HARRY JOSCELYN.
VOL. III.
HARRY JOSCELYN.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF
“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”
&c., &c.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1881.
_All rights reserved._
HARRY JOSCELYN.
CHAPTER I.
AFTER TEN YEARS.
Ten years is a large slice out of a life; but it slips by, not leaving
much trace in a rural country where everything goes quietly, and where
Christmas follows after Christmas with scarcely any sign by which one
can be identified from another on looking back. We will not say that
nothing had happened in the White House to mark the ten years from the
time when young Harry Joscelyn disappeared from the Fell country, and it
became evident that no one there was likely to hear anything of him
more. Various things had happened: one, for instance, was that Joan had
married Philip Selby, and was now the mistress of Heatonshaw, and could
not easily remember, so strange is the effect of such a change, how she
had contented herself in her previous life, or what had been the habits
and customs of Joan Joscelyn. More had happened to her in this than in
any other ten years of her life; but yet they had glided over very
calmly, day following day with such a gentle monotony that it was hard
for her to decide how many of them there were, or which was which. She
had no child to measure the years by, which was a misfortune, but one
which she bore with submission: reflecting to herself that if children
are a comfort they are often also a great handful, and that when they
are troublesome there is nothing else so troublesome in all the world.
Philip Selby himself was less philosophical, and would have ventured
gladly upon the risk for the sake of the blessing; but it was not so to
be. And thus they had little evidence before them of how the years stole
away. But all that he had augured, and Joan had agreed to, about the
house, had come true. There were the best of beasts in the byres, and
heavy crops on the arable land, and a phaeton in the coach-house, and
horses in the stables such as no man needed to be ashamed of. And with
all this, there was a very comfortable couple inside. Joan, on her
marriage, had been half ashamed of the fine room, which was called--not
according to her old-fashioned formula, the parlour, but--the
drawing-room, to which her husband had brought her home, and which had
been furnished by one of the best shops in Carlisle, with furniture such
as was approved by the taste of the time. There was a white paper on the
walls, and a great deal of gilding, and sofas and tables with legs that
were crooked and curly. But by the end of ten years much that was
somewhat showy once had toned down. The furniture had got more shapely
and a little human; the place had worn into the fashion of the people
that inhabited it. In summer it was a perfect bower of lilies and roses,
the great white shafts of the one rising above the broad branches, heavy
with flowers, of the other (for in those days there were no standards),
and the whole air sweet with the mingled perfume. Liddy Joscelyn, Mrs.
Selby’s little sister, thought there was no flower-garden in the world
like it; but then she had not been away from home since she was twelve,
and had not seen much, and there was nothing like it about the White
House.
That, place, too, had changed in these years. Ralph Joscelyn was the
one upon whom the change had told most. It was not that he was much
altered in personal appearance, nor yet that he had entirely mended and
corrected his ways. Perhaps indeed the alteration visible in him was
more due to the fact that there was nobody about the place who crossed
him, no one who opposed any strenuous opposition to his will, or
dissented from his opinions, than any real alteration. But it was a
quieter life which the homestead led, subject to much fewer storms than
of old; and Mrs. Joscelyn lived a far less anxious life. The loss of her
youngest boy so long ago--though it might not be really the loss of him,
since who could tell what day he might re-appear again?--was not a
thing, as everyone said, that she could be expected to get over. But the
ten years had calmed her, and, what was more, Liddy had calmed her.
Lydia had been sent for to her school when her mother was in the depths
of this trouble, and she had never been suffered to go back again, her
presence being the only consolation which the gentle and unhappy woman
was the better for. And after ten years of Liddy’s constant company,
Mrs. Joscelyn was a very different woman. Joan, who had been so
sympathetic with her mother through that last family trouble, without
understanding her in the others, understood still less the effect
produced by her little sister, who smoothed down everything without any
apparent trouble, more by understanding it, so far as appeared, than
from anything she did. When Joan’s reign terminated, Lydia became the
dominant spirit in the house. She was so at fourteen; how much more at
twenty! It was not a good thing for the butter and the cheese. The dairy
produce of the White House fell off wonderfully. It was no longer half
the quantity, and still less was it equal in quality, to the butter of
Joan’s time. Old Simon never ceased shaking his head over it till his
dying day, and went out of human consciousness moaning to himself that
“A’ things was altered, and no t’ half o’ t’ money coming in.” It was he
that had always been the salesman, and he felt it deeply. For half of
the time or so Joan had done her utmost, driving over in the morning and
spending hours endeavouring to indoctrinate her sister with the
mysteries of that art; but Liddy only laughed, and kept her pretty white
hands by her side, and declared herself incapable. “I don’t know what to
do with these things,” she would say, gazing at the bowls of milk,
without the least sense of shame, with even a smile on her face; and to
Joan’s consternation her father, coming in when this was said, and
himself standing in the doorway, swaying his big figure to and fro,
said, “Let her alone, let her alone, Joan. You did it, but she is
another kind from you.”
“That she is,” said Joan. “She’s not the profitable kind either, if she
let’s the dairy take care of itself.”
But to this Joscelyn paid no attention; and Mrs. Selby was led to her
chaise stupefied, not knowing whether she was asleep or awake, so
bewildered was she. The dairy went off, it was no longer celebrated as
of yore. The cows decreased in number, for what was the use of keeping
them when they brought in so little profit? And by degrees the house
changed altogether. Lydia, slim and straight, with her white hands, and
feet that scarcely sounded upon the old passage, gradually modified
everything. When she was seen in a new riding-habit, and a hat with a
feather, going out to ride with her father, the old servants could
scarcely contain themselves; and the timid mother, coming out to see
her, smoothed the horse’s sleek coat with a frightened hand, and did
not know how to look at the girl, or her father, who was as proud of
Lydia as Mrs. Joscelyn herself could be.
And then the old piano, which nobody had touched for years--for Joan,
who had ended her education at fifteen, had never learned any more music
than was contained in a first book of exercises--was sent off to an
attic, and a new piano was bought for Lydia. Where it came from no one
could quite understand, for it was impossible to believe that Joscelyn
had drawn his purse-strings to such an extent; but all the same it
arrived, and Lydia, sometimes going into Wyburgh, sometimes having her
professor out to the White House, had lessons, and practised diligently,
and by-and-bye became in her way a musician, astonishing all the
neighbourhood with her powers. A young lady who rode about the country
on a handsome horse, and who played the piano, was something altogether
new in the place. She might have been much more profoundly instructed
without producing half so great an impression. The house altogether rose
in the social scale. People came to call who had never been seen near
the White House before; and they found the mistress of the house, who
had always been genteel, a gentle woman, ladylike and subdued, and her
daughter one of the prettiest girls in the county, with a sort of
elegance about her which was the inheritance she had received from her
mother, strengthened and consolidated by the superior strength which she
got from the other side of the house. When Joscelyn himself appeared,
which was rarely, his fine form and strength, and the refinement
imparted by a crown of white hair, raised him, too, to a sort of
pinnacle. People began to say that they found they had done him
injustice, and that after all the present representative of the
Joscelyns was not unworthy his race. The process was slow, but it was
very complete. When Will and Tom appeared with their wives, it was
unaccountable how “put out” and “set down” they felt, as if they were
going to their landlord’s, where everything was finer than the
surroundings they were accustomed to, and not to their father’s, upon
whose shabby furniture Mrs. Will and Mrs. Tom had looked with contempt.
Even Joan looked round her with a curiosity which was mingled with
grievance, scarcely able to restrain the thought that what was good
enough for _her_, might certainly have been good enough for Liddy.
Liddy it was clear did not think so. And how that little thing knew, or
where she had got her instinctive acquaintance with polite ways, Mrs.
Selby, who was on the whole proud of Liddy, could not tell; but so it
was. The house brightened up generally; here a new carpet, and there a
new curtain, made a change in its dingy aspect. The old furniture was
made the most of, and old china, and all the stores of a long
established house brought out to embellish the parlours; the very hall
and passages were brushed up, the table, and the service at the table,
so improved, that Joan too thought she must be dining with some of the
great county people, whom the Joscelyns had always thought themselves
equal to, but who had not acknowledged the Joscelyns.
“The thing that surprises me is where she learned it all,” Mrs. Selby
said; “a bit of a thing that has seen no more than the rest of us; but
she has a deal of you in her, mother, far more than any of the rest.”
“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, shaking her head, “I never had the
courage to settle things my own way. It was not that I didn’t know: I
knew very well how things ought to be done.” This little gentle
assertion of her gentility Mrs. Joscelyn felt was her due in the new
development of affairs. It was not all the discovery of Liddy. She had
known well enough all the time. Circumstances had been too much for her;
but the refinements of society were her natural atmosphere. Joan looked
at her mother with mingled respect and amusement, proud that she was
such a lady, yet feeling the joke of her superiority.
“Yes, mother,” she said, “I mind how you and Phil talked the first time
he came to the White House. It was as good as a play to hear you. He
never let on it was me he wanted, but to have a talk with you, such a
superior woman. I did not understand a word you were saying, and I took
pains to let him see that the dairy and the stables were what I was most
acquainted with; but that didn’t make any difference, you see.”
“You were never one to make the most of yourself, Joan,” said the
mother, mildly. “I always knew there was a great deal more in you than
you would ever show,” at which Joan laughed; but she was not displeased.
And she was proud of her young sister when Liddy came riding over on
the last perfection from her father’s stable, looking like a young
princess. She was the nearest thing to a child of her own that Joan was
ever likely to have, and she forgave her possession of a great many
indulgences which no one had thought of conceding to Joan. When it
appeared, however, that Lydia had a groom behind her, Mrs. Selby’s soul
was stirred within her.
“Now, Liddy,” she said, “I can stand a deal, but you’ll ruin father if
you go on like this. A groom behind you! what will you want next?
Father’s just infatuated, that is all I can say.”
“It’s only a livery coat,” said Liddy, “that’s all. It doesn’t cost very
much. I’ll pay it off my own allowance, and father will never be the
worse----”
Here she was interrupted by a shriek from her elder sister. “Your
allowance? What next?” she said. “I never had a penny to myself when I
was at home, and hard ado to get a bill paid. If it had not been for the
butter money, I should never have had a gown to my back.”
“But that would not do for me,” said Lydia, with a toss of her head;
and, indeed, to see her here with her airy figure, and her close-fitting
habit, and the beautiful bay arching his fine neck in the background,
and to suggest any connection with the butter money was a thing which
only an elder sister without sentiment or sense of appropriateness could
have done. The Duke’s daughter did not look more unlike any such homely
particulars; indeed, the Duke’s daughter was not fit, as Joan said,
proudly, to herself, to “hold the candle” to little Liddy Joscelyn.
“I don’t know what’s coming of it,” Mrs. Selby said to her husband;
“but, Phil, you and me will stand by that child, and see her out of
it--will you, goodman?”
“That I will, my dear,” Philip Selby said; “but Joscelyn has been doing
not badly, and I dare say he can afford to let the little one have her
fling. He has none to think of now but Liddy--and there’s Uncle Henry’s
money.”
This allusion always made Joan ready to cry, though she was not given to
tears. “I would rather burn off my fingers than touch Uncle Henry’s
money,” she said. “It will never be me that will put my hand to it, and
give my consent that yon poor lad is not coming home----”
“We must be reasonable, my dear,” Philip Selby said, mildly, “and the
others will not be so patient. There is one thing you shall do if you
like, Joan, and that is give your share to Liddy. It would never be any
pleasure to you.”
Joan looked at her husband with a startled air. She was more matter of
fact than he was, and the idea of giving over actual money to which she
had a right, to anyone, was a thing which gave her somewhat of a shock.
In their ordinary affairs she had to keep rather a tight hand upon her
Phil, who was too easy about his money generally; but this was a
complicated case, and puzzled her much.
“Give Liddy my share? You say true it would be little, little pleasure
to me; but money is money, and there are some to come after us. It’s
fine to be generous, but we must think upon justice. What’s Liddy’s is
Liddy’s, and what’s mine is mine.”
It was from no want of kindness that Joan spoke: but she could not help
it. It was as natural to close her hand over money, even when she hated
it, as it was for others to throw it away.
“You will think better of it,” her husband said.
“Oh! it’s very likely I will think better of it. A woman cannot live
with a prodigal like you without getting into ill ways. But I was always
brought up to stick to my money; and I’ve you to look after as well. If
you had not me to watch over you, you would give away the coat off your
back.”
“For all that I’ve always had plenty,” said Selby, “and now more than
plenty--with a good wife to take care of it and me.”
“You may say a wife to take care of you,” said Joan, “and how you ever
kept a penny in your purse before you got her, is what I cannot tell;
though, after all, when a man spends nothing upon himself, it’s easy
keeping him going. But I’m one that sticks to my money. Give what you
please else, but keep a grip upon your money, that’s always been my
way.” Then she added, after a pause: “There will never be any question
about that; when he knows it’s all left to him, it stands to reason that
he will come back. Joscelyns have more regard to their own interest.
They are not easy-going like you.”
“I wish I could think so,” Mr. Selby said.
And so the conversation ended. Uncle Henry had died not very long
before, leaving behind him only an old will in which everything was left
to Harry. The executors, who were both influential persons in Wyburgh,
had advertised for him, or for news of him, but none had come; and the
family generally had accepted this as a proof that Harry was dead--the
family, all but the mother and Joan, who were both strenuous that
nothing should be done, and no division made. Mrs. Joscelyn would have
been overruled before now, but Joan was a stronger opponent, and she had
the backing of her husband, of whom her brothers stood in a little awe;
so that the division and distribution of Uncle Henry’s funds had been
postponed. But this delay could not last: the elder brothers, who were
men with families and in want of money, were certain to push for a
settlement. They had no doubt, and not very much feeling, about the
younger one who was lost. It had been entirely his own doing. He was a
fool to have gone away like that, and compromised himself, and thrown
away all his chances; but whatever happened to him in consequence was
his own fault. If he had died, or if he was living in some obscure
corner far away, were not they equally innocent? They had tried all they
could to find him--the trustees were trying now. Old Pilgrim was
advertising far and wide. If Harry were dead, or if he were so far away
as to be out of reach of this call, it was not their fault; and they
wanted no more than their share--but that share, there was no doubt,
would be very convenient. Will’s sons were growing up, and Tom was
taking in more land to his farm. To each of these, as to most people, a
little money would have been of the greatest use. And it was all very
well for Joan to talk who had neither chick nor child, and was in such
easy circumstances; it was well for her to talk whose husband supplied
her with everything, and who had no need of money; but they were men and
knew better. They knew that men are not such fools as to stay away from
their home as Harry had done. Nobody did such a thing, especially when
advertisements were in the papers about them, and “something to their
advantage” promised.
“Something to your advantage means money,” said Will. “’Twouldn’t be
long I’d skulk away at the end of the world if you were to give me the
chance.”
“He’s never skulking away at the end of the world,” said Tom. “If he
went off at all, he went to California or thereabouts; and he’d have
come home at the first scent of money. Bless you, we know our own
breed;” and in this the other brother concurred. But the trustees held
fast. They would not consent to any distribution of the money till
Harry, if Harry still existed, had every chance of hearing of it.
Privately Mr. Pilgrim had no objection to advance to Tom the money he
wanted for that addition to his farm. There was solid security, and a
feasible reason for borrowing. “There’s but too much reason to think
that your poor brother will never turn up again,” the executor allowed;
“but we must not go too fast.” Alas! such is the weakness of human
nature that the other Joscelyns ere long were not sure that they wished
their poor brother to turn up again. The money would be so convenient!
When is there a time that money is not convenient? And it could do him
no good, poor fellow, if he was in his grave--which at the same time
would be his own fault.
Very different, however, from the conclusions of Will and Joan were
those which were held at the White House on this subject. Mrs. Joscelyn
had never consented to that view. “He may have been led away,” she said;
“but do you think my boy would die and me not know? Oh, Liddy, my
darling, many a time when you see me in low spirits, and ask me why, and
I say it’s nothing, that is what it is. It is borne in upon me that
something is the matter with one of the boys. I’ve different feelings
for each of them. People may laugh that don’t understand, but you’ll not
laugh, my Liddy dear. I never said it to one of the others, but I may
say it to you. If it’s Ben, or if it’s Huntley, I have a kind of a
feeling--and as sure as letters come it’s found to be true. There is
always a something. Now it stands to reason that Harry should be the
same, but as he never writes we never can tell. Sometimes I’ve been
quite light-hearted for nothing at all, and I’ve said to myself, ‘That’s
Harry: something good’s happening to him.’ Do you think it is natural
that if he had _died_--oh, the Lord preserve him!--his mother would not
know?”
“It would not be natural at all,” said Lydia, confidently; “he would
come and stand by your bedside; I don’t feel the least doubt of that.
But there is one thing I should like, mamma; I should like to go abroad.
I feel sure that I should find him. I think that I should find him
somewhere not very far away--or else in America: I have quite made up my
mind to that.”
“You would scarcely know your brother if you saw him,” said Mrs.
Joscelyn, shaking her head; “You were so little, my pet; and poor Harry
must be changed in ten years.”
“Oh, I should know him,” cried Lydia. She held her pretty head high. She
was very sure of most things. “After you are grown up you don’t change
so much. He might not know me, but I should know him wherever I saw him.
Ah, how delightful it would be to bring him back to you!” said Lydia,
throwing her arms round her mother. The words and the arms were alike
sweet. Nobody had given Mrs. Joscelyn this food for her heart in the old
days.
“My darling!” she said; “but I see no chance for you to go abroad, far
less--far less----”
“There is no telling what may happen,” said Liddy, “everybody, you know,
goes abroad now.”
But Mrs. Joscelyn shook her head. She saw the practical difficulties
here.