"I have no ambition to see a goodlier man."
_Tempest_.
"I am so very much obliged to you for seeing me. I am afraid it is very
inconvenient and uncomfortable for you--in fact, as I have been telling
your daughters, I am altogether ashamed of myself," was the apology with
which Captain Beverley met Mrs Western.
"But you need not be so, I assure you," she answered, quietly, as she
sat down on the sofa by the fire. "I have been a clergyman's wife too
many years not to be quite accustomed to act as my husband's deputy when
he is out of the way; and Mary--my daughter, I mean," she added,
glancing towards the girls, "tells me you wanted particularly to see Mr
Western. Is it anything in which I can do instead of him, or will you
leave a message? I fear he will not be home till late."
Notwithstanding the perfect courtesy of this speech, there was something
in it which made Captain Beverley regret again what he had done. He
grew hot when he remembered that not two minutes ago he had been making
interest with the beautiful Miss Western for a cup of tea, and now her
mother made him feel that he was expected to give his message and take
his departure--the sooner the better.
"How completely Cheviott has been mistaken about these people!" he
thought to himself; but though Mary, who was standing nearest him, could
not read this reflection, she perceived the quick change of expression
in his open, good-tempered face, and she felt sorry--sorry for him, and
a little tiny bit vexed with her mother.
"Mamma," she broke in, before Mrs Western had time to say any more,
"you must really have tea at once; it will be getting cold. Shall I
pour it out, Lilias, or will you?"
"I will, thank you," said Lilias, not quite sure if she appreciated her
sister's tactics, but seating herself before the tea-table as she spoke.
"Mother, dear, stay where you are, do," seeing that Mrs Western was
getting up from her seat.
"I was only looking to see if there were cups enough, my dear. Captain
Beverley, you will have a cup of tea?" said Mrs Western, her natural
instinct of hospitality asserting itself in defiance of her dislike to
strangers.
"Thank you," he replied, gratefully; "I really cannot resist the chance
of a cup of _good_ tea. My old woman has been giving me such a horrible
decoction. What do people do to tea to make it taste so fearful, I
wonder?" he continued, seriously. "It seems the simplest thing in the
world just to pour hot water over a spoonful or two, and let it stand
for a few minutes."
The girls laughed, and Mrs Western smiled.
"It is evident you are a bachelor, Captain Beverley," she said. "There
is nothing that depend more on _how_ it is made than tea. For instance,
hot water is not necessarily _boiling_ water as it should be, and the
`standing a few minutes' should not mean brewing by the fire for half an
hour or more."
"I see," said Captain Beverley. "I wonder if it would be any use trying
to teach old Mrs Bowker how to make tea properly."
"Mrs Bowker!" repeated Mrs Western in surprise.
Lilias laughed again at the bewilderment in her mother's face.
"How prettily she laughs," thought Captain Beverley, "I wish Laurence
could see her. He declares not one woman in a hundred can laugh
becomingly."
"Captain Beverley is staying at old Mrs Bowker's, mamma," she
exclaimed--"at least, at John Birley's farm."
"Or, to be perfectly correct," said Captain Beverley, "old Mrs Bowker
is staying with _me_, though I am quite sure she does not see the
arrangement in that light at all. I was just telling Miss Western," he
continued, turning to the mother, "that Hathercourt Edge--that is to
say, the old farm-house and, what is of more importance, a considerable
amount of land--has just become my property; the last owner, John
Birley, left it to me as the oldest lineal descendant of the _name_--of
the Beverleys of Hathercourt. He had no near relations, and had always
been proud of his own descent from the Beverleys; he came straight down
from a John Beverley who owned all the land about here early in the
seventeenth century, I believe, but whose eldest son sold a lot of it,
so that in process of time they came to be only farmers."
"That John Beverley must have been `Mawde's' husband, Lilias," said
Mary.
Captain Beverley looked up with interest.
"Do you mean the `Mawde' about whom there is a tablet in the church
here?" he said.
"Yes," replied Mary. "Mawde Mayne, who married John Beverley of
Hathercourt."
"Ah! yes, that's the same Mawde," said Captain Beverley. "She is our
common ancestress--poor old John Birley's and mine, I mean. I come from
another of her sons, who left these parts and married an heiress, I
believe, but his descendants have had nothing to do with this place from
that time to this. Isn't it strange that Hathercourt, a part of it at
least, should come back to me after all these generations?"
"It is very nice, I think," said Mary. "I should be so proud of it, if
I were you."
Her eyes sparkled, and her face brightened up eagerly. For the first
time it struck Captain Beverley that there was something very "taking"
about the second Miss Western. But his glance did not rest on her; it
travelled on to where Lilias sat behind the tea-tray, with a
half-unconscious appeal to her for sympathy in what he was telling.
Lilias, looking up, smiled.
"Yes," she said, softly, "it is very strange."
"Then," began Mrs Western, with some little hesitation, "are you, may I
ask, Captain Beverley, going to live altogether at Hathercourt Edge?
You can hardly do so, though, in the house as it is at present. It is
barely habitable, is it?"
"Very barely," replied the young man. "You never saw such a place. But
I must not grumble; poor old John kept the land up to the mark, though
he spent nothing on the house. I don't mean to settle here," (Mrs
Western breathed a sigh of relief), "I have another place which is let
just now, but will soon be free again, and my cousin advises me to live
there and farm it myself. All I mean to do here is to build a good
farm-house, and establish some trusty man as bailiff, and then I can
easily run down now and then--I am often at Romary--and see how things
are going on. And this brings me to what I wanted to see Mr Western
about. I want to ask his opinion of a young man here who has been
recommended to me for my situation."
"Mr Western will be very glad to tell you all he can, I am sure," said
the Rector's wife. "I dare say he will be able to walk over to
Hathercourt Edge to-morrow to see you, for about such a matter it would
be better for you to speak to himself."
"Thank you," said Captain Beverley. "But I couldn't think of giving Mr
Western so much trouble. I can easily come over again, and if he is out
it doesn't matter--it is only a pleasant walk--and--and if I am not a
great trouble, I shall be only too grateful to have some one to speak
to, for I am dreadfully tired of the old farm-house, and I must be here
alone another fortnight. By then my cousins will be back at Romary, and
I can take up my quarters there. You know Romary, of course?"
"No," said Lilias, to whom the question seemed to be addressed, her
colour rising a little; "at least, I have only been there once."
"It is some miles from here, and we have no carriage," said Mrs
Western, simply. "Old Mrs Romary called on me when we first came here,
but I never saw any more of them. We know very few of our neighbours,
Captain Beverley, for we are not rich, and we live very quietly." Mary
looked up at her mother admiringly. Lilias glanced at Captain Beverley.
His colour, too, had deepened a little.
"Then I must thank you all the more for being so kind to me," he said,
impulsively. "And, Mrs Western, if, as I shall really be your very
nearest neighbour, you will let me be to some extent an exception to the
rule, I shall thank you still more," he added, with a sort of boyish
heartiness which it was difficult to resist.
He had got up to go, and stood looking down at his hostess as he spoke
with such a kindly expression in his honest blue eyes, and--he was so
undeniably handsome and gentlemanlike that Mrs Western's cold manner
thawed.
"The thanks will, I think, be due from us to you if you come to see us
now and then when you are in the neighbourhood; that is to say, at
Hathercourt Edge. Romary is too far off for us to consider its
inhabitants neighbours," she replied. "And I don't quite understand,
but Romary is not your home, is it?"
"Oh dear, no," he replied, evidently a little surprised at the question.
"Romary belongs now to my cousin, Mr Cheviott. It has been his ever
since his uncle's death, but he has only lately come to live there. He
was my guardian, and the best and wisest friend I have ever known,
though not more than ten years older than myself," he added, warmly.
"And that young lady--we thought her _so_ pretty," said Lilias--"she is
Miss Cheviott, then, I suppose?"
"Yes, she is his sister. I am glad you think her pretty. She is a dear
little thing," he replied, looking pleased and gratified. "But I am
really detaining you too long. Will you be so kind as to tell Mr
Western that I shall hope to see him in a day or two? Good-bye, and
thank you very much," he said, as he shook hands with Mrs Western and
her daughters, Lilias last.
"For a cup of tea?" she said, laughing.
"Yes, Miss Western, for a cup of tea," he repeated.
"I like him," said Mary, when the door had closed on their visitor; "he
is honest, and unaffected, and kindly."
"He is very boyish," said Lilias; "somehow he seems more boyish than
when I saw him two years ago."
"When you saw him two years ago?" repeated Mrs Western. "I did not
know you had ever seen him before."
"Yes, mamma. I met him at my second Brocklehurst ball. Mary remembers
my mentioning him," replied Lilias, meekly enough. "I did not know
where he had come from, or whom he was staying with, or anything about
him, and indeed I had forgotten all about him till the other day when he
came to church."
"He is a pleasant-looking young man," said Mrs Western.
"Pleasant-looking, mother?" exclaimed Mary. "I call him _very_
handsome."
Lilias smiled, but her mother looked grave.
"Well, well," she said, "I dare say he is handsome; but in my opinion,
my dears, there is great truth in the old saying, `handsome is that
handsome does,' and we do not know anything at all about this Captain
Beverley's doings, remember."
"At least we know nothing `_un_handsome' about them," said Mary, who
seemed in an unusually argumentative mood.
"Oh dear, no. I have no reason to say anything against him. I know
nothing whatever about him," said Mrs Western, calmly; "but I do not
like making acquaintance too quickly with young men. One cannot be too
careful. And you know, my dears, I have always said if ever you do
marry I hope and trust it will be some one quite in your own sphere."
"Mamma!" exclaimed Lilias, growing scarlet, and with a touch of
indignation in her tone, "why should you allude to such a thing? Just
because a gentleman happens to have called to see papa on business--as
if we could not have spoken two words to him without thinking if we
should like to marry him."
"You need not fire up so, Lilias," replied her mother. "You very often
speak about marrying, or not marrying, and I have heard you maintain it
was gross affectation of girls to pretend they never thought about their
future lives."
"Yes," said Lilias, "I know I have said so, and I think so, but still
there is a difference between that and--Well, never mind. But, mother,"
she went on, with returning playfulness, "I must warn you of one thing.
If by `our own sphere' you mean _curates_, then the sooner, as far as I
am concerned, I can get out of my own sphere the better."
Mrs Western did not laugh.
"Lilias," she began, gravely, but the rest of her remonstrance was lost,
for at that moment the drawing-room door opened softly, and a pair of
bright eyes, surmounted by a shag of fair hair, peeped in, cautiously at
first, then, their owner gathering courage, the door opened more widely,
and a tall thin girl, in a brown stuff skirt and scarlet flannel bodice,
made her appearance.
"Josey, what do you want? Don't you know it is very rude to come
peeping in like that? How did you know we were alone?" said Mary,
somewhat peremptorily.
"Then he's gone?--I thought he was," answered Josephine, composedly.
"All right, Alexa, you can come in," she turned to call to some one
behind her, and, thus encouraged, a fourth Miss Western--the third as to
age, in point of fact--followed Josephine into the room.
"Is mamma better? I have really done my best, Mary, to keep them all
quiet," she began, plaintively, "but George and Josey do _so_ squabble.
They wanted to find out who was calling, and I could hardly prevent them
coming to peep in at the door. Yes, Josey, you needn't make faces at me
like that. It's quite true--you know it is."
"I didn't say it wasn't," said Josey, "but there are more ways than one
of telling the truth. Somebody else was just as inquisitive as `George
and Josey,' but _she_ was far too lady-like to do such a thing as peep.
She would let other people peep for her--that is _her_ way of doing
things she shouldn't," the last words uttered with withering contempt.
Alexa was a pretty, frightened-looking little creature of sixteen. She
had soft, wistful-looking dark eyes, which filled with tears on the
smallest provocation.
"Mamma," she exclaimed, "it isn't true! I only said I would like--"
"I do not want to hear any more about it, Alexa," interrupted Mrs
Western with decision. "I do think you and Josephine might have some
little consideration for me to-day, instead of quarrelling in this way."
The culprits looked ashamed of themselves; but in two minutes
Josephine's irrepressible spirits had risen again.
"You might tell me if it really was Captain Beverley," she said to her
elder sisters. "What did he come for?--why did he stay such a time?"
"Don't answer her, Mary," said Lilias, hastily. "Josephine, I can't
understand how you can be so unladylike."
"Come up-stairs with me, Josey," whispered Mary, who saw the
storm-clouds gathering again on her young sister's handsome face. "Do
remember that mamma is tired and dull to-night, and we should all try to
comfort her. I will read aloud to you all for half an hour, if you
like, and leave mother and Lilias in peace."
But Lilias's spirits seemed to have received a check. She remained
unusually quiet and depressed all the evening, and Mary felt puzzled.
"She cannot really have taken to heart what mother said," she thought to
herself. "Mamma has often said things of that sort without Lilias
minding."
And when bed-time came and she was alone with her sister, she set to
work to find out what was wrong.
"What has made you so dull this evening, Lilias?" she asked, gently.
"Nothing, or rather, perhaps, I should say everything," replied Lilias.
"Mary," she went on; she was sitting in front of the looking-glass, her
beautiful fair hair loosened and falling about her shoulders, and as she
spoke she put her hands up to her face, and leaning with her elbows on
the table gazed into the mirror before her--"Mary, don't think me
conceited for what I am going to say--I wouldn't say it to any one but
you. Do you know, I think I wish I wasn't pretty."
"Why?" said Mary, without, however, testifying any great astonishment.
"If I could tell you exactly why, I should understand myself better than
I do," she replied. "I fancy somehow being pretty has helped to put me
out of conceit of my life; and after all, what a poor, stupid thing it
is! A very few years more, I shall be quite _passee_--indeed, I see
signs of it coming already. I want to be good and sensible, and sober,
and contented like you, Mary, and I can't manage it. Oh, it does makes
me so angry when mamma talks that way--about our own sphere and all
that!"
"You shouldn't be angry at it, it does not really make any difference,"
said Mary, philosophically; "poor mamma thinks it is for our good."
"But it isn't only that; it is _everything_. Mary, people talk great
nonsense about poverty not necessarily lowering one; it does lower us--
that I think is the reason why I dislike mamma's saying those things so.
There is truth in them. We are rapidly becoming unfit for anything but
a low sphere, and it is all poverty. Did you ever see anything more
disgraceful than the younger girls' manners sometimes?--Alexa's silly
babyishness, and Josephine's vulgar noisiness? They should both be sent
to a good school, or have a proper governess."
"Yes," said Mary, looking distressed, "I know they should."
"I can't bear shamming and keeping up appearances," continued Lilias,
"it is not _that_ I want, that would be worse than anything, but I do
feel so depressed about things sometimes, Mary. It is a sore feeling to
be, in one sense, ashamed of one's home. I hope Captain Beverley will
not come again."
"He is almost sure to do so," said Mary. "I wish you would not feel
things quite as you do, Lilias; I can sympathise with you to a certain
extent, but, after all, there is nothing to be really ashamed of. And
if Captain Beverley, or any one, judges us by these trifling outside
things, then I don't think their regard is worth considering."
"But it is just by these things that people _are_ judged, and that is
where the real sting of poverty like ours lies," persisted Lilias.
And Mary, who sympathised with her more than she thought it wise to own
to, allowed that there was a great deal of truth in what she said. "But
must it not be harder on papa and mamma than on us?" she suggested.
"I don't know," said Lilias, "not in the same way I fancy. Papa feels
it more than mamma, I sometimes think, only he is naturally so
easy-going. And poor mamma, even if she does feel it, she would not
show it. She is so unselfish; and how hard she works for us all! I
don't think she could work so hard if she felt as depressed as I do
sometimes--especially about the younger ones."
"But you do work hard also, Lilias," said Mary, "and you are nearly
always cheerful. You are unselfish too. Oh! Lilias, I should so like
to see you very, very happy!"