved throughout. Till my boys are ready for a public school
I had rather they were among our own people. No, Cherry, I can’t do it,
I can’t give up the delight of him yet; no, I can’t, nor lose his little
voice out of the choir, and have his music spoilt.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“I don’t think I spoil him. I really have flogged him once,” said Lance,
half wistfully, half playfully.
“How proud you are of it.”
“It was for maltreating little Joan Vanderkist, though if it had only
been her brother, I should have said, ‘Go it, boys.’ It was not till
afterwards that it turned out that Joan was too loyal not to bear the
penalty of having tied our little Audrey into a chair to be pelted with
horse-chestnuts.”
“At Adrian’s bidding?”
“Of course. I fancy the Harewood boys set him on. And what I thought of
was sending Adrian here to be schooled at Mrs. Edgar’s, boarded by
you, mothered by Anna, and altogether saved from being made utterly
detestable, as he will inevitably be if he remains to tyrannize over
Vale Leston.”
“Would his mother consent?”
“You know he is entirely in Clement’s power.”
“It would only be another worry for Clement.”
“He need not have much of him, and I believe he would prefer to have him
under his own eye; and Anna will think it bliss to have him, though what
it may prove is another question. She will keep you from being too much
bothered.”
“My dear Lance, will you never understand, that as furze and thistles
are to a donkey, so are shabbiness and bother to me--a native element?”
In the morning Clement, raised on his pillows in bed, showed himself
highly grateful for the proposal about his youngest ward.
“It is very good of you, Cherry,” he said. “That poor boy has been very
much on my mind. This is the way to profit by my enforced leisure.”
“That’s the way to make me dread him. You were to lie fallow.”
“Not exactly. I have thirteen or fourteen years’ reading and thinking to
make up. I have done no more than get up a thing cursorily since I left
Vale Leston.”
“You are welcome to read and think, provided it is nothing more recent
than St. Chrysostom.”
“So here is the letter to Alda,” giving it to her open.
“Short and to the purpose,” she said.
“Alda submits to the inevitable,” he said. “Don’t appear as if she had a
choice.”
“Only mention the alleviations. No, you are not to get up yet. There’s
no place for you to sit in, and the east wind is not greatly mitigated
by the sea air. Shall I send Anna to read to you?”
“In half-an-hour, if she is ready then; meantime, those two books, if
you please.”
She handed him his Greek Testament and Bishop Andrews, and repaired
to the drawing-room, where she found Anna exulting in the decorations
brought from home, and the flowers brought in from an itinerant barrow.
“I have been setting down what they must send us from home--your own
chair and table, and the Liberty rugs, and the casts of St. Cecilia and
little St. Cyrillus for those bare corners, and I am going out for a
terra-cotta vase.”
“Oh, my dear, the room is charming; but don’t let us get too dependent
on pretty things. They demoralize as much or more than ugly ones.”
“Do you mean that they are a luxury? Is it not right to try to have
everything beautiful?”
“I don’t know, my dear.”
“Don’t know!” exclaimed Anna.
“Yes, my dear, I really get confused sometimes as to what is mere lust
of the eye, and what is regard to whatever things are lovely. I believe
the principle is really in each case to try whether the high object or
the gratification of the senses should stand first.”
“Well,” said Anna, laughing, “I suppose it is a high object not to
alienate Gerald, as would certainly be done by the culture of the
ugly--”
“Or rather of that which pretends to be the reverse, and is only
fashion,” said her aunt, who meantime was moving about, adding nameless
grace by her touch to all Anna’s arrangements.
“May I send for the things then?” said Anna demurely.
“Oh yes, certainly; and you had better get the study arm-chair for your
uncle. There is nothing so comfortable here. But I have news for you.
What do you say to having little Adrian here, to go to school with the
Merrifield boy?”
“What fun! what fun! How delicious!” cried the sister, springing about
like a child.
“I suspected that the person to whom he would give most trouble would
feel it most pleasure.”
“You don’t know what a funny, delightful child he is! You didn’t see him
driving all the little girls in a team four-in-hand.”
It would be much to say that Mrs. Grinstead was enchanted by this
proof of his charms; but they were interrupted by Marshall, the polite,
patronizing butler, bringing in a card. Miss Mohun would be glad to know
how Mr. Underwood was, and whether there was anything that she could do
for Mrs. Grinstead.
Of course she was asked to come in, and thus they met, the quick, slim,
active little spinster, whose whole life had been work, and the far
younger widow, whose vocation had been chiefly home-making. Their first
silent impressions were--
“I hope she is not going to be pathetic,” and--
“She is enough to take one’s breath away. But I think she has tact.”
After a few exchanges of inquiry and answer, Miss Mohun said--
“My niece Gillian is burning to see you, after all your kindness to
her.”
“I shall be very glad. This is not quite a land of strangers.”
“I told her I was sure you would not want her to-day.”
“Thank you. My brother is hardly up to afternoon visitors yet, and we
have not been able to arrange his refuge.”
“You have transformed this room.”
“Or Anna has.”
On which Miss Mohun begged for Miss Vanderkist to meet her nieces by and
by at tea. Gillian would call for her at four o’clock, and show her the
way that it was hoped might soon be quite natural to her.
“Gillian’s ‘Aunt Jane,’” said Anna, when the visitor had tripped out.
“I never quite understood her way of talking of her. I think she worried
her.”
“Your pronouns are confused, Annie. Which worried which? Or was it
mutual?”
“On the whole,” laughed Anna back, “I prefer an aunt to be waited on to
one who pokes me up.”
“Aunt Log to Aunt Stork? To be poked will be wholesome.”
In due time there was a ring at the front door; Gillian Merrifield was
indulged with a kiss and smile from the heroine of her worship, and
Anna found herself in the midst of a garland of bright girls. She was
a contrast to them, with her fair Underwood complexion, her short plump
Vanderkist figure, and the mourning she still wore for the fatherly
Uncle Grinstead; while the Merrifield party were all in different shades
of the brunette, and wore bright spring raiment.
They had only just come down the steps when they were greeted by a young
clergyman, who said he was on his way to inquire for Mr. Underwood, and
as he looked as if he expected a reply from Miss Vanderkist, she said
her uncle was better, and would be glad to see Mr. Brownlow when he had
rested after his journey.
“I hope he will not bother him,” she added; “I know who he is now. He
was at Whittingtonia for a little while, but broke down. There’s no
remembering all the curates there. My aunt likes his mother. Does he
belong to this St. Andrew’s Church?”
“No, to the old one. You begin to see the tower.”
“Is that where you go?”
“To the old one in the morning, but we have a dear little old chapel at
Clipstone, where Mr. Brownlow comes for the afternoon. It is all a good
deal mixed up together.”
Then another voice--
“Do you think Mr. Underwood would preach to us? Mr. Brownlow says he
never heard any one like him.”
Anna stood still.
“Nobody is to dare to mention preaching to Uncle Clement for the next
six months, or they will deserve never to hear another sermon in their
lives.”
“What an awful penalty!”
“For shame, Dolores! Now,” as the short remainder of a steep street was
surmounted, “here, as you may see, is the great hotel, and next beyond
is Aunt Jane’s, Beechcroft. On beyond, where you see that queer tower,
is Cliff House, Mr. White’s, who married our Aunt Adeline, only they are
in Italy; and then comes Carrara, Captain Henderson’s--”
“You are expected to rave about Mrs. Henderson’s beauty,” said the
cousin, Dolores Mohun, as she opened Miss Mohun’s gate, between two
copper beeches, while Anna listened to the merry tongues, almost
bewildered by the chatter, so unlike the seclusion and silent watching
of the last month; but when Mysie Merrifield asked, “Is it not quite
overwhelming?” she said--
“Oh no! it is like being among them all at Vale Leston. My sisters
always tell me my tongue wants greasing when I come down.”
Her tongue was to have exercise enough among the bevy of damsels who
surrounded her in Miss Mohun’s drawing-room--four Merrifields, ranging
from twenty-two to twelve years old, and one cousin, Dolores Mohun, with
a father in New Zealand.
“Won’t you be in the Mouse-trap?” presently asked number three, by name
Valetta.
“If I did not know that she would drag it in!” cried Dolores.
“What may it be?” asked Anna.
“An essay society and not an essay society,” was the lucid answer.
“Gillian said you would be sure to belong to it.”
“I am afraid I can’t if it takes much time,” said Anna in a pleading
tone. “My uncle is very far from well, and I have a good deal to do
in the way of reading to him, and my little brother is coming to go to
school with yours.”
“Mr. Underwood brought his little boy,” said Gillian. “Fergus said he
was one of the jolliest little chaps he had ever seen.”
“Uncle Reginald quite lost his heart to him,” said Mysie, “and Aunt Jane
says he is a charming little fellow.”
“Oh, Felix Underwood!” said Anna. “Adrian is much more manly. You should
see him ride and climb trees.”
The comparative value of brothers and cousins was very apparent.
However, it was fixed that Anna should attend the Mouse-trap, and hear
and contribute as she could find time.
“I did the Erl King,” said Valetta.
“‘Who rideth so late in the forest so wild?
It is the fond father and his loving child.’”
“Oh, spare us, Val,” cried her sister Gillian. “Every one has done
that.”
“Gerald parodied mine,” said Anna.
“‘Who trampeth so late in a shocking bad hat?
‘Tis the tipsy old father a-hugging his brat.”
“Oh, go on.”
“I can’t recollect any more, but the Erl King’s daughter is a
beggar-woman, and it ends with--
“I’ll give thee a tanner and make him a bait,
So in the gin palace was settled his fate.”
Some of the party were scandalized, others laughed as much or more than
the effusion deserved.
“We accept drawings,” added another voice, “and if any one does anything
extraordinarily good in that way, or in writing, it makes a little
book.”
“We have higher designs than that,” said Gillian. “We want to print the
cream.”
“For the benefit of the school board--no, the board school.”
“Oh! oh! Valetta!” cried the general voice.
“The thing is,” explained Gillian, “that we must build a new school for
the out-liers of St. Kenelm’s, or ‘my lords’ will be down on us, and we
shall be swamped by board schools.”
“Aunt Jane is frantic about it,” said Dolores Mohun.
“There’s no escape from school board worries!” exclaimed Anna. “They
helped to demolish Uncle Clement.”
“There is to be a sale of work, and a concert, and all sorts of jolly
larks,” added Valetta.
“Larks! Oh, Val!”
“Larks aren’t slang. They are in the dictionary,” declared Valetta.
“By the bye, she has not heard the rules of the Mice,” put in Mysie.
“I’ll say them,” volunteered Valetta the irrepressible. “Members of the
Mouse-trap never utter slang expressions, never wear live birds--I mean
dead ones--in their hats.”
“Is an ostrich feather a live bird or a dead?” demanded Anna.
“And,” said Dolores, “what of the feather screens that the old Miss
Smiths have been making all the winter-circles of pheasants’ feathers
and peacocks’ eyes outside a border of drakes’ curls?”
“Oh, like ostriches they don’t count, since peacocks don’t die, and
drakes and pheasants _must_,” said Gillian.
“We have been getting ready for this sale ever so long,” said Mysie.
“Aunt Jane has a working party every Friday for it.”
“The fit day,” said Dolores, “for she is a perfect victim to other
people’s bad work, and spends the evening in stitching up and making
presentable the wretched garments they turn out.”
“The next rule--” began Valetta, but Gillian mercilessly cut her short.
“You know clever people, Anna. Do you know how to manage about our
Mouse-trap book? Our bookseller here is a school-board man, all on
the wrong side, and when I tried to feel our way, he made out that the
printing and getting it up would cost a great deal more than we could
risk.”
“It is a pity that Uncle Lance is gone home,” said Anna. “He could tell
you all about it.”
“Could you not write to him?”
“Oh, yes, but I know he will want to see a specimen before he can make
any estimate.”
It was agreed that the specimen should be forthcoming on the next
occasion, and Miss Mohun coming home, and tea coming in, the conference
was ended. Anna began to unravel the relationships.
Dolores Mohun was a niece of Lady Merrifield. She had lost her own
mother early, and after living with the Merrifields for a year, had been
taken by her father to New Zealand, where he had an appointment. He
was a man of science, and she had been with him at Rotaruna during the
terrible volcanic eruption, when there had been danger and terror enough
to bring out her real character, and at the same time to cause an amount
of intimacy with a young lady visitor little older than herself, which
had suddenly developed into a second marriage of her father. In this
state of things she had gladly availed herself of the home offered her
at Clipstone, and had gone home under the escort of her Aunt Phyllis
(Mrs. Harry May), who was going with her husband to spend a year in
England. Dolores had greatly improved in all ways during her two years’
absence, and had become an affectionate, companionable, and thoughtful
member of the Merrifield household, though still taking a line of her
own.
The Kalliope whom Gillian had befriended, to her own detriment, was now
the very beautiful Mrs. Henderson, wife to the managing partner in the
marble works. She continued to take a great interest in the young women
employed in designing and mosaics, and had a class of them for reading
and working. Dolores had been asked to tell first Aunt Jane’s G. F. S.
(Girl’s Friendly Society) girls, and afterwards Mrs. Henderson’s, about
her New Zealand experiences and the earthquake, and this developed into
regular weekly lectures on volcanoes and on colonies. She did these
so well, that she was begged to repeat them for the girls at the High
School, and she had begun to get them up very carefully, studying the
best scientific books she could get, and thinking she saw her vocation.
Mrs. Henderson was quite a power in the place. Her brother Alexis was
an undergraduate, but had been promised a tutorship for the vacation.
He seldom appeared at Carrara, shrinking from what recalled the pain and
shame that he had suffered; while Petros worked under Captain Henderson,
and Theodore was still in the choir at St. Matthew’s. Maura had become
the darling of Mr. White, and was much beloved by Mrs. White, though
there had been a little alarm the previous year, when Lord Rotherwood
and his son came down to open a public park or garden on the top of the
cliffs, where Lord Rotherwood’s accident had occurred. Lord Ivinghoe,
a young Guardsman, had shown himself enough disposed to flirt with the
pretty little Greek to make the prudent very glad that her home was on
the Italian mountains.
Gillian was always Mrs. Henderson’s friend, but Gillian’s mind was full
of other things. For her father had reluctantly promised, that if one
of her little brothers got a scholarship at one of the public schools,
Gillian might fulfil her ardent desire of going to a ladies’ college.
Wilfred was a hopeless subject. It might be doubted if he could have
succeeded. He had apparently less brain power than some of the family,
and he certainly would not exert what he had. His mother had dragged him
through holiday tasks; but nobody else could attempt to make him work
when at home, and Gillian’s offers had been received with mockery or
violence. So all her hopes centred on Fergus, who, thanks to Aunt Jane’s
evening influence over his lessons, stood foremost in Mrs. Edgar’s
school, and was to go up to try for election at Winchester College at
the end of the term. Were Gillian’s hopes to be ruined by his devotion
to the underground world?