RANDOM SHOTS.
"WHAT will be my uncle's reply to my note? Will he write? Will he come?
He will be a little sorry, I think, for the loss of my poor hair; but a
great deal more sorry for the loss of his money."
Such were the thoughts perpetually recurring to the mind of Philomel
Lamb, as she pursued her little household avocations, or, seated in her
own apartment, completed her simple preparations for the afternoon's
fête by fastening collar and cuffs on the white muslin dress with
blue forget-me-nots printed upon it, which she was to wear at the
archery-meeting. Philomel's fancy moved more rapidly than her needle,
and several times she laid down her work, and went to her little
flower-mantled casement to see if no messenger were in sight coming
from the direction of Burnesbey Abbey. Was it possible that her uncle
would deceive her; would the close-fisted, cold-hearted cynic actually
discover some method of keeping his promise to the ear, and breaking it
to the sense? Philomel felt indignant with herself at letting such a
suspicion cross her mind for a moment.
The clock on the stairs had just struck the midday hour, as if echoing
the chime from the church, when Philomel once more went to her
casement, and looked down on the shrubbery and lawn. Her father was
quitting the vicarage to go on his errands of kindness, umbrella in
hand, according to his invariable habit, though there was not a cloud
in the sky.
"An honest man, tight buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within."
Mr. Lamb had just issued from under the porch of the vicarage, when
Philomel heard the familiar click of the shrubbery gate, and saw Miss
Eccles, in her faded green poplin, with her long veil hanging limp
behind her, hurrying into the grounds as fast as lameness would let
her. The face of the elderly lady was all aglow with delight, her mouth
expanded in the broadest of smiles; it might be merely from pleasure
at meeting her pastor, but a child could have read fair weather in the
barometer of that kindly old face. Miss Eccles held an open note in her
hand, and Philomel guessed from her eager gesture that the note must
contain good news.
The vicar's daughter watched with curious interest the meeting between
her father and her friend, though she could not at the distance
distinguish a word that was uttered. Miss Eccles met her pastor
half-way on the gravel drive, with both her hands extended towards him;
she said something as she held out the note to Mr. Lamb, which made him
give a little start of pleasure or surprise. Of course, his back was
towards the vicarage; Philomel as she bent forward from the casement
would have given anything for a glimpse of her father's face, for she
guessed what were the tidings which the joyful messenger had brought.
Her wish was quickly gratified; as Mr. Lamb returned the note to Miss
Eccles, he turned suddenly round, looked up at the window at which his
daughter was standing, every feature of his countenance radiant with
honest pleasure, took off his hat and waved it aloft, then joyously
went on his way.
Philomel ran down-stairs to welcome Miss Eccles and hear the glad
tidings of which she was evidently the bearer. In the excitement of joy
and hope, the lamb quite forgot the loss of her fleece.
She met Miss Eccles in the porch. The elderly lady was smiling and
panting, but the expression of her face changed by a sudden transition
to that of wonder, when her glance fell on the vicar's daughter.
"Why, Philomel," she exclaimed, drawing back, "who on earth has been
clipping off your hair?"
"Never mind my hair, tell me your news!" cried Philomel eagerly,
catching from the hand of her old friend the open note, in which she
recognized the formal, peculiar handwriting of Caleb Coffin.
"Lady Macaw sent it for you and your father to see; she received it
not half an hour since. I chanced to be calling. But, dear heart! Dear
heart! What has become of your beautiful golden curls?"
Philomel scarcely heard the question, she was eagerly reading the note,
which was brief, as the epistles of Caleb Coffin were wont to be.
"DEAR MADAM,—There are some arguments which cannot be refuted, some
requests which cannot be denied. It is possible that woman's persuasion
may after all prop up the school, and turn an old cynic into a
philanthropist in spite of himself. You shall know my final decision at
the archery-meeting to-day.—Faithfully yours,—
"CALEB COFFIN."
"To think of his granting to Lady Macaw what he refused to you and your
dear excellent father! 'Tis a strange world," exclaimed Miss Eccles.
"I little knew that the tiny pink note which I carried myself to the
abbey would have worked such a wonderful charm. It must have been a
very clever, coaxing letter indeed. She is a remarkable woman, is Lady
Macaw. You should see her pride and delight; she is really looking
ten years younger to-day. She told me that she had never yet set her
heart upon any object which she did not accomplish, that she had felt
persuaded from the first that she could twist the old man round her
finger."
[Illustration: MEETING OF PHILOMEL AND MISS ECCLES.]
"She had better not let the old man know that she says so," observed
Philomel with a smile, as she accompanied her visitor into the parlour.
Philomel's pleasure at her own success was not to be without much
alloy. She needed all its sustaining power to enable her to endure
with tolerable patience the cross-questioning which followed from the
elderly lady regarding the loss of her tresses. The weakness of Miss
Eccles was curiosity, and, with all her kindliness of nature, she was
utterly deficient in tact. She was very inquisitive, very desirous to
know why Philomel had so disfigured herself, what she intended to make
of her hair, whether it were to be turned into a wig, or whether—here
Miss Eccles lowered her tone to a mysterious whisper—she meant to sell
it for some charitable purpose; she had heard before of such strange
things being done. Philomel, half amused, half angry, and a good deal
perplexed, felt inclined to make some excuse for escaping to her own
room, and so abruptly ending a conversation which teased her almost
beyond her powers of endurance.
"Why, here come the Langtons!" exclaimed Miss Eccles, suddenly
interrupting herself in the midst of an earnest recommendation of
Macassar oil, to stimulate the growth of short hair.
"Oh, I can't stand all this!" thought poor Philomel, starting to her
feet, and feeling like a hunted creature in her own father's home.
Lucy Langton, eager and impetuous as usual, came in first, brimful
of news; she had heard by this time—all the village had heard—of the
note to Lady Macaw, and the story, passing from mouth to mouth, had of
course received additions by the way. The Langtons—after calling to
congratulate the Arkwrights—had hastened on to the vicarage to tell
Philomel, should she not have heard of it already, that Mr. Coffin, in
the handsomest manner, had made a gift of schoolhouse and endowment to
the lady of the Villa of Roses!
But the rapid current of Lucy's thoughts was quickly turned into a
new channel by her first glance at Philomel Lamb. Bursting into an
uncontrollable fit of merriment, the young lady threw herself into an
arm chair, and rocked herself backwards and forwards, almost convulsed
with laughter. Lucy could hardly articulate between her bursts of
mirth, "Shorn lamb! Shorn lamb! What has become of your fleece?"
Lucy's exuberant merriment was infectious, and though Miss Eccles bit
her own lip and pinched her own arm to suppress by pain her inclination
to join in it, and Delia, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth,
turned away towards the window, Philomel found herself the unwilling
cause of great amusement to the three ladies, a position which caused
her considerable embarrassment and annoyance.
"I seem to afford you a good deal of diversion," said the poor young
girl, struggling to speak in a tone of good humour.
"Oh, dear child, I beg your pardon!" cried Lucy, with tears of laughter
in her merry black eyes. "But really you do look so funny, as if you
had just come out of an hospital or a prison—or—or a lunatic asylum!"
A little explosive sound of mirth escaped from under Delia's
handkerchief, and Miss Eccles desperately walked to the piano, and
pretended to examine the pieces of music on the top.
"But I don't know when wonders will cease. If the owl suddenly is
transformed into a bird of paradise—the last thing I should ever have
expected—it is no wonder if the nightingale herself appears in the new
character of an unfledged yellow—"
"Come, come, you're too hard on her," tittered Delia; "there's
no accounting for tastes. Perhaps Philomel has been studying the
becomings, or has anticipated a new style of coiffure not yet
introduced from Paris, and we shall all be roundheads before winter!"
This weak attempt at a jest elicited another burst of laughter, though
Miss Eccles, who had returned to her seat, cried again and again, "'Tis
too bad!" more in the way of self-reproach than of rebuke to the others.
"Perhaps, when your mirth has exhausted itself, you will tell me what
you meant by the owl becoming a bird of paradise," said poor Philomel,
who was anxious to effect a diversion.
"Oh! Have you not heard?—Surely you must know," cried Lucy, eagerly;
"Miss Eccles must have told you what has made all Thwayte beside itself
with joy. We were at the schoolhouse just now, and you should have seen
the rejoicings, heard the clamour. Mrs. Arkwright was almost in tears."
The countenance of Philomel brightened.
"But to think of Mr. Coffin's granting the boon to Lady Macaw," cried
Delia; "it really detracts from one's pleasure at having the school
retained. Her ladyship stood on a high enough pedestal already."
"I expect to have a proposition to have Lady Macaw's statue in the
market-place of G— instead of Lord —'s," laughed Lucy. "I'm certain
there will be a paragraph in the 'Times,' all about the school, and
probably a picture of it in the 'Illustrated.' It will be the Macaw
School from this time forward, for one could not call it the 'Coffin,'
you know."
"Certainly Lady Macaw will take good care that the world is informed of
her share in the matter," lisped Delia.
"I wonder," observed Lucy, "whether the benefactress and patroness of
Thwayte ever heard of the lines,—
"'Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will ne'er inscribe the marble with his name.'
"They come into my mind so often when I am at the Villa of Roses."
"Come come, my dear, Lady Macaw is a very charitable kind creature,"
said Miss Eccles, grateful for an invitation to the archery-meeting.
"She beats out her gold very thin, and makes it cover a marvellous wide
space," said Lucy. "I should like to know the exact point at which gold
takes the title of gilding."
"She has done a good deed now," expostulated the elderly lady; "have
you seen Mr. Coffin's note to Lady Macaw?"
"I should like to see it of all things!" cried Lucy. "It would be a
most amusing specimen of the correspondence of a cynic metamorphosed
into a courtier."
Miss Eccles had already drawn from her bag the note which she had
brought to the vicarage. It was eagerly seized upon by Lucy, who read
it aloud, mimicking the tone of Caleb Coffin as she did so. As she
concluded the little epistle, she dropped her hands on her knee with
the exclamation,—
"Depend on't, 'tis all a take in! The old miser is laughing in his
sleeve at the lady who lets herself be humbugged so readily!"
"What do you mean?" cried poor Miss Eccles, looking aghast at the doubt
suggested.
"Don't you see," exclaimed Lucy, striking the paper, "he does not
compromise himself. He promises nothing; that word 'may' is a loophole
through which he can always back out."
"Certainly," observed Delia, "from what I heard, I had imagined that
Mr. Coffin had given a much more decided assurance of his intentions to
Lady Macaw."
"She'll find her pedestal crumbling beneath her," said Lucy, laughing
as she returned the note to Miss Eccles, who looked crest-fallen and
anxious. "I wish that I were as sure of the silver arrow to-day as I am
that the owl is not a bird to be caught by any spring prepared for him
at the Villa of Roses."
The visitors soon after took their departure, and Philomel seemed to
breathe more freely when they had gone. But the ridicule to which she
had been subjected had left a sore pang behind.
"Will he regard me as they regarded, though chivalrous courtesy will
prevent him from showing outwardly what he thinks?" was the question
which she asked herself with a sinking heart. "I have had trial enough
for one day—I cannot, dare not meet 'him' at the archery-fête. And yet,
what Lucy observed is true. My wary uncle has not compromised himself
yet—he is doubtless in hopes that though I have fulfilled his first
condition, I will shrink back from the last. He 'has' kept a loophole
open, and I—I only—can close it! Heigh-ho! 'Tis a painful ordeal! I
would that the day were over!"
The idea of entering a nunnery or a prison would scarcely at that
moment have appeared so formidable to Philomel, as that of joining a
gay throng of neighbours and acquaintances at that fête to which she
had once looked forward with keenest delight.