Midsummer came with its culmination of heat and verdure; and a great
epoch it was in the Chellaston year, for it brought the annual influx of
fashionable life from Quebec and Montreal. To tell the plain truth, this
influx only consisted of one or two families who had chosen this as a
place in which to build summer residences, and some hundred other people
who, singly or in parties, took rooms in the hotel for the hot season;
but it made a vast difference in the appearance of the quiet place to
have several smart phaetons, and one carriage and pair, parading its
roads, and to have its main street enlivened by the sight of the gay
crowd on the hotel verandahs.
"Now," said Miss Bennett, calling upon Miss Rexford, "there will be a
few people to talk to, and we shall see a little life. These people are
really a very good sort; you'll begin to have some enjoyment."
The Rexfords had indeed been advertised more than once of the advantage
that would accrue to them from the coming of the town-folks, and this
chiefly by Trenholme himself.
"The place will seem far different," he had said, "when you have passed
one of our summers. We really have some delightful pleasure parties here
in summer." And another time he had said, "When Mrs. Brown and her
daughters come to their house on the hill I want you to know them. They
are such true-hearted people. All our visitors are genuine Canadians,
not immigrants as we and our neighbours are; and yet, do you know, they
are so nice you would _hardly_ know them from English people. Oh, they
add to our social life very much when they come!"
He had said so many things of this sort, ostensibly to Mrs. Rexford,
really to Sophia, who was usually a party to his calls on her mother,
that he had inspired in them some of his own pleasurable anticipation.
It was not until the summer visitors were come that they realised how
great was the contrast between their own bare manner of living and the
easy-going expenditure of these people, who were supposed to be such
choice acquaintances for them. Everything is relative. They had not been
mortified by any comparison of their own circumstances and those of
Chellaston families, because, on one account and another, there had
always appeared to be something to equalise the difference. Either their
neighbours, if better off, had not long ago begun as meagrely, or else
they lacked those advantages of culture or social standing which the
Rexfords could boast. Such are the half conscious refuges of our
egotism. But with the introduction of this new element it was different.
Not that they drew any definite comparison between themselves and their
new neighbours--for things that are different cannot be compared, and
the difference on all points was great; but part of Trenholme's prophecy
took place; the life in that pleasant land did appear more and more
desirable as they witnessed the keen enjoyment that these people, who
were not workers, took in it--only (Trenholme and Miss Bennett seemed to
have overlooked this) the leisure and means for such enjoyment were not
theirs.
"Oh, mamma," said Blue and Red, "we saw the Miss Browns driving on the
road, and they had such pretty silver-grey frocks, with feathers in
their hats to match. We wish we could have feathers to match our
frocks."
And later Sophia, seeking her step-mother, found her in her own room,
privately weeping. The rare sight rent her heart.
"If I am their mother" (she began her explanation hurriedly, wiping her
tears) "I can say truthfully they're as pretty a pair of girls as may be
seen on a summer day. You had your turn, Sophia; it's very noble of you
to give up so much for us now, but it can't be said that you didn't have
your turn of gaiety."
Now Blue and Red were not in need of frocks, for before they left
England their mother had stocked their boxes as though she was never to
see a draper's shop again. But then, she had been in a severely
utilitarian mood, and when she cut out the garments it had not occurred
to her that Fashion would ever come across the fields of a Canadian
farm.
Sophia rallied her on this mistake now, but resolutely abstracted
certain moneys from the family purse and purchased for the girls white
frocks. She did not omit blue and red ribbons to distinguish between the
frocks and between the wearers. Trenholme had remarked of the girls
lately that neither would know which was herself and which the other if
the badge of colour were removed, and Sophia had fallen into the way of
thinking a good deal of all he said. She was busy weighing him in the
scales of her approval and disapproval, and the scales, she hardly knew
why, continued to balance with annoying nicety.
For the making up of the frocks, she was obliged to apply for advice to
Eliza, who was the only patron of dressmakers with whom she was
intimate.
"I think, on the whole, she is satisfactory," said Eliza of one whom she
had employed. "She made the dress I have on, for instance; it fits
pretty well, you see."
Sophia did not resent this. Eliza had had a rocket-like career of
success in the hotel which pleased and amused her; but she felt that to
forgive the Brown family for having a carriage and pair required
large-mindedness while her father's carriage still stood in the
unfurnished drawing-room, and even Mrs. Rexford had given up hopes of
finding horses to draw it.
Very soon after, their annual arrival, Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their two
daughters came kindly to call on the new English family. Principal
Trenholme found time to run over by appointment and introduce his
friends. The visitors were evidently generous-minded, wholesome sort of
people, with no high development of the critical faculty, travelled,
well-read, merry, and kind. Sophia confessed to herself after the first
interview that, had it not been for their faulty degree of wealth and
prosperity, she would have liked them very much. Mrs. Bennett, whose
uncle had been an admiral, considered them desirable friends for her
daughter, and this was another reason why, out of pure contrariness,
Sophia found liking difficult; but she determined for Trenholme's sake
to try--a good resolution which lasted until she had taken Blue and Red
to return the call, but no longer.
"And Miss Rexford," said good Mrs. Brown, "we hear you have had the
privilege of knowing Principal Trenholme for a long time before he came
out here. He is a very _good_ man; for so comparatively young a man, and
one, as you might say, with so many worldly advantages, I think it is
perhaps remarkable that he is so spiritually-minded. I count it a
blessing that we have the opportunity of attending his church during the
summer months." Simple sense and perfect sincerity were written on every
line of Mrs. Brown's motherly face.
"He really is very good," said one of the daughters. "Do you know, Miss
Rexford, we have a friend who has a son at the college. He really went
to the college a _very_ naughty boy, no one could manage him; and he's
so changed--such a nice fellow, and doing so well. His mother says she
could thank Principal Trenholme on her knees, if it was only the
conventional thing to do."
"He is a most devoted Christian," added Mrs. Brown, using the religious
terms to which she was accustomed, "and I believe he makes it a matter
of prayer that no young man should leave his college without deepened
religious life. I believe in prayer as a power; don't you, Miss
Rexford?"
"Yes," replied Sophia, tersely. She did not feel at that moment as if
she wanted to discuss the point.
"And then he's so jolly," put in the youngest Miss Brown, who was a
hearty girl. "That's the sort of religion for me, the kind that can
rollick--of course I mean _out of church_," she added naïvely.
Blue and Red sat shyly upon their chairs and listened to this discourse.
It might have been Greek for all the interest they took in it.
As for Sophia, it could not be said to lack interest for her--it was
very plain, she thought, why Robert Trenholme thought so highly of the
Browns.
There was a youth belonging to this family who was a year or two older
than Blue and Red. His mother, sent for him to come into the room, and
introduced him to them. He was a nice youth, but precocious; he said to
them:
"I suppose you think Chellaston is a very pretty place, but I'll tell
you what our natural beauties lack as yet. It is such a literature as
you have in England, which has done so much to endear the wildflowers
and birds and all natural objects there to the heart of the people. Our
Canadian flora and fauna are at present unsung, and therefore, to a
large extent, unobserved by the people, for I think the chief use of the
poet is to interpret nature to the people--don't you?"
Blue ventured "yes," and Red lisped in confusion, "Do you think so,
really?" but as for any opinion on the subject they had none. Sophia,
fearing that her sisters would be cast aside as hopeless dunces, was
obliged to turn partially from the praise that was being lavished on
Trenholme to make some pithy remark upon the uses of the poet.
Sophia, although half conscious of her own unreasonableness, decided now
that the Browns might go one way and she another; but she was indebted
to this visit for a clue in analysing the impression Trenholme made upon
her. His new friends had called him noble; she knew now that when she
knew him ten years before he had seemed to her a more noble character.
In the next few weeks she observed that in every picnic, every pleasure
party, by land or water, Principal Trenholme was the most honoured
guest, and, indeed, the most acceptable cavalier. His holidays had come,
and he was enjoying them in spite of much work that he still exacted
from himself. She wondered at the manner in which he seemed to enjoy
them, and excused herself from participation. It was her own doing that
she stayed at home, yet, perversely, she felt neglected. She hardly knew
whether it was low spite or a heaven-born solicitude that made her feel
bitter regret at the degeneracy she began to think she saw in him.
In due time there came a pleasure party of which Trenholme was to be the
host. It was to take place in a lovely bit of wilderness ground by the
river side, at the hour of sunset and moonrise, in order that, if the
usual brilliancy attended these phenomena, the softest glories of light
might be part of the entertainment. Music was also promised. Principal
Trenholme came himself to solicit the attendance of the Miss Rexfords;
but Sophia, promising for Blue and Red, pleaded lack of time for
herself. "And I wish your scheme success," cried she, "but I need not
wish you pleasure since, as on all such occasions, you will 'sit
attentive to your own applause.'"
She felt a little vexed that he did not seem hurt by her quotation, but
only laughed. She did not know that, although the adulation he received
was sweet to him, it was only sweet that summer because he thought it
must enhance his value in her eyes. Some one tells of a lover who gained
his point by putting an extra lace on his servants' liveries; and the
savage sticks his cap with feathers: but these artifices do not always
succeed.