“And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made.”
—SCOTT.
THE bracelet came to light in the gardens of Cliffe House the next
morning, and Alexis White walked over to the Goyle to return it safely,
little guessing, when he set forth to enjoy the sight of the purple
moors, and to renew old recollections, what a flutter of gratified vanity
would be excited in one silly little breast, though he only stayed ten
minutes, and casually asked whether the sisters were coming to Lady
Flight’s garden party. Everybody was going there. Miss Mohun even took
Felicia, as it was on a Saturday’s holiday; and, unwittingly, she renewed
all the agitation caused by Wilfred’s admiration, and that of others, to
the all-unconscious girl. Vera could no longer think herself the
reigning belle of Rock Quay, though she talked of Felicia as a schoolgirl
or a baby, or a horrid little forward chit! Her excitement was, however,
divided between Wilfred and Mr. Alexis White, who could not look in her
direction without putting her in a state of eagerness.
In this, however, she was not alone. Half the ladies were interested
about him; his manners were charming, his voice in church beautiful, and
his destination as chaplain to a missionary bishop made him doubly
interesting; while he himself, even though his mind was set on higher
things, was really enjoying his brief holiday, and his sister, Mrs.
Henderson, was delighted to promote his pleasure, and garden parties and
the like flourished as long as weather permitted; and as Vera was a
champion player, she was sure to be asked to the tournaments, and to have
to practise for them.
Inopportunely there arrived a letter from Hubert, requiring an answer
about the form of ornament in the moulding of the fourteenth century!
Paula dutifully went to the library, looked out and traced two or three
examples, French and English. Nothing remained but for Vera to write the
letter after the early dinner. However, she went to sleep in a hammock,
and only roused herself to recollect that there was to be tea and lawn
tennis at Carrara.
“Won’t you just write to Hubert first?”
“Oh, bother, how can I now? Don’t worry so!”
“But, Flapsy, he really needs it without loss of time.”
“I’m sure he has no right to make me his clerk in that horrid peremptory
way, as if one had nothing else to do but wait on his fads.”
“Flapsy, how can you?” broke out even Thekla.
“Surely it is the greatest honour,” said Paula.
“Well, do it yourself then, I’m not going to be bothered for ever.”
Thekla went off, in great indignation, to beg “sister” to speak to
Flapsy, and beg her not to use dear Hubert so very very badly, which of
course Magdalen refused to do, and Thekla had her first lesson on the
futility of interfering with engaged folk; Paula meanwhile sent off the
despatch, with one line to say that Vera was too busy to write that day.
There had been two or three letters from Hubert, over which Vera had
looked cross, but had said nothing; and at last she came down from her
own room, and announced passionately, “There! I have done with Mr.
Hubert Delrio, and have written to tell him so!”
“Vera, what have you done?”
“Written to tell him I have no notion of a man being so tiresome and
dictatorial! I don’t want a schoolmaster to lecture me, and expect me to
drudge over his work as if I was his clerk.”
“My dear,” said Magdalen, “have you had a letter that vexed you? Had you
not better wait a little to think it over?”
“No! Nonsense, Maidie! He has been provoking ever so long, and I won’t
bear it any longer!” and she flounced into a chair.
“Provoking! Hubert!” was all Paulina could utter, in her amazement and
horror.
“Oh, I daresay you would like it well enough! Always at me to slave for
him with stupid architectural drawings and stuff, as if I was only a sort
of clerk or fag! And boring me to read great dull books, and preaching
to me about them, expecting to know what I think! Dear me!”
“Those nice letters!” sighed Paula.
“Nice! As if any one that was one bit in love would write such as that!
No, I don’t want to marry a schoolmaster or a tyrant!”
“How can you, Flapsy?” went on Paula, so vehemently that Magdalen left
the defence thus far to her; “when he only wishes for your sympathy and
improvement.”
The worst plea she could have used, thought the elder sister, as Vera
broke out with, “Improvement, indeed! If he cared for me, he would not
think I wanted any _improving_! But he never did! Or he would have
taken Pratt and Povis’ offer, and I should have been living in London and
keeping my carriage! Or he would have taken me to Italy! But that
horrid home of his, and his mother just like a half-starved hare! I
might have seen then it was not fit for me; but I was a child, and
over-persuaded among you all! But I know better now, and I know my own
mind, as I didn’t then. So you need not talk! I have done with him.”
“Oh, Flapsy, Flapsy, how can you grieve him so? You don’t know what you
are throwing away!” incoherently cried Paula, collapsing in a burst of
tears. “Maidie, Maidie, why don’t you speak to her, and tell her how
wicked it is—and—and—and—”
The rest was cut short by sobs.
“No, Paula, authority or reasoning of mine would not touch such a mood as
this. We must leave it to Hubert himself. If she really cares for him,
she will have recovered from her fit of temper by the time his letter can
come, and it may have an effect upon her, if our tongues have not
increased her spirit of opposition. I strongly advise you to say
nothing.”
Paula tried to take her sister’s advice, and would have adhered to it,
but that Vera would talk and try to make her declare the rupture to have
been justified; and this produced an amount of wrangling which did good
to no one. Magdalen really rejoiced when the frequent golf and tennis
parties carried Vera on her bicycle out of reach of arguing, even if it
took her into the alternative of flirtation.
Thekla cried bitterly, and declared that she should never speak to Flapsy
again; but in half an hour’s time was heard chattering about the
hedgehog’s meal of cockroaches. In another week the excitement was over.
The Bishop of Onomootka had come and gone, after holding meetings and
preaching sermons at Rock Quay and all the villages round, and had
carried off Alexis White with him.
Nothing had come of the intercourse of the latter with his rich uncle,
nor of the varieties of encounters with the damsels of Rock Quay, except
that society was declared by more than one to have become horridly flat
and slow.
Vera was one of these, and the letters received from Hubert Delrio did
not stir up a fresh excitement. There were no persuasions to revoke her
decision, no urgent entreaties, no declaration of being heart-broken. He
acquiesced in her assurance that the engagement had been a mistake; and
he wrote at more length to Magdalen, avowing that he had for some time
past traced discontent in Vera’s letters, and fearing that he had been
too didactic and peremptory in writing to her. He relinquished the
engagement with much regret, and should always regard it as having been a
fair summer dream—but, though undeserving, he hoped still to retain Miss
Prescott’s kindness and friendship, which had been of untold value to
him.
A little more zeal and distress would have been much more pleasing to
Vera; and she began to be what Agatha and Thekla called cross, and Paula
called drooping, and even excited alarm in her, lest Flapsy should be
going into a decline. But a note came to the Goyle which Magdalen read
alone, and likewise she cycled alone to Rockstone.
“Miss Mohun, can you give me a few minutes?” said she, as the trim little
figure emerged from beneath the copper beeches, basket in hand.
“By all means; I shall not be due at the cutting-out meeting till three
o’clock.”
“I wanted to consult you about an invitation that Mrs. White has been so
very kind as to give my little sister, Vera.”
“Oh!” quoth Jane Mohun, in a dry sort of tone.
“I know that she had wished to take out one of her own nieces to Rocca
Marina, but that Sir Jasper did not wish it, and I thought perhaps it
would be easier for you than for Lady Merrifield to tell me whether there
is any objection that would apply to Vera.”
“I suppose Vera wishes to go?”
“She is so wild with delight that it would be a serious thing to
disappoint her. Mrs. White is very kind and good, and has thought that
she has flagged of late, and has supposed it might be due to poor Hubert
Delrio, but, indeed, it was no fault of his.”
“None at all, except for out-growing her.”
“The offer was hinted at to go with Valetta even before we knew it was
declined at Clipstone, and that made me anxious to know whether it would
be well for me to send Vera. I suppose she would pick up pronunciation
of languages, which would be a great advantage, as she will have to earn
her own living, and Mrs. White is so good as to promise lessons in arts
and music. I hear, too, it is quite an English colony, with a church and
schools.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. White is a very good and careful man about his workmen. I
have been there at the Henderson’s wedding, and it is a charming place, a
castle fit for Mrs. Radclyffe, with English comforts, and an Italian
garden and an English village on the mountain side. My sister would do
all that she promises, and would look after any young girl very well; you
may quite trust her.”
“Then is there any fear of Italian society?—not that poor Vera has any
attraction _of that kind_,” hesitated Magdalen.
“None at all. All the society they have is of English travellers coming
with introductions. I fancy it is very dull at times, and that Adeline
wants a young person about her. You need have no fears. Ah! I see you
still want to know why the Merrifields don’t consent. It is not their
way. They would not let the Rotherwoods have Mysie to bring up with
Phyllis, and—and Val is just the being that needs a mother’s eye over
her. But I really and honestly think that your Vera may quite safely be
put under Adeline’s care, and that she is likely to be all the better for
it.”
“One thing more,” added Magdalen, with a little hesitation; “is your
nephew, Wilfred, likely to be one of the party?”
“None at all. His father wants to keep him under his own eye, and his
mother is anxious about his health; nor do I think Mr. White wants him,
having his own two nephews, who are useful, so he will remain under
Captain Henderson here.”
“Thank you! That settles it in my mind. I am sure the change to a fresh
home will be an excellent thing for my poor Vera, and that the training
of imitation of one to whom she looks up is what she most needs.”
“Very true,” said Miss Mohun.
And as she afterwards said to Lady Merrifield, “It was in all sincerity
and honesty that I gave the advice to Magdalen, who is very sensible in
the matter. In plain English, Ada can’t do without a lady in waiting,
and Vera probably fancies that Lords, young or old, start from every wave
like the spirits of our fathers, at Rocca Marina, in which she will
probably be disappointed; but Ada will be a very dragon as to her manners
and discretion, and not being his own niece, old Tom White will not be
deluded by his ambition and any blandishments of hers. As people go,
they are very safe guardians, and Vera—Flapsy as they call her—is just of
the composition to be improved, and not disimproved, by living with Ada.”
“Probably, though I do not like the foolish little puss to be rewarded
for throwing over young Delrio.”
“He was so much too good for her that I am more inclined to reward her
for doing so!”
Agatha, however, came home somewhat annoyed by the whole arrangement.
She supposed the rupture with Hubert might have been inevitable; but she
was very sorry for it, thinking that Vera might have grown up to him, and
regretting the losing him as a brother. Nor did she like the atmosphere
of the Whites and Rocca Marina for her feather-brained young sister.
“Dolores had no great opinion of her Aunt Adeline,” she said.
“My dear,” said Magdalen, as they sat over their early fire, “I have
talked it over with Lady Merrifield and Miss Mohun, and they both tell me
that Mrs. White is very sensible, and sure to be discreet for any girl in
her charge—probably better for Flapsy than a more intellectual woman.”
“But—! Such a marriage as this one!” said Agatha.
“It was Mr. White’s own niece, and taken out of Mrs. White’s hands,” said
Magdalen. “Besides,” as Agatha still looked unconvinced, “one thing that
made me think the invitation desirable was that it would break off any
foolishness with Wilfred Merrifield—I think it was in their minds too.”
“Wilfred! Oh, there was a little nonsense.”
“Less on his side, since Felicia Vanderkist has been here; but I think
Vera has been all the more disposed to—to—”
“Run after him,” said Agatha. “I could fancy it in Flapsy; but he is
such a boy, and not half so nice-looking as the rest of them either.”
“My dear Agatha, I must tell you he reminds me strangely of a young Mr.
Merrifield whom I knew at Filsted when I was younger than you.”
“A brother of Bessie?”
“Even so. He got into some kind of trouble at Filsted, his father came
and broke it off, and sent him out to Canada, where I fear he did not do
well, and nothing has been heard of him since, except—”
She spoke with a catch in her voice which made Agatha look up at her, and
detect a rising colour.
“Nothing!” she repeated.
“Except an anonymous parcel, returning to the brothers in Canada the sum
he had taken with him. Strangely, the clue was not followed up, and he
is lost sight of! But Wilfred’s air, and still more his manner, is
always recalling his cousin to me, and, Nag, dear, I could not bear to
see Vera go through the same trial by my exposing her to the intercourse.
Not that I know any harm of Wilfred, but his parents could not like
anything of the kind.”
“Certainly not! Yes, I suppose you are right, dear old Maidie.” But
Agatha pondered over those words that had slipped out, “the same trial.”