Produced by Sandra Laythorpe. HTML version by Al Haines.
Nuttie's Father
by
Charlotte M. Yonge
CONTENTS
I. ST. AMBROSE'S CHOIR.
II. MONKS HORTON.
III. HEIR HUNTING.
IV. A NAME.
V. SUSPENSE.
VI. THE WATER-SOLDIER.
VII. THAT MAN.
VIII. THE FATHER.
IX. NEW PLUMES.
X. BRIDGEFIELD EGREMONT.
XI. LAWN-TENNIS.
XII. OUT OF WORK.
XIII. DETRIMENTALS.
XIV. GOING AGEE.
XV. A CASTLE OF UMBRELLAS.
XVI. INFRA DIG.
XVII. AN OLD FRIEND.
XVIII. A FRIEND IN NEED.
XIX. THE VORTEX.
XX. WOLF.
XXI. URSULA'S RECEPTION.
XXII. DISENCHANTMENT.
XXIII. A FAILURE.
XXIV. FARMS OR UMBRELLAS.
XXV. THE GIGGLING SCOTCH GIRL.
XXVI. THREE YEARS LATER.
XXVII. THE BOY OF EGREMONT.
XXVIII. A BRAVE HEART.
XXIX. A FRESH START.
XXX. NUTTIE'S PROSPECTS.
XXXI. SPES NON FRACTA.
XXXII. BLACKS IN THE ASCENDANT.
XXXIII. THE LOST HEIR.
XXXIV. FETTERS RENT.
XXXV. THE HULL OF THE URSULA.
XXXVI. NUTTIE'S KNIGHT.
XXXVII. FOUND AND TAKEN.
XXXVIII. THE UMBRELLA MAN.
XXXIX. ANNAPLE'S AMBITION FALLEN.
CHAPTER I.
ST. AMBROSE'S CHOIR.
'For be it known
That their saint's honour is their own.'--SCOTT.
The town of Micklethwayte was rising and thriving. There were
salubrious springs which an enterprising doctor had lately brought into
notice. The firm of Greenleaf and Dutton manufactured umbrellas in
large quantities, from the stout weather-proof family roof down to the
daintiest fringed toy of a parasol. There were a Guild Hall and a
handsome Corn Market. There was a Modern School for the boys, and a
High School for the girls, and a School of Art, and a School of
Cookery, and National Schools, and a British School, and a Board
School, also churches of every height, chapels of every denomination,
and iron mission rooms budding out in hopes to be replaced by churches.
Like one of the animals which zoologists call radiated, the town was
constantly stretching out fresh arms along country roads, all living
and working, and gradually absorbing the open spaces between. One of
these arms was known as St. Ambrose's Road, in right of the church, an
incomplete structure in yellow brick, consisting of a handsome chancel,
the stump of a tower, and one aisle just weather-tight and usable, but,
by its very aspect, begging for the completion of the beautiful design
that was suspended above the alms-box.
It was the evening of a summer day which had been very hot. The choir
practice was just over, and the boys came out trooping and chattering;
very small ones they were; for as soon as they began to sing tolerably
they were sure to try to get into the choir of the old church, which
had a foundation that fed, clothed, taught, and finally apprenticed
them. So, though the little fellows were clad in surplices and
cassocks, and sat in the chancel for correctness sake, there was a
space round the harmonium reserved for the more trustworthy band of
girls and young women who came forth next, followed by four or five
mechanics.
Behind came the nucleus of the choir--a slim, fair-haired youth of
twenty; a neat, precise, well-trimmed man, closely shaven, with
stooping shoulders, at least fifteen years older, with a black poodle
at his heels, as well shorn as his master, newly risen from lying
outside the church door; a gentle, somewhat drooping lady in black, not
yet middle-aged and very pretty; a small eager, unformed, black-eyed
girl, who could hardly keep back her words for the outside of the
church door; a tall self-possessed handsome woman, with a fine
classical cast of features; and lastly, a brown-faced, wiry hardworking
clergyman, without an atom of superfluous flesh, but with an air of
great energy.
'Oh! vicar, where are we to go?' was the question so eager to break
forth.
'Not to the Crystal Palace, Nuttie. The funds won't bear it. Mr.
Dutton says we must spend as little as possible on locomotion.'
'I'm sure I don't care for the Crystal Palace. A trumpery tinsel
place, all shams.'
'Hush, hush, my dear, not so loud,' said the quiet lady; but Nuttie
only wriggled her shoulders, though her voice was a trifle lowered. 'If
it were the British Museum now, or Westminster Abbey.'
'Or the Alps,' chimed in a quieter voice, 'or the Ufizzi.'
'Now, Mr. Dutton, that's not what I want. Our people aren't ready for
that, but what they have let it be real. Miss Mary, don't you see what
I mean?'
'Rather better than Miss Egremont herself,' said Mr. Dutton.
'Well,' said the vicar, interposing in the wordy war, 'Mrs. Greenleaf's
children have scarlatina, so we can't go to Horton Bishop. The choice
seems to be between South Beach and Monks Horton.'
'That's no harm,' cried Nuttie; 'Mrs. Greenleaf is so patronising!'
'And both that and South Beach are so stale,' said the youth.
'As if the dear sea could ever be stale,' cried the young girl.
'I thought Monks Horton was forbidden ground,' said Miss Mary.
'So it was with the last regime', said the vicar; 'but now the new
people are come I expect great things from them. I hear they are very
friendly.'
'I expect nothing from them,' said Nuttie so sententiously that all her
hearers laughed and asked 'her exquisite reason,' as Mr. Dutton put it.
'Lady Kirkaldy and a whole lot of them came into the School of Art.'
'And didn't appreciate "Head of Antinous by Miss Ursula Egremont,"' was
the cry that interrupted her, but she went on with dignity
unruffled--'Anything so foolish and inane as their whole talk and all
their observations I never heard. "I don't like this style," one of
them said. "Such ugly useless things! I never see anything pretty and
neatly finished such as we used to do."' The girl gave it in a tone of
mimicry of the nonchalant voice, adding, with fresh imitation, "'And
another did not approve of drawing from the life--models might be such
strange people."'
'My ears were not equally open to their profanities,' said Miss Mary.
'I confess that I was struck by the good breeding and courtesy of the
leader of the party, who, I think, was Lady Kirkaldy herself.'
'I saw! I thought she was patronising you, and my blood boiled!' cried
Nuttie.
'Will boiling blood endure a picnic in the park of so much ignorance,
folly, and patronage?' asked Mr. Dutton.
'Oh, indeed, Mr. Dutton, Nuttie never said that,' exclaimed gentle Mrs.
Egremont.
'Whether it is fully worth the doing is the question,' said the vicar.
'Grass and shade do not despise,' said Miss Mary.
'There surely must be some ecclesiastical remains,' said the young man.
'And there is a river,' added the vicar.
'I shall get a stickleback for my aquarium,' cried Nuttie. 'We shall
make some discoveries for the Scientific Society. I shall note down
every individual creature I see! I say! you are sure it is not a sham
waterfall or Temple of Tivoli?'
'It would please the choir boys and G. F. S. girls quite as much, if
not more, in that case,' said Miss Mary; 'but you need not expect that,
Nuttie. Landscape-gardening is gone by.'
'Even with the county people?' said Nuttie.
'By at least half a century,' said Mr. Dutton, 'with all deference to
this young lady's experience.'
'It was out of their own mouths,' cried the girl defiantly. 'That's
all I know about county people, and so I hope it will be.'
'Come in, my dear, you are talking very fast,' interposed Mrs.
Egremont, with some pain in the soft sweet voice, which, if it had been
a little stronger, would have been the best in the choir.
These houses in St. Ambrose's Road were semi-detached. The pair which
the party had reached had their entrances at the angles, with a narrow
gravel path leading by a tiny grass plat to each. One, which was
covered with a rich pall of purple clematis, was the home of Mrs.
Egremont, her aunt, and Nuttie; the other, adorned with a Gloire de
Dijon rose in second bloom, was the abode of Mary Nugent, with her
mother, the widow of a naval captain. Farther on, with adjoining
gardens, was another couple of houses, in one of which lived Mr.
Dutton; in the other lodged the youth, Gerard Godfrey, together with
the partner of the principal medical man. The opposite neighbours were
a master of the Modern School and a scholar. Indeed, the saying of the
vicar, the Rev. Francis Spyers, was, and St. Ambrose's Road was proud
of it, that it was a professional place. Every one had something to do
either with schools or umbrellas, scarcely excepting the doctor and the
solicitor, for the former attended the pupils and the latter supplied
them. Mr. Dutton was a partner in the umbrella factory, and lived, as
the younger folk said, as the old bachelor of the Road. Had he not a
housekeeper, a poodle, and a cat; and was not his house, with lovely
sill boxes full of flowers in the windows, the neatest of the neat; and
did not the tiny conservatory over his dining-room window always
produce the flowers most needed for the altar vases, and likewise
bouquets for the tables of favoured ladies. Why, the very daisies never
durst lift their heads on his little lawn, which even bore a French
looking-glass globe in the centre. Miss Nugent, or Miss Mary as every
one still called her, as her elder sister's marriage was recent, was
assistant teacher at the School of Art, and gave private drawing
lessons, so as to supplement the pension on which her mother lived.
They also received girls as boarders attending the High School.
So did Miss Headworth, who had all her life been one of those people
who seem condemned to toil to make up for the errors or disasters of
others. First she helped to educate a brother, and soon he had died to
leave an orphan daughter to be bred up at her cost. The girl had
married from her first situation; but had almost immediately lost her
husband at sea, and on this her aunt had settled at Micklethwayte to
make a home for her and her child, at first taking pupils, but when the
High School was set up, changing these into boarders; while Mrs.
Egremont went as daily governess to the children of a family of
somewhat higher pretensions. Little Ursula, or Nuttie, as she was
called, according to the local contraction, was like the child of all
the party, and after climbing up through the High School to the last
form, hoped, after passing the Cambridge examination, to become a
teacher there in another year.