Meadows trim with daisies pied.--MILTON.
Ethel’s navigation lesson was interrupted by the dinner-bell. That long
table was a goodly sight. Few ever looked happier than Dr. and Mrs. May,
as they sat opposite to each other, presenting a considerable contrast
in appearance as in disposition. She was a little woman, with that
smooth pleasant plumpness that seems to belong to perfect content and
serenity, her complexion fair and youthful, her face and figure very
pretty, and full of quiet grace and refinement, and her whole air and
expression denoting a serene, unruffled, affectionate happiness, yet
with much authority in her mildness--warm and open in her own family,
but reserved beyond it, and shrinking from general society.
The doctor, on the contrary, had a lank, bony figure, nearly six feet
high, and looking more so from his slightness; a face sallow, thin,
and strongly marked, an aquiline nose, highly developed forehead, and
peculiar temples, over which the hair strayed in thin curling flakes.
His eyes were light coloured, and were seldom seen without his
near-sighted spectacles, but the expressions of the mouth were
everything--so varying, so bright, and so sweet were his smiles that
showed beautiful white teeth--moreover, his hand was particularly well
made, small and delicate; and it always turned out that no one ever
recollected that Dr. May was plain, who had heard his kindly greeting.
The sons and daughters were divided in likeness to father and mother;
Ethel was almost an exaggeration of the doctor’s peculiarities,
especially at the formed, but unsoftened age of fifteen; Norman had his
long nose, sallow complexion, and tall figure, but was much improved by
his mother’s fine blue eyes, and was a very pleasant-looking boy, though
not handsome; little Tom was a thin, white, delicate edition of his
father; and Blanche contrived to combine great likeness to him with a
great deal of prettiness. Of those that, as nurse said, favoured their
mamma, Margaret was tall and blooming, with the same calm eyes, but with
the brilliance of her father’s smile; Flora had greater regularity of
feature, and was fast becoming a very pretty girl, while Mary and
Harry could not boast of much beauty, but were stout sturdy pictures of
health; Harry’s locks in masses of small tight yellow curls, much given
to tangling and matting, unfit to be seen all the week, till nurse put
him to torture every Saturday, by combing them out so as, at least, to
make him for once like, she said, a gentleman, instead of a young lion.
Little Aubrey was said by his papa to be like nothing but the full moon.
And there he shone on them, by his mamma’s side, announcing in language
few could understand, where he had been with papa.
“He has been a small doctor,” said his father, beginning to cut the
boiled beef as fast as if his hands had been moved by machinery. “He has
been with me to see old Mrs. Robins, and she made so much of him, that
if I take him again he’ll be regularly spoiled.”
“Poor old woman, it must have been a pleasure to her,” said Mrs.
May--“it is so seldom she has any change.”
“Who is she?” asked Mr. Ernescliffe.
“The butcher’s old mother,” said Margaret, who was next to him. “She
is one of papa’s pet patients, because he thinks her desolate and
ill-used.”
“Her sons bully her,” said the doctor, too intent on carving to perceive
certain deprecatory glances of caution cast at him by his wife, to
remind him of the presence of man and maid--“and that smart daughter is
worse still. She never comes to see the old lady but she throws her into
an agitated state, fit to bring on another attack. A meek old soul, not
fit to contend with them!”
“Why do they do it?” said Ethel.
“For the cause of all evil! That daughter marries a grazier, and wants
to set up for gentility; she comes and squeezes presents out of her
mother, and the whole family are distrusting each other, and squabbling
over the spoil before the poor old creature is dead! It makes one sick!
I gave that Mrs. Thorn a bit of my mind at last; I could not stand the
sight any longer. Madam, said I, you’ll have to answer for your mother’s
death, as sure as my name’s Dick May--a harpy dressed up in feathers and
lace.”
There was a great laugh, and an entreaty to know whether this was really
his address--Ethel telling him she knew he had muttered it to himself
quite audibly, for which she was rewarded by a pretended box on the ear.
It certainly was vain to expect order at dinner on Saturday, for the
doctor was as bad as the boys, and Mrs. May took it with complete
composure, hardly appearing sensible of the Babel which would sometimes
almost deafen its promoter, papa; and yet her interference was
all-powerful, as now when Harry and Mary were sparring over the salt,
with one gentle “Mary!” and one reproving glance, they were reduced to
quiescence.
Meanwhile Dr. May, in a voice above the tumult, was telling “Maggie,” as
he always called his wife, some piece of news about Mr. Rivers, who had
bought Abbotstoke Grange; and Alan Ernescliffe, in much lower tones,
saying to Margaret how he delighted in the sight of these home scenes,
and this free household mirth.
“It is the first time you have seen us in perfection,” said Margaret,
“with mamma at the head of the table--no, not quite perfection either,
without Richard.”
“I am very glad to have seen it,” repeated Alan. “What a blessing it
must be to your brothers to have such a home!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Margaret earnestly.
“I cannot fancy any advantage in life equal to it. Your father and
mother so entirely one with you all.”
Margaret smiled, too much pleased to speak, and glanced at her mother’s
sweet face.
“You can’t think how often I shall remember it, or how rejoiced I--” He
broke off, for the noise subsided, and his speech was not intended for
the public ear, so he dashed into the general conversation, and catching
his own name, exclaimed, “What’s that base proposal, Ethel?”
“To put you on the donkey,” said Norman.
“They want to see a sailor riding,” interposed the doctor.
“Dr. May!” cried the indignant voice of Hector Ernescliffe, as his
honest Scottish face flushed like a turkey cock, “I assure you that Alan
rides like--”
“Like a horse marine,” said Norman.
Hector and Harry both looked furious, but “June” was too great a man in
their world for them to attempt any revenge, and it was left for Mary
to call out, “Why, Norman, nonsense! Mr. Ernescliffe rode the new black
kicking horse till he made it quite steady.”
“Made it steady! No, Mary, that is saying too much for it,” said Mr.
Ernescliffe.
“It has no harm in it--capital horse--splendid,” said the doctor; “I
shall take you out with it this afternoon, Maggie.”
“You have driven it several times?” said Alan.
“Yes, I drove him to Abbotstoke yesterday--never started, except at a
fool of a woman with an umbrella, and at the train--and we’ll take care
not to meet that.”
“It is only to avoid the viaduct at half-past four,” said Mrs. May, “and
that is easily done.”
“So you are bound for Cocksmoor?” said the doctor. “I told the poor
fellow you were going to see his wife, and he was so thankful, that it
did one’s heart good.”
“Is he better? I should like to tell his wife,” said Flora.
The doctor screwed up his face. “A bad business,” he said; “he is a shade
better to-day; he may get through yet; but he is not my patient. I only
saw him because I happened to be there when he was brought in, and Ward
was not in the way.”
“And what’s his name?”
“I can’t tell--don’t think I ever heard.”
“We ought to know,” said Miss Winter; “it would be awkward to go
without.”
“To go roaming about Cocksmoor asking where the man in the hospital
lives!” said Flora. “We can’t wait till Monday.”
“I’ve done,” said Norman; “I’ll run down to the hospital and find out.
May I, mamma?”
“Without your pudding, old fellow?”
“I don’t want pudding,” said Norman, slipping back his chair. “May I,
mamma?”
“To be sure you may;” and Norman, with a hand on the back of Ethel’s
chair, took a flying leap over his own, that set all the glasses
ringing.
“Stop, stop! know what you are going after, sir,” cried his father.
“What will they know there of Cocksmoor, or the man whose wife has
twins? You must ask for the accident in number five.”
“And oh, Norman, come back in time!” said Ethel.
“I’ll be bound I’m back before Etheldred the Unready wants me,” he
answered, bounding off with an elasticity that caused his mother to say
the boy was made of india-rubber; and then putting his head in by the
window to say, “By-the-bye, if there’s any pudding owing to me, that
little chorister fellow of ours, Bill Blake, has got a lot of voracious
brothers that want anything that’s going. Tom and Blanche might take it
down to ‘em; I’m off! Hooray!” and he scampered headlong up the garden,
prolonging his voice into a tremendous shout as he got farther off,
leaving every one laughing, and his mother tenderly observing that he
was going to run a quarter of a mile and back, and lose his only chance
of pudding for the week--old Bishop Whichcote’s rules contemplating no
fare but daily mutton, to be bought at a shilling per sheep. A little
private discussion ensued between Harry and Hector on the merits of the
cakes at Ballhatchet’s gate, and old Nelly’s pies, which led the doctor
to mourn over the loss of the tarts of the cranberries, that used to
grow on Cocksmoor, before it was inhabited, and to be the delight of the
scholars of Stoneborough, when he was one of them--and then to enchant
the boys by relations of ancient exploits, especially his friend Spencer
climbing up, and engraving a name on the top of the market cross, now no
more--swept away by the Town Council in a fit of improvement, which had
for the last twenty years enraged the doctor at every remembrance of
it. Perhaps at this moment his wife could hardly sympathise, when she
thought of her boys emulating such deeds.
“Papa,” said Ethel, “will you lend me a pair of spectacles for the
walk?”
“And make yourself one, Ethel,” said Flora.
“I don’t care--I want to see the view.”
“It is very bad for you, Ethel,” further added her mother; “you will
make your sight much shorter if you accustom your eyes to them.”
“Well, mamma, I never do wear them about the house.”
“For a very good reason,” said Margaret; “because you haven’t got them.”
“No, I believe Harry stole them in the holidays.”
“Stole them!” said the doctor; “as if they weren’t my property,
unjustifiably appropriated by her!”
“They were that pair that you never could keep on, papa,” said
Ethel--“no use at all to you. Come, do lend me them.”
“I’m sure I shan’t let you wear them,” said Harry. “I shan’t go, if you
choose to make yourself such an object.”
“Ah!” said the father, “the boys thought it time to put a stop to it
when it came to a caricature of the little doctor in petticoats.”
“Yes, in Norman’s Lexicon,” said Ethel, “a capital likeness of you,
papa; but I never could get him to tell me who drew it.”
Nor did Ethel know that that caricature had been the cause of the black
eye that Harry had brought home last summer. Harry returned, to
protest that he would not join the walk, if she chose to be seen in
the spectacles, while she undauntedly continued her petition, though
answered that she would attract the attacks of the quarrymen, who would
take her for an attenuated owl.
“I wish you were obliged to go about without them yourself, papa!” cried
Ethel, “and then you would know how tiresome it is not to see twice the
length of your own nose.”
“Not such a very short allowance either,” said the doctor quaintly, and
therewith the dinner concluded. There was apt to be a race between the
two eldest girls for the honour of bringing down the baby; but this time
their father strode up three steps at once, turned at the top of the
first flight, made his bow to them, and presently came down with his
little daughter in his arms, nodded triumphantly at the sisters, and set
her down on her mother’s lap.
“There, Maggie, you are complete, you old hen-and-chicken daisy. Can’t
you take her portrait in the character, Margaret?”
“With her pink cap, and Blanche and Aubrey as they are now, on each
side?” said Flora.
“Margaret ought to be in the picture herself,” said Ethel. “Fetch the
artist in Norman’s Lexicon, Harry.”
“Since he has hit off one of us so well,” said the doctor. “Well! I’m
off. I must see old Southern. You’ll be ready by three? Good-bye, hen
and chicken.”
“And I may have the spectacles?” said Ethel, running after him; “you
know I am an injured individual, for mamma won’t let me carry baby about
the house because I am so blind.”
“You are welcome to embellish yourself, as far as I am concerned.”
A general dispersion ensued, and only Mrs. May, Margaret, and the baby,
remained.
“Oh, no!” sighed Margaret; “you can’t be the hen-and-chicken daisy
properly, without all your chickens. It is the first christening we ever
had without our all being there.”
“It was best not to press it, my dear,” said her mother. “Your papa
would have had his thoughts turned to the disappointment again and it
makes Richard himself so unhappy to see his vexation, that I believe it
is better not to renew it.”
“But to miss him for so long!” said Margaret. “Perhaps it is best, for
it is very miserable when papa is sarcastic and sharp, and he cannot
understand it, and takes it as meaning so much more than it really does,
and grows all the more frightened and diffident. I cannot think what he
would do without you to encourage him.”
“Or you, you good sister,” said her mother, smiling. “If we could only
teach him not to mind being laughed at, and to have some confidence in
himself, he and papa would get on together.”
“It is very hard,” cried Margaret, almost indignantly, “that papa won’t
believe it, when he does his best.”
“I don’t think papa can bear to bring himself to believe that it is his
best.”
“He is too clever himself to see how other people can be slow,” said
Margaret; “and yet”--the tears came into her eyes--“I cannot bear
to think of his telling Richard it was no use to think of being a
clergyman, and he had better turn carpenter at once, just because he
failed in his examination.”
“My dear, I wish you would forget that,” said Mrs. May. “You know papa
sometimes says more than he means, and he was excessively vexed and
disappointed. I know he was pleased with Ritchie’s resolve not to come
home again till he had passed, and it is best that it should not be
broken.”
“The whole vacation, studying so hard, and this christening!” said
Margaret; “it is treating him as if he had done wrong. I do believe Mr.
Ernescliffe thinks he has--for papa always turns away the conversation
if his name is mentioned! I wish you would explain it, mamma; I can’t
bear that.”
“If I can,” said Mrs. May, rather pleased that Margaret had taken on
herself this vindication of her favourite brother her father’s expense.
“But, after all, Margaret, I never feel quite sure that poor Ritchie
does exert himself to the utmost, he is too desponding to make the most
of himself.”
“And the more vexed papa is, the worse it grows!” said Margaret. “It is
provoking, though. How I do wish sometimes to give Ritchie a jog, when
there is some stumbling-block that he sticks fast at. Don’t you remember
those sums, and those declensions? When he is so clear and sensible
about practical matters too--anything but learning--I cannot think
why--and it is very mortifying!”
“I dare say it is very good for us not to have our ambition gratified,”
said her mother. “There are so many troubles worse than these failures,
that it only shows how happy we are that we should take them so much to
heart.”
“They are a very real trouble!” said Margaret. “Don’t smile, mamma. Only
remember how wretched his schooldays were, when papa could not see any
difficulty in what to him was so hard, and how all papa’s eagerness only
stupified him the more.”
“They are a comfort not to have that over again! Yet,” said the mother,
“I often think there is more fear for Norman. I dread his talent and
success being snares.”
“There is no self-sufficiency about him,” said Margaret.
“I hope not, and he is so transparent, that it would be laughed down at
the first bud: but the universal good report, and certainty of success,
and being so often put in comparison with Richard, is hardly safe. I was
very glad he heard what Ethel said to-day.”
“Ethel spoke very deeply,” said Margaret; “I was a good deal struck by
it--she often comes out with such solid thoughts.”
“She is an excellent companion for Norman.”
“The desire of being first!” said Margaret, “I suppose that is a form
of caring for oneself! It set me thinking a good deal, mamma, how many
forms of ambition there are. The craving for rank, or wealth, or beauty,
are so clearly wrong, that one does not question about them; but I
suppose, as Ethel said, the caring to be first in attainments is as
bad.”
“Or in affection,” said Mrs. May.
“In affection--oh, mamma, there is always some one person with whom one
is first!” said Margaret eagerly; and then, her colour deepening, as
she saw her mother looking at her, she said hastily, “Ritchie--I never
considered it--but I know--it is my great pleasure--oh, mamma!”
“Well, my dear, I do not say but that you are the first with Richard,
and that you well deserve to be so; but is the seeking to be the first
even in that way safe? Is it not self-seeking again?”
“Well, perhaps it is. I know it is what makes jealousy.”
“The only plan is not to think about ourselves at all,” said Mrs. May.
“Affection is round us like sunshine, and there is no use in measuring
and comparing. We must give it out freely ourselves, hoping for nothing
again.”
“Oh, mamma, you don’t mean that!”
“Perhaps I should have said, bargaining for nothing again. It will
come of itself, if we don’t exact it; but rivalry is the sure means of
driving it away, because that is trying to get oneself worshipped.”
“I suppose, then, you have never thought of it,” said Margaret, smiling.
“Why, it would have been rather absurd,” said Mrs. May, laughing, “to
begin to torment myself whether you were all fond of me! You all have
just as much affection for me, from beginning to end, as is natural,
and what’s the use of thinking about it? No, no, Margaret, don’t go
and protest that you love me, more than is natural,” as Margaret looked
inclined to say something very eager, “that would be in the style of
Regan and Goneril. It will be natural by-and-by that you should, some
of you, love some one else better, and if I cared for being first, what
should I do then?”
“Oh, mamma! But,” said Margaret suddenly, “you are always sure of papa.”
“In one way, yes,” said Mrs. May; “but how do I know how long--” Calm as
she was, she could not finish that sentence. “No, Margaret, depend upon
it, the only security is not to think about ourselves at all, and not
to fix our mind on any affection on earth. The least share of the Love
above is the fullness of all blessing, and if we seek that first, all
these things will be added unto us, and are,” she whispered, more to
herself than to Margaret.