The telegram came early on Monday morning. Admiral Merrifield and Harry
started by the earliest train, deciding not to take the girls; whereupon
their kind host, to mitigate the suspense, placed himself at the young
ladies’ disposal for anything in the world that they might wish to see.
It was too good an opportunity of seeing the Houses of Parliament to be
lost, and the spell of Westminster Abbey was upon Mysie.
Cousin Rotherwood was a perfect escort, and declared that he had not
gone through such a course of English history since he had taken his
cousin Lilias and his sister Florence the same round more years ago than
it was civil to recollect. He gave a sigh to the great men he had
then let them see and hear, and regretted the less that there was no
possibility of regaling the present pair with a debate. It was all like
a dream to the two girls. They saw, but suspense was throbbing in their
hearts all the time, and qualms were crossing Gillian as she recollected
that in some aspects her father could be rather a terrible personage
when one was wilfully careless, saucy to authorities, or unable to see
or confess wrong-doing; and the element of dread began to predominate in
her state of expectation. The bird in the bosom fluttered very hard as
the possible periods after the arrivals of trains came round; and it
was not till nearly eight o’clock that the decisive halt of wheels was
heard, and in a few moments Mysie was in the dearest arms in the world,
and Gillian feeling the moustached kiss she had not known for nearly
four long years, and which was half-strange, half-familiar.
In drawing-room light, there was the mother looking none the worse for
her journey, her clear brown skin neither sallow nor lined, and the soft
brown eyes as bright and sweet as ever; but the father must be learnt
over again, and there was awe enough as well as enthusiastic love to
make her quail at the thought of her record of self-will.
There was, however, no disappointment in the sight of the fine, tall
soldierly figure, broad shouldered, but without an ounce of superfluous
flesh, and only altered by his hair having become thinner and whiter,
thus adding to the height of his forehead, and making his very dark
eyebrows and eyes have a different effect, especially as he was still
pallid beneath the browning of many years, though he declared himself so
well as to be ashamed of being invalided.
Time was short. Harry and the Admiral, who were coming to dinner,
had rushed home to dress and to fetch Susan; and Lady Merrifield was
conducted in haste to her bedroom, and left to the almost too excited
ministrations of her daughters.
It was well that attentive servants had unfastened the straps, for when
Gillian had claimed the keys of the dear old familiar box, her hand
shook so much that they jingled; the key would not go into the hole, and
she had to resign them to sober Mysie, who had been untying the bonnet,
with a kiss, and answering for the health of Primrose, whom Uncle
William was to bring to London in two days’ time.
‘My dear silly child,’ said her mother, surprised at Gillian’s emotion.
And the reply was a burst of tears. ‘Oh, so silly! so wrong! I have so
wanted you.’
‘I know all about it. You told us all, like an honest child.’
‘Oh, such dreadful things--the rock--the poor child killed--Cousin
Rotherwood hurt.’
‘Yes, yes, I heard! We can’t have it out now. Here’s papa! she is upset
about these misadventures,’ added Lady Merrifield, looking up to her
husband, who stood amazed at the sobs that greeted him.
‘You must control yourself, Gillian,’ he said gravely. ‘Stop that! Your
mother is tired, and has to dress! Don’t worry her. Go, if you cannot
leave off.’
The bracing tone made Gillian swallow her tears, the more easily because
of the familiarity of home atmosphere, confidence, and protection; and a
mute caress from her mother was a promise of sympathy.
The sense of that presence was the chief pleasure of the short evening,
for there were too many claimants for the travellers’ attention to
enable them to do more than feast their eyes on their son and daughters,
while they had to talk of other things, the weddings, the two families,
the home news, all deeply interesting in their degree, though not
touching Gillian quite so deeply as the tangle she had left at
Rockstone, and mamma’s view of her behaviour; even though it was
pleasant to hear of Phyllis’s beautiful home in Ceylon, and Alethea’s
bungalow, and how poor Claude had to go off alone to Rawul Pindee. She
felt sure that her mother was far more acceptable to her hostess than
either of the aunts, and that, indeed, she might well be so!
Gillian’s first feeling was like Mysie’s in the morning, that nothing
could go wrong with her again, but she must perforce have patience
before she could be heard. Harry could not be spared for another day
from his curacy, and to him was due the first tete-a-tete with his
mother, after that most important change his life had yet known, and in
which she rejoiced so deeply. ‘The dream of her heart,’ she said, ‘had
always been that one of her sons should be dedicated;’ and now that the
fulfilment had come in her absence, it was precious to her to hear
all those feelings and hopes and trials that the young man could have
uttered to no other ears.
Sir Jasper, meantime, had gone out on business, and was to meet the
rest at luncheon at his mother’s house, go with them to call on the
Grinsteads, and then do some further commissions, Lady Rotherwood
placing the carriage at their disposal. As to ‘real talk,’ that seemed
impossible for the girls, they could only, as Mysie expressed it, ‘bask
in the light of mamma’s eyes’ and after Harry was gone on an errand for
his vicar, there were no private interviews for her.
Indeed, the mother did not know how much Gillian had on her mind, and
thought all she wanted was discussion, and forgiveness for the follies
explained in the letter, the last received. Of any connection between
that folly and the accident to Lord Rotherwood of course she was not
aware, and in fact she had more on her hands than she could well do
in the time allotted, and more people to see. Gillian had to find that
things could not be quite the same as when she had been chief companion
in the seclusion of Silverfold.
And just as she was going out the following letter was put into her
hands, come by one of the many posts from Rockstone:--
‘MY DEAR GILLIAN--I write to you because you can explain matters, and I
want your father’s advice, or Cousin Rotherwood’s. As I was on the
way to Il Lido just now I met Mr. Flight, looking much troubled and
distressed. He caught at me, and begged me to go with him to tell poor
Kalliope that her brother Alexis is in Avoncester Jail. He knew it
from having come down in the train with Mr. Stebbing. The charge is
for having carried away with him L15 in notes, the payment for a marble
cross for a grave at Barnscombe. You remember that on the day of the
accident poor Field was taking it in the waggon, when he came home to
hear of his child’s death.
‘The receipt for the price was inquired for yesterday, and it appeared
that the notes had been given to Field in an envelope. In his trouble,
the poor man forgot to deliver this till the morning; when on his way
to the office he met young White and gave it to him. Finding it had not
been paid in, nor entered in the books, and knowing the poor boy to have
absconded, off went Mr. Stebbing, got a summons, and demanded to have
him committed for trial.
‘Alexis owned to having forgotten the letter in the shock of the
dismissal, and to having carried it away with him, but said that as
soon as he had discovered it he had forwarded it to his sister, and had
desired her to send it to the office. He did not send it direct, because
he could only, at the moment, get one postage-stamp. On this he was
remanded till Saturday, when his sisters’ evidence can be taken at the
magistrates meeting. This was the news that Mr. Flight and I had to take
to that poor girl, who could hardly be spared from her mother to speak
to us, and how she is to go to Avoncester it is hard to say; but she has
no fear of not being able to clear her brother, for she says she put
the dirty and ragged envelope that no doubt contained the notes into
another, with a brief explanation, addressed it to Mr. Stebbing, and
sent it by Petros, who told her that he had delivered it.
‘I thought nothing could be clearer, and so did Mr. Flight, but
unluckily Kalliope had destroyed her brother’s letter, and had not read
me this part of it, so that she can bring no actual tangible proof, and
it is a much more serious matter than it appeared when we were talking
to her. Mr. White has just been here, whether to condole or to triumph
I don’t exactly know. He has written to Leeds, and heard a very
unsatisfactory account of that eldest brother, who certainly has
deceived him shamefully, and this naturally adds to the prejudice
against the rest of the family. We argued about Kalliope’s high
character, and he waved his hand and said, “My dear ladies, you don’t
understand those Southern women--the more pious, devoted doves they are,
the blacker they will swear themselves to get off their scamps of
men.” To represent that Kalliope is only one quarter Greek was useless,
especially as he has been diligently imbued by Mrs. Stebbing with all
last autumn’s gossip, and, as he confided to Aunt Ada, thinks “that they
take advantage of his kindness!”
‘Of course Mr. Flight, and all who really know Alexis and Kalliope, feel
the accusation absurd; but it is only too possible that the Avoncester
magistrates may not see the evidence in the same light, as its weight
depends upon character, and the money is really missing, so that I much
fear their committing him for trial at the Quarter Sessions. It will
probably be the best way to employ a solicitor to watch the case at
once, and I shall speak to Mr. Norton tomorrow, unless your father can
send me any better advice by post. I hope it is not wicked to believe
that the very fact of Mr. Norton’s being concerned might lead to the
notes finding themselves.
‘Meantime, I am of course doing what I can. Kally is very brave in her
innocence and her brother’s, but, shut up in her mother’s sickroom, she
little guesses how bad things are made to look, or how Greek and false
are treated as synonymous.
‘Much love to your mother. I am afraid this is a damper on your
happiness, but I am sure that your father would wish to know. Aunt Ada
tackles Mr. White better than I do, and means if possible to make him go
to Avoncester himself when the case comes on, so that he should at least
see and hear for himself.--Your affectionate aunt,
J. M.’
What a letter for poor Gillian! She had to pocket it at first, and only
opened it while taking off her hat at grandmamma’s house, and there was
only time for a blank feeling of uncomprehending consternation before
she had to go down to luncheon, and hear her father and uncle go on with
talk about India and Stokesley, to which she could not attend.
Afterwards, Lady Merrifield was taken to visit grandmamma, and Bessie
gratified the girls with a sight of her special den, where she wrote her
stories, showing them the queer and flattering gifts that had come to
her in consequence of her authorship, which was becoming less anonymous,
since her family were growing hardened to it, and grandmamma was past
hearing of it or being distressed. It was in Bessie’s room that Gillian
gathered the meaning of her aunt’s letter, and was filled with horror
and dismay. She broke out with a little scream, which brought both Mysie
and Bessie to her side; but what could they do? Mysie was shocked and
sympathising enough, and Bessie was trying to understand the complicated
story, when the summons came for the sisters. There were hopes of
communicating the catastrophe in the carriage; but no, the first
exclamation of ‘Oh, mamma!’ was lost.
Sir Jasper had something so important to tell his wife about his
interviews at the Horse Guards, that the attempt to interrupt was
silenced by a look and sign. It was a happy thing to have a father
at home, but it was different from being mamma’s chief companion and
confidante, and poor Gillian sat boiling over with something very like
indignation at not being allowed even to allow that she had something to
tell at least as important as anything papa could be relating.
She hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry that the Grinsteads proved
to be out of town; but at any rate she might be grateful to Lady
Rotherwood for preventing a vain expedition--a call on another old
friend, Mrs. Crayon, the Marianne Weston of early youth, and now a
widow, as she too was out. Then followed some shopping that the parents
wanted to do together, but at the door of the stores Lady Merrifield
said--
‘I have a host of things to get here for the two brides. Suppose, papa,
that you walk home with Gillian across the Park. It will suit you better
than this fearful list.’
Lady Merrifield only thought of letting father and daughter renew their
acquaintance, and though she saw that Gillian was in an agony to speak
about something, did not guess what an ordeal the girl felt it to have
to begin with the father, unseen for four years, and whose searching
eyes and grave politeness gave a sense of austerity, so that trepidation
was spoiling all the elation at having a father, and such a father, to
walk with.
‘Well, Gillian,’ he said, ‘we have a great deal of lee way to make up.
I want to hear of poor White’s children. I am glad you have had the
opportunity of showing them some kindness.’
‘Oh, papa! it is so dreadful! If you would read this letter.’
‘I cannot do so here,’ said Sir Jasper, who could not well make trial of
his new spectacles in Great George Street. What is dreadful?’
‘This accusation. Poor Alexis! Oh! you don’t know. The accident and
all--our fault--mine really,’ gasped Gillian.
‘I am not likely to know at this rate,’ said Sir Jasper. ‘I hope you
have not caught the infection of incoherency from Lord Rotherwood. Do
you mean his accident?’
‘Yes; they have turned them both off, and now they have gone and put
Alexis in prison.’
‘For the accident? I thought it was a fall of rock.’
‘Oh no--I mean yes--it wasn’t for that; but it came of that, and Fergus
and I were at the bottom of it,’ said Gillian, in such confusion that
her words seemed to tumble out without her own control.
‘How did you escape with your lives?’
Was he misunderstanding her on purpose, or giving a lesson on slipslop
at such a provoking moment? Perhaps he was really only patient with the
daughter who must have seemed to him half-foolish, but she was forced to
collect her senses and say--
‘I only meant that we were the real cause. Fergus is wild about geology,
and took away a stone that was put to show where the cliff was unsafe.
He showed the stone to Alexis White, who did not know where it came
from and let him have it, and that was the way Cousin Rotherwood came to
tread on the edge of the precipice.’
‘What had you to do with it?’
‘I--oh! I had disappointed Alexis about the lessons,’ said Gillian,
blushing a little;’ and he was out of spirits, and did not mind what he
was about.’
‘H’m! But you cannot mean that this youth can have been imprisoned for
such a cause.’
‘No; that was about the money, but of course he sent it back. He ran
away when he was dismissed, because he was quite in despair, and did not
know what he was about.’
‘I think not, indeed!’
‘Papa,’ said Gillian, steadying her voice, ‘you must not, please, blame
him so much, for it was really very much my fault, and that is what
makes me doubly unhappy. Did you read my last letter to mamma?’
‘Yes. I understood that you thought you had not treated your aunts
rightly by not consulting them about your intercourse with the Whites,
and that you had very properly resolved to tell them all. I hope you did
so.’
‘Indeed I did, and Aunt Jane was very kind, or else I should have had no
comfort at all. Was mamma very much shocked at my teaching Alexis?’
‘I do not remember. We concluded that whatever you did had your aunts’
sanction.’
‘Ah! that was the point.’
‘Did these young people persuade you to secrecy?’
‘Oh no, no; Kalliope protested, and I overpowered her, because--because
I was foolish, and I thought Aunt Jane interfering.’
‘I see,’ said Sir Jasper, with perhaps more comprehension of the
antagonism than sisterly habit and affection would have allowed to his
wife. ‘I am glad you saw your error, and tried to repair it; but what
could you have done to affect this boy so much. How old is he? We
thought of him as twelve or fourteen, but one forgets how time goes on,
and you speak of him as in a kind of superintendent’s position.’
‘He is nineteen.’
Sir Jasper twirled his moustache.
‘I begin to perceive,’ he said, ‘you rushed into an undertaking that
became awkward, and when you had to draw off, the young fellow was
upset and did not mind his business. So far I understand, but you said
something about prison.’
The worst part of the personal confession was over now, and Gillian
could go on to tell the rest of the Stebbing enmity, of Mr. White’s
arrival, and of the desire to keep his relations aloof from him.
‘This is guess work,’ said Sir Jasper.
‘I think Cousin Rotherwood would say the same’ rejoined Gillian, and
then she explained the dismissal, the flight, and the unfortunate
consequences, and that Aunt Jane hoped for advice by the morning’s post.
‘I am afraid it is too late for that,’ said Sir Jasper, looking at his
watch. ‘I must read her letter and consider.’
Gillian gave a desperate sigh, and felt more desperate when at that
moment the very man they had had a glimpse of on Saturday met them,
exclaiming in a highly delighted tone--
‘Sir Jasper Merrifield!’
Any Royal Wardour ought to have been welcome to the Merrifields, but
this individual had not been a particular favourite with the young
people. They knew he was the son of a popular dentist, who had made his
fortune, and had put his son into the army to make a gentleman of him,
and prevent him from becoming an artist. In the first object there had
been very fair success; but the taste for art was unquenchable, and it
had been the fashion of the elder half of the Merrifield family to
make a joke, and profess to be extremely bored, when ‘Fangs,’ as they
naughtily called him among themselves, used to arrive from leave, armed
with catalogues, or come in with his drawings to find sympathy in his
colonel’s wife. Gillian had caught enough from her four elders to share
in an unreasoning way their prejudice, and she felt doubly savage and
contemptuous when she heard--
‘Yes, I retired.’
‘And what are you doing now?’
‘My mother required me as long as she lived’ (then Gillian noticed that
he was in mourning). ‘I think I shall go abroad, and take lessons at
Florence or Rome, though it is too late to do anything seriously--and
there are affairs to be settled first.’
Then came a whole shoal of other inquiries, and even though they
actually included ‘poor White’ and his family, Gillian was angered and
dismayed at the wretch being actually asked by her father to come in
with them and see Lady Merrifield, who would be delighted to see him.
‘What would Lady Rotherwood think of the liberty?’ the displeased mood
whispered to Gillian.
But Lady Rotherwood, presiding over her pretty Worcester tea-set, was
quite ready to welcome any of the Merrifield friends. There were various
people in the room besides Lady Merrifield and Mysie, who had just come
in. There was the Admiral talking politics with Lord Rotherwood, and
there was Clement Underwood, who had come with Harry from the city, and
Bessie discussing with them boys’ guilds and their amusements.
Gillian felt frantic. Would no one cast a thought on Alexis in prison?
If he had been to be hanged the next day, her secret annoyance at their
indifference to his fate could not have been worse.
And yet at the first opportunity Harry brought Mr. Underwood to talk
to her about his choir-boys, and to listen to her account of the 7th
Standard boy, a member of the most musical choir in Rockquay, and the
highest of the high.
‘I hope not cockiest of the cocky,’ said Mr. Underwood, smiling. ‘Our
experience is that superlatives may often be so translated.’
‘I don’t think poor Theodore is cocky,’ said Gillian; ‘the Whites have
always been so bullied and sat upon.’
‘Is his name Theodore?’ asked Mr. Underwood, as if he liked the name,
which Gillian remembered to have seen on a cross at Vale Leston.
‘Being sat upon is hardly the best lesson in humility,’ said Harry.
‘There’s apt to be a reaction,’ said Mr. Underwood; ‘but the crack voice
of a country choir is not often in that condition, as I know too well. I
was the veriest young prig myself under those circumstances!’
‘Don’t be too hard on cockiness,’ said Lord Rotherwood, who had come up
to them, ‘there must be consciousness of powers. How are you to fly, if
you mustn’t flap your wings and crow a little?’
‘On a les defauts de ses qualites,’ put in Lady Merrifield.
‘Yes,’ added Mr. Underwood. ‘It is quite true that needful
self-assertion and originality, and sense of the evils around--’
‘Which the old folk have outgrown and got used to,’ said Lord
Rotherwood.
‘May be condemned as conceit,’ concluded Mr. Underwood.
‘Ay, exactly as Eliab knew David’s pride and the naughtiness of his
heart,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘If you won’t fight your giant yourself,
you’ve no business to condemn those who feel it in them to go at him.’
‘Ah! we have got to the condemnation of others, instead of the
exaltation of self,’ said Lady Merrifield.
‘It is better to cultivate humility in one’s self than other people,
eh?’ said the Marquis, and his cousin thought, though she did not say,
that he was really the most humble and unself-conscious man she had
ever known. What she did say was, ‘It is a plant that grows best
uncultivated.’
‘And if you have it not by happy nature, what then?’ said Clement
Underwood.
‘Then I suppose you must plant it, and there will be plenty of tears of
repentance to water it,’ returned she.
‘Thank you,’ said Clement. ‘That is an idea to work upon.’
‘All very fine!’ sighed Gillian to Mysie, ‘but oh, how about Alexis in
prison! There’s papa, now he has got rid of Fangs, actually going to
walk off with Uncle Sam, and mamma has let Lady Rotherwood get hold of
her. Will no-body care for anybody?’
‘I think I would trust papa,’ said Mysie.
He was not long gone, and when he came back he said, ‘You may give me
that letter, Gillian. I posted a card to tell your aunt she should hear
to-morrow.’
All that Gillian could say to her mother in private that evening
consisted of, ‘Oh, mamma, mamma,’ but the answer was, ‘I have heard
about it from papa, my dear; I am glad you told him. He is thinking what
to do. Be patient.’
Externally, awe and good manners forced Gillian to behave herself; but
internally she was so far from patient, and had so many bitter feelings
of indignation, that she felt deeply rebuked when she came down next
morning to find her father hurrying through his breakfast, with a cab
ordered to convey him to the station, on his way to see what could be
done for Alexis White.
That day Gillian had her confidential talk with her mother--a talk that
she never forgot, trying to dig to the roots of her failures in a manner
that only the true mother-confessor of her own child can perhaps have
patience and skill for, and that only when she has studied the creature
from babyhood. The concatenation, ending (if it was so to end) in the
committal to Avoncester Jail, and beginning with the interview over the
rails, had to be traced link by link, and was almost as long as ‘the
house that Jack built.’
‘And now I see,’ said Gillian, ‘that it all came of a nasty sort of
antagonism to Aunt Jane. I never guessed how like I was to Dolores, and
I thought her so bad. But if I had only trusted Aunt Jane, and had no
secrets, she would have helped me in it all, I know now, and never have
brought the Whites into trouble.’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘perhaps I should have warned you a little
more, but I went off in such a hurry that I had no time to think. You
children are all very loyal to us ourselves; but I suppose you are all
rather infected by the modern spirit, that criticises when it ought to
submit to authorities.’
‘But how can one help seeing what is amiss? As some review says, how
respect what does not make itself respectable? You know I don’t mean
that for my aunts. I have learnt now what Aunt Jane really is--how very
kind and wise and clever and forgiving--but I was naughty enough to
think her at first--’
‘Well, what? Don’t be afraid.’
‘Then I did think she was fidgety and worrying--always at one, and
wanting to poke her nose into everything.’
‘Poor Aunt Jane! Those are the faults of her girlhood, which she has
been struggling against all her life!’
‘But in your time, mamma, would such difficulties really not have been
seen--I mean, if she had been actually what I thought her?’
‘I think the difference was that no faults of the elders were dwelt upon
by a loyal temper. To find fault was thought so wrong that the defects
were scarcely seen, and were concealed from ourselves as well as
others. It would scarcely, I suppose, be possible to go back to that
unquestioning state, now the temper of the times is changed; but I
belong enough to the older days to believe that the true safety is in
submission in the spirit as well as the letter.’
‘I am sure I should have found it so,’ said Gillian. ‘And oh! I hope,
now that papa is come, the Whites may be spared any more of the troubles
I have brought on them.’
‘We will pray that it may be so.’ said her mother.