“And if I leave the thing that lieth next,
To go and do the thing that is afar,
I take the very strength out of my deed.”
—MACDONALD.
THOSE were happy days that succeeded Vera’s engagement. It had made her
more womanly, or at least less childish; and the intercourse with Hubert
Delrio became an increasing delight to her sisters, who had never known
anything so like a brother.
He was at first shy and not at ease with Magdalen, who, on her side,
perceived the lack of public school and university training; but in grain
he was so completely a good man, a churchman, and a gentleman, and had so
much right sense as well as talent, that she liked him thoroughly and
began to rely on him, as a woman with unaccustomed property is glad to do
with a male relation.
And to him, the society of the Goyle was a new charm. He had been
brought up to the technicalities and the business relations of art, and
had a cultivated taste; but to be with a thoughtful, highly educated
lady, able to enter into its higher and deeper associations, was an
unspeakable delight and improvement to him. Vera was fairly satisfied as
long as he sketched her in various attitudes, and held her hand while he
talked; though she did grudge having so much time spent on “taste,
Shakespeare and the musical glasses.” Paula had various ecclesiastical
interests in common with him, and began to expand and enter more into
realities, while Thekla had in him a dear delightful delicious brother,
who petted her, bantered her, mended her rabbit hutch, caught her
hedgehog, taught her to guide her bicycle, drew picture games for her,
and taught her to sketch.
Agatha had endless discussions with him on his various aspirations, in
some of which Magdalen took her share, sometimes thinking with a pang of
regret and self-reproach that that brief time of intercourse with Hal
Merrifield had been spent in youthful nonsense that could have left no
permanent influence for good.
In fact, whether through Hubert or through Agatha, a certain intellectual
waft had breathed upon the Goyle. Hubert was eager for assistance in
learning German and Italian, and read and discussed books of interest;
and even when he had left Rockstone, and his work at St. Kenelm’s being
finished, the stimulus was kept up by his letters, comments and
questions; and the younger girls had entirely ceased to form an opposite
camp, or to view “sister” as a taskmistress, even when Agatha had
returned to St. Robert’s.
Mysie had come home, very brown, fuller of Scott than ever for her
mother, and of Hugh Miller for Fergus, for whom she had brought so many
specimens that Cousin Rotherwood declared that she would sink the
_Kittiwake_. Over the sketches and photographs of Iona, she and Paulina
became great friends, and Paula was admitted to hear accounts of the
modern missions that had come from the other Harry Merrifield among the
Karens in Burmah, or again through Franciska Ivinghoe, of her Aunt Angela
Underwood, who was considered to have a peculiar faculty for dealing with
those very unpromising natives, the Australian gins. Franciska
remembered her tender nursing and bright manner in the days of fever at
Vale Leston, and had a longing hope that she would take a holiday and
come home; but at present she was bound to the couch of her slowly
declining old friend, Sister Constance, the Mother of Dearport. It was
another bond of interest with Magdalen, to whom missions to the heathens
had always been a dream.
Thus had passed a year uneventful and peaceable, with visits from Hubert
whenever he had a day or two to spare. They were looked forward to with
delight; but if there were a drawback it was in Vera’s viewing him partly
as one who held her in a sort of chain, and partly as one whom it was
pleasant to tease by allowing little casual civilities from Wilfred
Merrifield.
For Wilfred was an embarrassment to his family. He had never been
strong, his public school career had been shortened by failure in health,
and headaches in the summer, and coughs in the winter made it needful to
keep him at home, and trust to cramming at Rockstone, enforced by his
father’s stern discipline and his mother’s authoritative influence.
Thus he was always within reach of the mild social gaieties in which each
family indulged, and Vera was not quite so ready as were his sisters to
contrast unfavourably his hatred of all self-improvement with Hubert
Delrio’s eagerness to pick up every crumb of information, thus deservedly
getting on well in his profession.
One morning, at breakfast, Hubert opened a letter and made a sudden
exclamation; and in answer to Vera’s vehement inquiry said, “It seems
that the great millionaire swell, Pettifer—is that his name?”
“Oh, yes, he was at Rock Quay.”
“Well, he went to see St. Kenelm’s, fell in love with the ceiling, and
offered Pratt and Pavis any sum they like to decorate a huge new hall he
is building in the same style. So they write to propose to me to come
and do it, with a promise of future work, at any terms I like to ask.”
“Oh! but that’s jolly,” cried Vera. “Can’t you?”
“No,” he said; “this is immediate, and I have two churches, reredos and
walls, on my hands, enough to last me all the year. Nor could I throw
over Eccles and Beamster.”
“Is there an agreement with them?” asked Magdalen.
“Not regularly; but Mr. Eccles has been very kind to me, and promised me
employment for four years to come; in fact, he has made engagements on
that understanding.”
“I see,” said Magdalen. “You could not break with them.”
“Certainly not. Nor do I entirely like the line of this other house. It
is a good deal more secular.”
“And you have dedicated your talents to the Church!” cried Paulina.
“Not that exactly, Paula,” he said, smiling; “but I had rather work for
the Church, so I am glad the matter is definitely settled for me.”
To that he kept, though he had a very kind letter from Mr. Eccles, who
had evidently been applied to, wishing not to stand in his light,
especially as he was engaged to be married, and telling him how it might
be possible to fairly compensate for the loss to the firm. Between the
lines, however, it was plain that it would be a great blow, only possible
because the agreement had been neglected; and Hubert was only the more
determined, out of gratitude for the generosity, not to break what he
felt to be an implied pledge; and all the sisters sympathised with his
determination.
He adhered to it even after his return to London, though his father
thought it a pity to lose the chance, if it could be accepted without
discourtesy to Mr. Eccles; and he had been interviewed by various parties
concerned, and there had been an attempt to dazzle him by the prospects
held out to him by an enthusiastic young member of the firm. Perhaps he
was too shrewd entirely to trust them, but at any rate he felt his good
faith to Eccles and Beamster a bond to hold him fast from the temptation;
and his heart was really set on the consecration of the higher uses of
his art; so that regard to the simple rule of honour was an absolute
relief to him.
So he wrote to Vera, who, if there were a secret wish on her part, did
not dare to give it shape; while all her sisters, to whom she showed the
letters that she scarcely comprehended, were open-mouthed in their
admiration. Thekla, who had been seized with a fit of hagiology, went
the length of comparing him to St. Barbara; even Paula pronounced it a
far-fetched resemblance.
It was some months later that Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood had decided
on building a magnificent cathedral-like church for the population rising
around him in the Rocky Mountains; and meeting Lord Rotherwood in London
heard of the work at St. Kenelm’s, and resorted to Eccles and Beamster as
the employers of young Delrio. There would be plenty of varieties of
beautiful material to be found near at hand in the mountains; but Hubert
was sent first for a short journey in Italy to study the effect of the
old mosaics as well as the frescoes, and then to go out to America to the
work that would last a considerable time.
Vera was much excited by the notion of the Italian journey, and thought
she ought to have been married at once and have shared it, including as
it did a short visit to Rocca Marina. But she was scarcely eighteen, and
neither her trustee nor her elder sister thought it advisable to dispense
with the decision that her twenty-first birthday must be waited for, at
which she pouted. Hubert came for two nights on his return, and was
exceedingly full of his tour, talking over Italian scenes and churches
with Magdalen, who had never seen them, but had the descriptions and the
history at her fingers’ ends, and listened with delight to all the
impressions of a mind full of feeling and poetry. The time was only too
short to discuss or look out everything, and much was left to be copied
and sent after him, with many promises on Vera’s part of writing
everything for him, and translating the books that Magdalen would refer
to. He was allowed to take Vera and Paulina to Filsted for a hurried
visit to his parents. When they came home again, it soon became plain
that it had not been a success. “I am glad to be at home again,” said
Paula, as the pony carriage turned up the steep drive, and the girls
jumped out to walk. “I am quite glad to feel the stones under my feet
again!”
Magdalen laughed. “A new sentiment!” she said.
“I don’t like the stones,” said Vera, “but I did not know Filsted was
such a poky place.”
“A dead flat!” added Paula. “No sea, no torrs! one wanted something to
look at! and _such_ a church!”
“Did you see Minnie Maitland?” put in Thekla.
“I saw all the Maitlands in a hurry,” said Vera. “I don’t remember which
was which. They were all dressed alike in horrid colours. Hubert said
they set his teeth on edge!”
“How was old Mrs. Delrio?”
“Just the same as ever, lean and pinched.”
“But so kind!” added Paula. “She could not make enough of Flapsy.”
“I should think not!” ejaculated Vera. “Enough! aye, and too much! just
fancy, no dinner napkins! and Edith went away and made the scones
herself!”
“Very praiseworthy,” said Magdalen. “Don’t you know how Hubert always
tells us what a dear devoted good girl she is?”
“Well, I only hope Hubert does not expect me to live in that way,” said
Vera. “His mother looks like a half-starved hare, and Edith is giving
lessons as a daily governess!
“Edith is very nice,” said Paula; “and I never understood before how
excellent old Mr. Delrio’s pictures are! Do you remember his ‘Country
Lane’? What a pity it did not sell!”
“Poor man!” said Magdalen. “He married too soon, and that has kept him
down.”
“It is beautiful to see how proud they are of Hubert,” said Paula, “and
his pretty gentle attention and deference to them both. Mr. Delrio is
really a gentleman, I am sure; but, Maidie,” she said, falling back with
her, while Vera and Thekla mounted faster, “it was very odd to see how
different things looked to us from what they seemed when we were at Mrs.
Best’s. Filsted High Street has grown so small, and one could hardly
breathe in Mrs. Delrio’s stuffy drawing-room. And as to Waring Grange,
which we used to think just perfect, it was all so pretentious and in
such bad taste. Hubert saw it as much as we did, but I could see he was
on thorns to hinder Flapsy from making observations.”
Certainly the visit had not done much good, except in making the girls
appreciate the refinement of their surroundings at the Goyle.
And when letters arrived from Hubert at the American Vale Leston, asking
questions requiring some research in books, either Magdalen’s or at the
Rock Quay library, Vera dawdled and sighed over them; and when the more
zealous Magdalen or Paula took all the trouble, and left nothing for her
to do but to copy their notes, and write the letters, she grew cross.
“It was for Hubert, and she did not want any one else to meddle! So
stupid! If he had only taken Pratt and Pavis’s offer, there would not
have been all this bother!”
That, of course, she only ventured to utter before Paula and Thekla, and
it made them both so furious that she declared she was only in joke, and
did not mean it.
She was indulging in reflections on the general dulness of her lot, and
the lack of sympathy in her sisters, as she lingered by the
confectioner’s window, with her eyes fixed on a gorgeous combination of
coloured bonbons, when Wilfred Merrifield sauntered out. “Fresh from
Paris!” he said. “Going to choose some?”
“Oh no, I haven’t got any cash. M. A. keeps us horribly short.”
“As usual with governors! But look here! Pocket this. Sweets to the
sweet, from an old chum!”
“Oh, Will, how jolly! Such a love of a box.”
“Make haste! Some of the girls are lurking about, and if there is any
mischief to be made, trust Gill for doing it.”
“Mischief!—” but before the words were out of her mouth, Gillian and
Mysie appeared from the next shop, a bootmaker’s, and Mysie stood aghast
with, “What _are_ you doing? Buying goodies! How very ridiculous!”
“The proper thing between chums, isn’t it, Vera?” said Wilfred, with an
indifferent air. “We aren’t unlucky Sunday scholars, Mysie, to be jumped
upon! Good-bye, Vera, _au revoir_!”
He sauntered away with his hands in his pockets; while Gillian, from her
eldership of two years, and her engagement, gravely said, “Vera, perhaps
you do not fully know, but I should say this is not quite the thing.”
“He told you we are just chums!” exclaimed Vera. “As if there were any
harm in it! You’ve not got a sweet tooth yourself, so you need not
grudge me just a few goodies.”
Gillian saw that it was of no use to prolong the dispute either for the
place or the time, and she hushed Mysie, who was about to expostulate
farther, and made her go away with a brief parting, such as she hoped
would impress on Vera that the sisters thought very badly of her
discretion and loyalty. They could not hear the reflection, “They need
not be so particular and so cross. Hubert never thought of giving me
anything nice like this. Why should not my chum? Such a sweet little
box too, with a dear girl’s head on it! Would Polly fuss about it, and
set on Sister? I shall put it into my own drawer, and then if they
notice it, they may think somebody at Filsted gave it! No one has any
business to worry me about Hubert, and Wilfred being civil to me. He
_is_ a gentleman.”
The gentleman had been overtaken by his sisters. He was walking his
bicycle up the hill rather breathlessly and slowly. Mysie indignantly
began, “Of all the stupid things to do, to give goodies to that girl,
like a baby!”
“I have been wishing to speak to you,” said Gillian. “You are going the
way to get that foolish girl into a scrape.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Sisters uniformly object to a little civility to a
pretty girl,” carelessly answered Wilfred.
“Nonsense!” returned Mysie, hotly. “We don’t care! only it is not fair
on Mr. Delrio.”
“The painter cad! A very good thing too! The sacrifice ought to be
prevented. Is not that the general sentiment?”
“Wilfred!” cried the scandalised Mysie, “when it is all the other way,
and he is ever so much too good for her.”
“Consummate prig! The cheek of him pretending to a lady!”
“But, Wilfred,” went on downright Mysie, “is it only mischief, or do you
want to marry her yourself?”
“Draw your own conclusions,” responded Wilfred, mounting his machine, and
spinning down the hill faster than they could follow on foot.
“What is to be done, Gill?” sighed Mysie. “Ought we to get mamma to
speak to him?”
“Better not,” said Gillian, with more experience. “It would only make it
worse to take it seriously. Half of it is play—and half to tease you.”
“And,” said Mysie, with due deference to the engaged sister, “how about
Mr. Delrio? Will it make him unhappy?”
“If he finds out in time what a horrid little thing it is, I should say
it would be very well for him; but I don’t want Will to be the means.”
“Oh! when his examination is over, and he gets an appointment, he will go
away, and it will be safe.”
“I have not much hopes of his getting in!”
“Oh, Gill, none of us ever failed before.”
On the side of the Goyle not much was known or cared about Wilfred’s
little attentions, which were generally out of sight of Magdalen, and did
not amount to much; but Paula saw enough of them to consult Agatha on,
and to observe that Flapsy was going on just as she used to at Filsted,
and she thought Hubert would not like it.
“I believe Flapsy can’t live without it,” sighed Agatha.
“But would you speak to her? I don’t think she ought to let him give her
boxes of bonbons—to keep up in her room, and never give a hint to
Maidie.”
Agatha did speak but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every
one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, Gillian Merrifield
and all!
“Did Gillian speak to you?”
“Yes, as if she had any business to do so!”
“I am sure it is not the way she would treat Captain Armitage.”
“I don’t believe she cares for Captain Armitage one bit! You said
yourself that all the girls at Oxford thought she cared much more for her
horrid examination! I wouldn’t be a dry, cold-hearted, insensible stick
like her for the world.”
“Perhaps she is the more quietly in earnest,” said Agatha, repenting a
little that she had told before Vera the college jokes over what had
leaked out of Gillian’s reception of Ernley Armitage when he had hastened
up to Oxford as soon as his ship was paid off, and she had been called
down to him in the Lady Principal’s room. Report said that she had only
prayed him to keep out of the way, and not to upset her brain, and that
he had meekly obeyed—as one who knew what it was to have promotion
depending on it.
It was a half truth, exaggerated, but it had not a happy effect on Vera.
Nevertheless, the finishing push of preparation brought on such a
succession of violent headaches as quite to disable the really delicate
boy. Moreover, the tutor declared that there had been little chance of
his success, and Dr. Dagger said that he had much better not try again.
The best hope for his health, and even for his life, was to keep him at
home for a few years, and give him light work.
He had never been the pleasantest element in the household; and if his
parents were glad of the avoidance of the risk of a launch into the
world, and his mother’s love rejoiced in the power of watching over him,
there were others who felt his temper a continual trial, while his career
was a perplexity.
However, Captain Henderson offered a clerkship at the Marble Works,
subject to Mr. White’s approval; and this was gratefully accepted. Nor
did Agatha come home again at the Long Vacation for more than two days,
in which there was no time for consultation with her sisters on matters
of uncertain import.
Miss Arthuret and Elizabeth Merrifield had arranged together to take the
old roomy farmhouse on Penbeacon for three or four months, and there
receive parties of young women in need of rest, fresh air, and, in some
cases, of classes, or time for study. It was to be a sort of Holiday
House, though not altogether of idleness; and Dolores undertook to be a
kind of vice-president, with Agatha to pursue her reading under her
superintendence, and to assist in helping others, governesses, students,
schoolmistresses from Coalham, in whose behalf indeed the scheme had been
first started, and it was extremely delightful to Agatha, among many
others.