As the spring advanced, letters from Algernon Errington arrived rather
frequently at Whitford. His mother had ample scope for the exercise of
her peculiar talent, in boasting about the reception Algy had met with
from her great relations in town, the fine society he frequented, and
the prospect of still greater distinctions in store for him. One or two
troublesome persons, to be sure, would ask for details, and inquire
whether Lord Seely meant to get Algy a place, and what tangible benefits
he had it in contemplation to bestow on him. But to all such prosy,
plodding individuals, Mrs. Errington presented a perspective of vague
magnificence, which sometimes awed and generally silenced them.
The big square letters on Bath post paper, directed in Algernon's clear,
graceful handwriting, and bearing my Lord Seely's frank, in the form of
a blotchy sprawling autograph in one corner, were, however, palpable
facts; and Mrs. Errington made the most of them. It was seldom that she
had not one of them in her pocket. She would pull them out, sometimes as
though in mere absence of mind, sometimes avowedly of set purpose, but
in either case she failed not to make them the occasion for an almost
endless variety of prospective and retrospective boasting.
It must be owned that Algernon's letters were delightful. They were
written with such a freshness of observation, such a sense of enjoyment,
such a keen appreciation of fun--tempered always by a wonderful knack of
keeping his own figure in a favourable light--that passages from them
were read aloud, and quoted at Whitford tea-parties with a most
enlivening effect.
"Those letters are written _pro bono publico_," Minnie Bodkin observed
confidentially to her mother. "No human being would address such
communications to Mrs. Errington for her sole perusal."
"Well, I don't know, Minnie! Surely it is natural enough that he should
write long letters to his mother, even without expecting her to read
them aloud to people."
"Very natural; but not just such letters as he does write, I think."
Minnie suppressed any further expression of her own shrewdness. Her
confidence in herself had been rudely shaken; and she made keen,
motive-probing speeches much seldomer than formerly. And she could not
but agree in the general verdict, that Algernon's letters were very
amusing. Miss Chubb was delighted with them; although they were the
occasion of one or two tough struggles for supremacy in the knowledge of
fashionable life between herself and Mrs. Errington. But Miss Chubb was
really good-natured, and Mrs. Errington was unshakeably self-satisfied;
so that no serious breach resulted from these combats.
"Dormer--Lady Harriet Dormer!" Miss Chubb would say, musingly. "I think
I must have met her when I was staying with Mrs. Figgins and the Bishop
of Plumbunn. And the Dormers' place is not so very far from Whitford,
you know. I believe I have heard papa speak of his acquaintance with
some of the family."
"Oh no," Mrs. Errington would reply; "not likely you should have ever
met Lady Harriet at Mrs. Figgins's. She is the Earl of Grandcourt's
daughter; and Lord Grandcourt had the reputation of being the proudest
nobleman in England."
"Well, my dear Mrs. Errington," the spinster would retort, bridling and
tossing her head sideways, "that could be no reason why his daughter
should not have visited the bishop! A dignitary of the Church, you know!
And as to family--I can assure you the Figginses were most
aristocratically connected."
"Besides, Miss Chubb, Lady Harriet must have been in the nursery in
those days. She's only six-and-thirty. You can see her age in the
'Peerage.'"
This was a kind of blow that usually silenced poor Miss Chubb, who was
sensitive on the score of her age. But, on the whole, she was not
displeased at the opportunity of airing her reminiscences of London; and
she did not always get the worst of it in her encounters with Mrs.
Errington.
Mrs. Errington had one listener who, at all events, was never tired of
hearing Algy's letters read and re-read, and whose interest in all they
contained was vivid and inexhaustible. Rhoda bestowed an amount of eager
attention on the brilliant epistles bearing Lord Seely's frank, which
even Mrs. Errington considered adequate to their merits.
Often--not quite always--there would be a little message. "How are all
the good Maxfields? Say I asked." Or sometimes, "Give my love to Rhoda."
Mrs. Errington took Algernon's sending his love to Rhoda much as she
would have taken his bidding her stroke the kitten for him. She did not
guess how it set the poor girl's heart beating. It was only natural that
Rhoda's face should flush with pleasure at being so kindly and
condescendingly remembered. Still less could the worthy lady understand
the effect of her careless words on Mr. Maxfield. Once she said in his
presence, "Have you any message for Mr. Algernon, Rhoda?" (She had
recently taken to speaking of her son as "Mr." Algernon; a circumstance
which had not escaped Rhoda's sensitive observation.) "You know he
always sends you his love."
"Oh, my young gentleman has not forgotten Rhoda, then?" said old
Maxfield, without raising his eyes from the ledger he was examining.
"Algernon never forgets. Indeed, none of the Ancrams ever forget. An
almost royal memory has always been a characteristic of our race." With
which magnificent speech Mrs. Errington made an impressive exit from the
back shop.
Old Max knew enough to be aware that the tenacity even of a royal memory
had not always been found equal to retaining such trifles as a debt of
twenty pounds. But so long as Algy remembered his Rhoda, he was welcome
to let the money slip. Indeed, if Algy behaved properly to Rhoda, there
should be no question of repayment. Twenty pounds, or two hundred,
would be well bestowed in securing Rhoda's happiness, and making a lady
of her. Nevertheless, old Max kept the acknowledgment of the debt safely
locked up, and looked at it now and then, with some inward satisfaction.
Algernon was coming back to revisit Whitford in the summer, and then
something definite should be settled.
Meanwhile, Maxfield took some pains to have Rhoda treated with more
consideration than had hitherto been bestowed on her. He astonished
Betty Grimshaw by sharply reproving her for sending Rhoda into the shop
on some errand. "Rice!" he exclaimed testily, in answer to his
sister-in-law's explanation. "If you want rice, you must fetch it for
yourself. The shop is no place for Rhoda, and I will not have her come
there." Then he began to display a quite unprecedented liberality in
providing Rhoda's clothes. The girl, whose ideas about her own dress
were of the humblest, and who had thought a dove-coloured merino gown as
good a garment as she was ever likely to possess, was told to buy
herself a silk gown. "A good 'un. Nothing flimsy and poor," said old
Max. "A good, solid silk gown, that will wear and last. And--you had
better ask Mrs. Errington to go with you to buy it. She will understand
what is fitting better than your aunt Betty. I wish you to have proper
and becoming raiment, Rhoda. You are not a child now. And you go amongst
gentlefolks at Dr. Bodkin's house. And I would not have you seem out of
place there, by reason of unsuitable attire."
Rhoda was delighted to be allowed to gratify her natural taste for
colour and adornment; and she shortly afterwards appeared in so elegant
a dress, that Betty Grimshaw was moved to say to her brother-in-law,
"Why, Jonathan, I'll declare if our Rhoda don't look as genteel as 'ere
a one o' the young ladies I see! Why you're making quite a lady of her,
Jonathan!"
"Me make a lady of her?" growled old Max. "It isn't me, nor you, nor yet
a smart gown, as can do that. But the Lord has done it. The Lord has
given Rhoda the natur' of a lady, if ever I see a lady in my life; and I
mean her to be treated like one. Rhoda's none o' your sort of clay,
Betty Grimshaw. She's fine porcelain, is Rhoda. I suppose you've nothing
to say against the child's silk gown?"
"Nay, not I, Jonathan! She's welcome to wear silk or satin either, if
you like to pay for it. And, indeed, I'm uncommon pleased to see a bit
of bright colour, and be let to put a flower in my bonnet. I'm sure
we've had enough of them Methodist ways. Dismal and dull enough they
were, Jonathan. But you can't say as I ever grumbled, or went agin' you.
Anything for peace and quietness' sake is my way. But I do like church
best, having been bred to it. And I always did, in my heart, even when
you and David Powell would be preaching up the Wesleyans. I never said
anything, as you know, Jonathan. But I kept my own way of thinking all
the same. And I'm only glad you've come round to it yourself, at last."
This was bitter to Jonathan Maxfield. But he had had once or twice to
endure similar speeches from his sister-in-law, since his defection from
Methodism. His autocratic power in his own family was wielded as
strictly as ever, but his assumption of infallibility had been fatally
damaged. To get his own way was still within his power, but it would be
vain henceforward to expect those around him to acknowledge--even with
their lips--that his way must of necessity be the best way.
At the beginning of April there came to Whitford the announcement that
Algernon had received and accepted an invitation to accompany the Seelys
abroad in the late summer; and that, therefore, his visit to "dear old
Whitford" was indefinitely postponed. This announcement would have
angered and disquieted old Max beyond measure, had it not been that
Algernon took the precaution to write him a letter, which arrived in
Whitford by the same post as that which brought to Mrs. Errington the
news of his projected journey to the Continent. It was a very neat
letter. Some persons might have called it a cunning letter. At any rate,
it soothed old Max's anxious suspicions, if it did not absolutely
destroy them. "I believe, my good friend," wrote Algernon, "that you
will quite approve the step I am taking, in accompanying Lord and Lady
Seely to Switzerland. They have no son, and I think I may say that they
have come to look upon me almost as a child of the house. I remember all
the good advice you gave me before I left Whitford. And when I was
hesitating about accepting my lord's invitation, I thought of what you
would have said, and made up my mind to resist the strong temptation of
coming back to dear old Whitford this summer." Then in a postscript he
added: "As to that little private transaction between us, I must ask you
kindly to have patience with me yet awhile. I try to be careful, but
living here is expensive, and I am put to it to pay my way. You will not
mention the matter to my mother, I know. And, perhaps, it would be well
to say nothing to her about this letter. May I send my love to Rhoda?"
In justification of this last sentence, it must be said that Algernon
was quite innocent of Lady Seely's project regarding himself and
Castalia; and that there were times when he thought with some warmth of
feeling of the summer days in Llanryddan, and told himself that there
was not one of the girls whom he met in society who surpassed Rhoda
Maxfield in the delicate freshness of her beauty, or equalled her in
natural grace and sweetness.
Algernon had really excellent taste.
END OF VOL. I.