THE HOUSE WITHOUT PILLARS.
'And who save she could soothe the boy,
Or turn his tears to tears of joy?'
_Samuel Rogers._
Lance's train was at six o'clock, and that by which the sisters were
to return to Bexley so little later, that they would await it at the
station, so the household was betimes more or less afoot. There was
a frenzied scramble of maids and young ladies in hasty toilette; yet
breakfast was only forthcoming by personal exertion on the part of the
Captain, who made the coffee, boiled the eggs, and sent his brother
foraging into the kitchen. Then a message came that mother must see
the sweet girl to bid her good-bye; and Wilmet was dragged up to find
the paddy good-natured face in bed, in an immense frilled nightcap,
whence two horn-like curl-papers protruded. She was kissed, cried over,
and told she was the dearest girl, and Jack the best boy, in the four
kingdoms; and while her head was turning round between dizziness at all
that this cordiality implied, and a governess's confusion whether these
were the four kingdoms of Ireland, or England, Ireland, Scotland, and
Wales, a demand followed for the darling boy; but when she had gravely
told the Captain that his mother wanted him, the result was to send him
down laughing. 'No, no, I'm not the only darling boy in the world! 'Tis
you, Lance. You know the way.'
Between finding her in bed, and being powerfully embraced, Lance's
sense of decorum brought him down with his blanched cheeks so rosy red,
that the family were choking with suppressed mirth when the omnibus
called for the luggage, and the party set forth to walk to the station,
Lance in a grass hat, enfolded by the Captain's hands in an ample
puggery, and provided with a natty blue umbrella, presented by the
Librarian, 'as a shield against the far-darting Apollo.'
'If this had been in my day,' he said, 'some wit would have produced
a neat epigram on Phoebus playing his old tricks out of jealousy of
Will's verses; but dainty feats of scholarship are gone out of date.
Well, Patroclus, when we have you back again, I think we shall none of
us mourn over the effects of your generous action.'
Wilmet was near enough to hear, and colour. She had imagined the last
night's conversation unknown to all; but Underwood reticence was so
incapable of guessing at Harewood communicativeness, that it never
entered her brain to suspect the topic of conversation between the
three juniors as they walked up the drowsy street.
Thanks to the difficulties of getting under weigh from the Harewood
house, there was barely time for John and Lance to take their places,
while Mr. Harewood got their tickets, and they were whirled off,
leaving the others to promenade the platform, just then a complete
solitude.
Mr. Harewood, with the attention of the old school, backed by something
warmer, gave Wilmet his arm. He and his son John never seemed to belong
to so ramshackle a household as the rest, and he was so gentle and
fatherly, that when Wilmet found him aware of all, it was a relief to
tell her objections without being answered by a lover. After all, she
could only repeat that leaving home was so impossible for her, that, as
she murmured, 'He had better not get to like me any more, it would be
such a pity for him.'
'That,' said Mr. Harewood, with his air of old-fashioned gallantry,
'depends on the esteem in which wealth or merit is held.'
'And station,' said Wilmet, in an undertone.
'For that, my dear, one would be a fool not to honour you and your
brother; besides, it may make you more at ease to hear that my father
was an apparitor, and I went to Oxford as a servitor, so that in birth
you have the advantage of us. Of course, I do not mean that every one
does not in the abstract prefer prosperous matches; but John has a fair
independent competence, and can afford to do as he pleases; and, for my
part, I should be very sorry if this were not what he pleased.'
'You are so very kind, but surely if--even if--it must be such long
waiting, and you would not like that for him.'
'Let us arrive at the _if_ before we settle about the waiting,' said
Mr. Harewood. 'In truth, I have long looked on John as so much the most
sensible person in my house, that all I feel called on to do is to hope
for his success. I know both you and he will be wise enough not to be
either selfish or unselfish in the wrong place.'
Wilmet did not quite understand, but she carried away the conviction
that she need have no scruple as to the parents' cordial approbation;
and she had had her cure from yesterday's sense of want of individual
affection. As to the future? Of course it swelled her heart to think
of such love and generous kindness; but she tried to believe that she
was as much touched by the goodness of the father as by that of the
son, and she would be on her guard against herself unless she saw some
reasonable hope that home would ever dispense with her. Dear Wilmet;
would she not at any other time have thought it an outrage to think of
such a possibility? At any rate, she thought, nobody but Felix need
ever know.
Little guessed she, as Robina sat opposite, kept silent by the presence
of two stout old females, that the child was revolving the question
whether she might tell Cherry. She knew that Wilmet would not like
her affairs to be discussed without her own permission; but it seemed
unfair that when all the Harewoods were open-mouthed, her own sister
should know nothing. After all, much would depend on the chances of a
_tête-à-tête_.
At the station stood Clement: 'That's right! I thought you would come
by this train. What a comfort! How is Lance?'
'Almost well. How are you getting on?'
'You will soon see for yourself,' in an ominous tone.
Just then she was accosted by Mr. Ryder, who was waiting for his own
train; and after courteous and anxious inquiries, said, 'I was thinking
of writing to your eldest brother, but perhaps a word from you would do
as well.'
'About Bernard?'
'Why, yes, I don't quite see my way about him. He is a sharp little
fellow, and very well taught; in fact, he can afford to do nothing but
waste time. Somehow, a boy will now and then seem to come into school
with the wrong foot foremost.'
'Has he fallen in with idle boys?'
'So I fear. I placed him in a form high for his age, but where the lags
have got hold of him, and make him think idleness the _thing_. So I
gather. I conclude he is not to remain here?'
'Do you mean that you wish him to be taken away?' asked Wilmet, in
consternation.
'No, no; don't understand it in that sense,' said Mr. Ryder, anxiously.
'I only meant that he is doing no good here, and that possibly a
change, or the stimulus of preparing for an examination, might rouse
him. Good-bye.'
And there Mr. Ryder had to rush off to secure his seat.
'Oh! good morning, Miss Underwood!' This was from Mr. Mowbray Smith,
a few steps beyond the station. 'I am glad to see you back. So your
patient is gone to join your eldest brother? But we shall have you here
on Sunday? Then there's the less occasion to name it; but some notice
should be taken of the behaviour yesterday evening.'
'It was very sad,' interposed Clement; 'but when once set off by the
christening, they could not stop themselves.'
'Scarcely a valid excuse,' said Mr. Smith, severely, as he made his
parting bow. 'You know this was not all.'
Clement shrugged his shoulders, exclaiming, 'So he made that into a
personality! You must know there was an unusually squalling baby,
whose godmother went on giving its name as Huggeny; and there was a
five minutes' exchange of "What?" on Mr. Smith's side, and Huggeny
on hers, till a whisper came all along--forwarded from the mother, I
suppose--"Same as they does their 'air;" and then Mr. Smith looked more
mystified than ever; some one suggested, "Same as the Empress of the
French."'
'Something might be excused on such provocation,' owned Wilmet,
laughing.
'If that had been all,' said Clement; 'but Angel and Bernard choose to
go and sit by themselves, and I could see, from Felix's place in the
choir, that they were tittering long after. I shook my head, but Nares
must needs make up an odious imitation; and Bernard not only touches
Angel to make her look, but grins impudently at me. I found myself
growing burning hot with shame, and whenever they looked at me their
heads went down and their shoulders worked.'
'Naughty children,' said Wilmet, but with more than usual lenience to
the combined effects of Huggeny and of Clement's severe countenance
in producing one of those paroxysms of giggle that seem invincible in
proportion to their unbecomingness. The door was reached and instantly
opened, Stella springing into her arms in ecstasy. 'Sister's come!--O
Sister, Sister, Sister, don't ever go away any more.'
There was a great deal of confused kissing and embracing as she made
her way upstairs. 'But oh, my Tedo, what has happened?' for she beheld
a fine sample of Bill Harewood's violet eye.
'It was Bernard's stick went into his eye when we were playing at
hockey,' said Stella. 'He did cry terribly, but Sister Constance put
such nice stuff--'
'Sister Constance! oh, thank you! but hockey in the garden?'
'I thought it rather a remarkable proceeding,' quietly observed the
Sister.
'I must hear more about it,' said Wilmet. 'My poor dear little man,
can't he let Sister go for one instant?--Cherry dear, how are you?'
'All right now you are come. But dear little Lance, how is he looking?'
'Not much worse than you do, my Cherry,' said Wilmet, as she saw that
the wizened old fairy look was come back. 'You have been worse than I
knew.'
'Oh, I am all right now; and I have had such a treat of Sister
Constance.'
'I want to take her back with me,' said the Sister. 'Dr. Lee would like
to have her under his eye; and if you can spare her, I would write
to-day, and she could go with me to-morrow.'
'It is very kind; it might be better for her.'
'Of course,' interrupted Alda, 'it is good for any one to be away from
this horrid smell of baked earth, and all these riotous children.'
'Ah!' said Wilmet; 'didn't I see the shade of the lamp in the
landing-place broken? How was that?'
'Oh! the children, of course,' said Alda.
But neither child spoke; and Wilmet perceived that only the twins were
in the room, both hanging upon her, while she swallowed her hurried
second breakfast.
'No one will tell,' said Clement. 'It was done the day I went over to
Minsterham. I did all I could to find out.'
'Yes; and made them more obstinate than before,' said Alda.
Another catastrophe here suddenly struck Wilmet, namely, a long and
very badly-mended rent in Stella's spotted pink frock, which, to say
the truth, did not look as if it were Monday morning.
'Yes,' said Stella, 'I did try to mend it as well as I could, Sister,
but there wasn't another work-a-day frock clean.'
'Your mending!' exclaimed Wilmet; 'but how did you tear it?'
'When I tumbled into the brambles, and was lost.'
'Lost, my dear? What does she mean?'
'It is quite true,' said Cherry. 'Angela and Bernard took her out
fishing to Ball's hatch on Saturday, and lost her, only luckily we did
not know anything about it till she was safe at home again, dear little
darling!'
'But, Stella, how was it?' cried the horrified Wilmet, clasping her the
closer.
'I could not bear to see the poor worms,' said Stella. 'Bear would cut
them up to stick on his hook, so I got away out of sight of them, and
gathered the dear little wild roses and honeysuckles; and when I wanted
to find them again I couldn't, and nobody heard me when I called, and a
robin looked at me, and I thought he wanted to bury me, and I ran away,
and a great bush caught hold of me and scratched my legs, and tore out
a great piece of the rim of my hat; and just then a good lady came
by, and helped me up and to look for them, but we could not see them
anywhere; so she took me to her house--such a dear little house all
over roses--and she mended my hat, and I mended my frock, and she gave
me some tea and plum-cake, and two dear little ponies came to the door,
and a carriage, and she brought me home.'
'Who was she?'
'Miss Crabbe; she is new to the place,' said Cherry. 'Mr. Froggatt said
she had only been once in the shop before. Tell Sister how you told her
about yourself, Stella.'
'She asked my name,' said the child, 'and she said it was a very funny
one, and she could not understand it; and then she wanted to know whose
little girl I was, and I said, "Brother Felix's;" and then she said,
"Have you no papa or mamma?" So I told her I hadn't a papa or mamma,
but a father and mother up in heaven; and she said, "I should think
so, poor little dear, if there is no one to take more care of you."
I really did think she wanted to take me and keep me for an adopted
child, so I told her that I had lots of dear good brothers and sisters
that wanted me very much indeed, and I must go home to H. Froggatt and
F. C. Underwood, High Street, Bexley.'
'I fancy,' said Cherry, 'that she thought Mr. Froggatt was Stella's
grandfather, for she made him quite a speech about the neglect of the
child--"such a nice-mannered little girl," she said; but she would not
come in, nor let Alda be called.'
'Nor should I have gone down if Mr. Froggatt had thought proper to call
me,' said Alda. 'Imagine me in his office!'
'I can't imagine not going anywhere to thank the person that brought
home my little Star,' said Wilmet, holding her arm close round the
child, and kissing her repeatedly. 'But what became of the other two?'
'I went out after them,' said Clement, 'and found them rushing wildly
about after her, afraid to come home. To do them justice, I believe
they were almost out of their minds, thinking she must have tumbled
into the river.'
'Oh, indeed,' said Alda. 'That's your account of it.'
'Yes,' said Cherry eagerly, 'all that pretending not to care, and that
it was a trick of Stella's, was nothing but reaction. And then, you
know, Clem, you _did_ improve the occasion.'
'There!' exclaimed Alda,' you see how it is, Wilmet; nothing but
vindication of those two intolerable children! Now, just come, Wilmet,
and see if they are to be backed up in this.'
But as Wilmet, perfectly bewildered, and feeling no hope of
comprehension among so many, followed Alda from the room and up the
stairs, Stella came plunging after, with a cry, 'Alda, Alda, don't hurt
them!' just as from a housemaid's closet half way up, Alda was bringing
to light a basin containing a dozen tadpoles twirling their shadowy
tails.
'Now, Wilmet,' she solemnly said, 'do you approve of all those horrid
brutes swimming in my bath?'
'They aren't in the well, I hope,' said Wilmet.
'How can you be so absurd, Wilmet? That's the way those children showed
their sorrow that Clement talks about. I'll never believe but he helped
them.'
'To weep them?' said a voice above; and Angela's face was seen looking
out of her bush of hair over the balusters of the top storey. 'They
_are_ just like black heraldic tears.'
'You don't mean that they put them in?' asked Wilmet.
'What else should I mean?'
'And didn't she squall?' shouted Bernard; and then came a duet--
'Dame, dame, what makes your ducks to squall,
Duck to squall, duck to squall, duck to squall?
Meeting o' pollywogs! Meeting wi' pollywogs!'
'Hush, children, this is shocking,' said Wilmet, in the low impressive
voice by which she could always still a tumult. 'How could you take
advantage of my absence to do this?'
'Because Alda deserved it,' cried Angela, bouncing downstairs. 'There,
Alda! I said I should tell of you if you told of us.'
'Angela, that is not the way to speak to your elder sister.'
'She isn't like an elder sister!' exclaimed Angel. 'Stella would be
ashamed to do like her, eating up the strawberries Mr. Froggatt brought
for poor Cherry when she was ill.'
'I'm sure you had your share!' retorted Alda.
'You _would_ have them in for dessert, and you helped us; only Sister
Constance and Clem left all theirs for Cherry, and then you went by
yourself and ate them all up.'
The very fact of shouting out such a charge showed a state of
insubordination such as might make Wilmet's hair stand on end, and she
simply disbelieved so childish an accusation against her own equal in
age. 'You should not say such things, Angela,' she answered, in her low
tone of reproof; 'there must be a mistake.'
'I am afraid it is quite true,' said Clement's quiet voice, as he stood
arrested on his way by the block upon the landing-place.
'The children make such an uproar,' said the exasperated Alda. 'I'm
sure I thought Geraldine's had been taken long before, and in this
parching weather fruit is quite a necessity to me.'
Wilmet was too much aghast at the admission to speak. It was a strange
tangle: Clement standing straight and still on the landing-place;
Wilmet, with Theodore humming to himself, as innocent of the fray as
the tadpoles that Stella was cherishing in the cupboard door-way; Alda,
flushed and angry; and on the upper flight, Angela and Bernard dancing
and roaming in vehement excitement between anger and alarm. 'Well that
Lance was not in this hubbub!' thought deafened and amazed Wilmet.
'What has this to do with the tadpoles?' she asked, in an endeavour to
comprehend.
'We said she should be served out,' sung Bernard, 'with a
polly--polly--polly-wog bath.'
'But, Bernard, hush!--Angel! don't you see it was no business of yours
if Alda did forget?'
She was unprepared for the outbreak this brought on her. 'You, too,
Wilmet! Every one backs up those children in their behaviour to me!
Lady Herbert Somerville, and Clement, and all! If only Ferdinand saw
it!'
'Just step up, Wilmet,' said Clement gently, 'and see whether the
children are in league with me.'
He followed Wilmet up to the door of the barrack, an attic that he
shared with Lance and Bernard, and showed the long beam that crossed it
pasted with a series of little figures cut out in paper, representing
a procession in elaborate vestments; and at the end a long-backed
individual kneeling before the chair of a confessor, who bore a painful
resemblance to the Vicar of St. Matthew's.
'We only wanted to make Tina feel at home,' giggled Angela.
'It would be no matter,' pursued Clement, 'if it were merely quizzing
myself. I am used to that; but this is trenching on sacred ground.'
'Bless me, your old white beam!' exclaimed Angela, with an affected
start.
'It is exceedingly improper and irreverent,' said Wilmet. 'I am ashamed
that such a thing should have been done in this house.'
'Really,' said Alda, 'it seems to me very droll and clever, with no
harm in it at all; only people like Clement never can take a joke.'
'You can't mean to justify such a one as this,' said Wilmet; but, to
her still greater astonishment, Alda broke out,
'There! You are turning against me! You are taking Clement's part,
though you didn't care what they did to me--not if it had been snakes
and adders!'
This, decidedly in Mrs. Thomas Underwood's style, elicited a peal of
laughter from the two naughty children, and the corners of Clement's
mouth relaxed, bringing Alda to a gush of tears. 'You never used to be
like this to me, Wilmet.'
'I never saw you like this, dear Alda,' said Wilmet, low and gently,
but in decided repression. 'Come into our room, and let me try to
understand.'
So began a morning of mutual complaints, as if everybody were against
everybody, agreeing in nothing but in appealing to the elder sister.
First, there was Alda's story. Never had there been such a miserable
time--with Geraldine interfering, fussy, fretful, fault-finding;
Clement intolerable in primness and conceit, only making the children
worse when he pretended to keep them in order, and making such a
fuss about Geraldine, when nothing ailed her but change of weather;
incurring the expense of the Dearport doctor, and bringing down the
Sister upon them; so awkward to have her in the drawing-room in that
dress, but Sisters always thrust themselves into families. She hoped
she had shown my Lady that she was not to be overawed by a title--such
affectation, not using it! No consideration for her; the servants
regularly spoilt, both of them; Martha a vulgar insolent creature, and
Sibby disgustingly familiar and slovenly, no good at all, not even
to keep Theodore out of the way. At which Theodore, knowing no more
than his own name and Alda's displeasure, set up a dismal howl; and as
Wilmet chose to coax and fondle him into silence instead of scolding
and turning him out, Alda went off in a huff, muttering about asylums
and proper places; and Wilmet descended to the kitchen, the little weak
hand clasped tight into hers.
A sore sight awaited her below; the bills of this month for luxuries
of sinful extravagance in her economical eyes! Chicken and asparagus,
ducks and peas, even in the height of their season, were enormities
to such housekeeping as hers, and had raised the sum total to four
times the amount that her foreboding soul had dreaded. It exceeded her
present supplies, and was a grave addition to the expenses of the two
illnesses, that were serious enough already.
Martha was eloquent, not to say defiant, in self-defence. 'You see,
Miss Underwood, if I'd been let alone, or Miss Cherry had been the
one to take my orders from, which we could have made it out to your
satisfaction; but with Miss Halder, which expects everything to be
just like what it was in the fammerly up in London, which it stands to
reason as it can't; which she hasn't got no more notion than a baby of
prices, nor seasons, nor nothink; which is very determined, too, which
won't suffer a word from nobody; which if you hadn't been coming home,
Miss Underwood, I'd have given warning, which have always given you
satisfaction.'
Wilmet's satisfaction was not increased when she encountered Sibby.
'Ah, my darling Missie dear, ye're the jewel that's been longed for!
The whole house has been mad entirely, and lost widout you; the
children rampaging and playing pranks, and Miss Cherry dwining and
pining to a skeleton, so that but for Master Clem and that holy woman,
the Sisther, 'tis scarce alive ye'd have found her. Miss Alda, she's
the very wonder of the worruld for jealousy and unfeelingness. I up and
told her at last there was well-nigh as much differ between you and
she, as between Stella and this blessed lamb that she spites; for if
you have not carried off all the wit and understanding, sure 'tis you
that has got all the heart, and the head, and the hands.'
'And the partial old nursey, Sibby! You see I had no time nor thought
but for poor Lance, and Alda was so new to it.'
'Ah, Missie dear, you were always the one to vindicate her, but 'tis
no use! Newness! 'Twasn't newness that makes her turn the back of her
hand to this darling innocent, till he cries if he's left a moment with
her.--Ay, my precious, what would have become of you and me but for
Masther Clem?--I tell you, Miss Wilmet, I never thought that long boy
the aquil of his brothers till I saw him in time of need. Yer father
himself--Heaven be his bed!--couldn't have been tenderer with Theodore
nor Miss Cherry, by night or by day, an' never a cross word when he was
bothered past his life with Miss Alda's ugliness an' the children's
boldness.'
'Oh, those children! What is come to them, Sibby?'
'Only funning and merriment, Missie dear. They'd never have had to be
faulted if Miss Alda had let Miss Cherry deal with them; but she could
neither rule them herself, nor bear to see them ruled; and though she
was like a mad cow if they played their pranks on her, she backs them
up if Miss Cherry, or Master Clem, or even the Sisther, do but say a
word to them, so 'tis no wonder if the poor dears have been a bit off
their heads, but they'll be as quiet as doves now ye're back again. Oh,
Missie dear, my own child, but it's you that are the light of my eyes,
looking the blooming beauty that you are.'
The foster-mother's genuine compliment could not lighten the load that
had grown every moment heavier, and more compunctious for the deaf ear
she had turned to Clement. Wilmet said a word or two of apology to
him when she met him on the stairs, loaded with books to study in the
garden.
'Never mind,' he magnanimously answered, 'it is all right now you are
come, and it was impossible before. Only, please do say something warm
to Sister Constance, for Alda is barely civil to her.'
'I am very sorry; I did not think Alda had that sort of prejudice,'
said Wilmet, whose instinct of defence of Alda had wonderfully
diminished.
'The chief prejudice came of my sending for her,' said Clement.
'Besides, Sister Constance spoke out very sharply about the
strawberries; and when we had a couple of chickens, and Alda scolded
me for helping her to a leg instead of a wing, Sister Constance said,
"Oh, I supposed you had them on Geraldine's account;" and she gives the
children leave to do anything Sister Constance objects to. These things
are hardly their fault. But, I say, Mettie, now you are come, and it
is all right, do you think I might go to St. Matthew's? The Vicar and
Mr. Sterling are alone, while the other curates are holiday-making, and
they say I could really be of some use to them, and they would give me
some help with this reading for my examination. Somers is there too,
and I have not seen him since Christmas.'
'Indeed,' said Wilmet, 'no one has deserved a holiday more than you,
Clement! You have done your best.'
This--almost the first home praise or thanks that had fallen to his
lot--elicited that real grace of humility for which poor self-conscious
Clement really strove. 'I have tried, Mettie,' he said, with tears in
his eyes; 'but it was not as if it had been one of the others. There
must be something very wrong about me, to make me so disagreeable.'
'You have gained two hearts,' said Wilmet, 'Sibby's and this little
fellow's.'
For Theodore had attached himself limpet fashion to Clement, who with
difficulty piled his books so as to leave a hand free for him.
'He had better come with me,' said Wilmet; 'your reading must have been
dreadfully interrupted.'
'It has, rather,' said Clement, whose examination was in alarming
proximity; 'but I don't mind him, I can work to his tunes as well as
Felix can; and all is right now you are come.'
That was the burthen of every one's song. It came next from Cherry,
whom she found in her own room; 'There was so much bustle in the
sitting-room,' she said.
'My dear, you have gone through a great deal!'
'"There's nae luck about the house when our gude man's awa',"' said
Cherry. 'Clem played and whistled that so often, that Alda begged never
to hear it again; but unluckily Tedo had caught it, and I don't think
she quite believes he doesn't hum it on purpose! But now, how delicious
it is to have got at least our gude woman! And, oh dear! Wilmet, I beg
your pardon; but you do look so lovely, I can't help telling you so! or
is it the pleasure of seeing you?'
'My poor Cherry! I did not think half enough about you.'
'That would have done no good. Most of this rose out of my own
crossness and horridness. If I could only be anxious without being
peevish!'
'Now, Cherry, don't waste time in telling me it was your own fault; I
know all about that! I really want to understand how it has all been
with Alda and Clement. I am afraid Alda has not been behaving nicely.'
To hear Wilmet allow Alda to be other than impeccable so amazed Cherry,
that she could scarcely answer. 'O Mettie, I never knew what you and
Felix must be. I have so often thought of a house divided against
itself, one against two, and two against three. We have been all _to
wrongs_, and Clem and I have said we would not be a party; and yet we
could not help it, for we always had to stand up together! Then Angel
and Bear were against every one, and Alda set them against Clem, and
fancied he did against her, which was not true. I should have minded
nothing if Alda had not been so angry at Clement's sending for Sister
Constance. You did give him leave, though?'
'Yes, and I should have done so much more decidedly if I had known.'
At that moment Sister Constance knocked at the door, with her work in
her hand, and Wilmet inferred that this was the refuge from Alda and
the drawing-room. To Cherry's surprise, Wilmet, instead of ignoring
everything unsatisfactory, began at once, 'Please come in, Sister
Constance; I wanted to thank you, and tell you how sorry and ashamed I
am! I am afraid you have not been treated as--'
'Don't say any more, my dear,' as the tears were in her eyes; 'don't
think about it.'
'I ought to think!' said Wilmet. 'I have been trying to understand
things ever since I came home; but everybody except Cherry and Clem
blames everybody, and they only blame themselves! I can't understand
the rights of anything!'
'My dear,' said Sister Constance, 'I think it would be impossible to
go into the details of all that has happened. Shall I tell you how it
seemed to me?'
'Pray do!'
'I thought that the authority of an elder reared in so different a
school necessarily was producing a few collisions. There was some
ignorance, and a good deal of dislike of interference, and the younger
ones would not have been human not to take advantage of it; but it
is over now you are come home, and I strongly recommend an act of
oblivion.'
'Oh! I don't want to punish the poor children,' said Wilmet.
'Oblivion, I said, not only amnesty;' and as she did not see perfect
comprehension in Wilmet's face, she added, 'I mean, not only that
the children should be forgiven, but that their elders should not go
hunting for causes, and thinking how this or that could have been
prevented.'
'I suppose not,' said Wilmet. 'It is all plain enough;' and the sigh
that followed quite amazed Cherry, who smiled up in her face, saying,
'Plain enough that we can't do without you.'
'No,' said Wilmet, kissing Cherry's uplifted face ere leaving the room;
but it was with such an effort at a responding smile, that Cherry
exclaimed, 'Oh dear! how dreadfully we have vexed her!' And Sister
Constance thought the more.
Yet again Wilmet had to hear another testimony to the anarchy in her
absence. Those formidable bills had obliged her to apply to Alda for an
advance of the sum she had offered for Lance's journey; and this, after
some petulance and faltering, elicited that some old forgotten London
bills had come down and swamped this Midsummer quarter's allowance, so
that the promise must stand over till--till Michaelmas; or it might
be that Ferdinand's matters were arranged, and then what would such
a paltry sum be? Wilmet turned away in shame and disgust at having
trusted for a moment to such offers. She could only do what she had
never done before--apply to Mr. Froggatt for an advance on Felix's
account: and she detained him after dinner for the purpose.
He was as kind as possible, assuring her that he should have been hurt
if she had not come to him. And then, in his blandest way, he thought
it right to hint that 'Young people were sometimes a little unguarded.'
She was prepared for the story of the loss of Stella, but she was not
prepared to hear of a gossipping intercourse over the newly arrived
Punches, &c., carried on in the early morning with Redstone, not only
by Bernard but Angela. She was but eleven years old, so it was no worse
than the taste of childish underhand coquetry and giggling; there was
no fear of its continuance after Felix's return, and, indeed, good old
Mr. Froggatt had kept guard by coming in two hours earlier ever since
the discovery; but the propensity dismayed Wilmet more than all that
had yet happened, and on this head she thought it right to reprove
Angela seriously.
'Dear me, Wilmet, you are always telling us not to think ourselves
above our station. Mr. Redstone is just as fit to speak to as Felix was
before he was a partner.'
'Should you like Felix to have found you gossipping in the
reading-room?'
'Well,' said audacious Angela, 'half the fun in things is the chance of
being caught.'
'My dear, you don't know what you are saying,' replied Wilmet
dejectedly, as if exhausted beyond the power of working out her
reproof! and Angela had to fight hard against any softening, telling
Bernard that W. W. was a tremendous old maid, who had no notion of a
lark.
Robina, who stood in the peculiar position of neither accusing nor
being accused, would not add her voice to the chorus of welcome, and
did not wonder that every hour wore off something from the radiance
of the beautiful bloom brought from the Bailey. Indeed, the unusual
gravity and reserve of the younger sister struck Cherry's observant
eyes, and made her think at first that she had been much pained by
having to part with Lance in his weak half-recovered state; but when at
tea-time the whole history of the illness was inquired into in detail
by the assembled family, the downcast eyes and cheeks with which Robin
encountered every mention of Captain Harewood's good offices led to the
inference that she had in her excitement forgotten the bounds where the
brook and river meet, and was in an anguish of shame; Wilmet meantime
looking flushed with the fag of her vexatious day, and speaking
plentifully of this same Captain, proving to herself all the while that
she was doing so with ordinary gratitude and composure.
Robina was quartered upon Geraldine in the holiday crowding of the
house; and somewhere about four o'clock on the summer morning, Cherry,
wakening as usual, and reaching for her book, heard a voice from the
corner asking if she wanted anything. 'No, thank you, Bobbie. Go to
sleep again.'
'I can't; I've been thinking about it all night. I think he's coming
to-day.'
'Who?'
'Captain Harewood. He promised to come and tell us how Lance and Felix
are.'
'I am very glad; but Wilmet never said so.'
'No, but--O Cherry, I wish we could contrive some nice quiet place, but
nothing is ever quiet in this house.'
'No,' said Geraldine, who was but too well aware of the fact, 'though I
can't imagine that any Harewood can be distressed on that score.'
'Oh, but--' said Robina, to whom the communication began to feel so
momentous, that she could not help toying round it before coming
to the point--'I know; at least, I am sure he will want to see her
particularly.'
'You Robin, what have you got into your head?' said Cherry, trying to
misunderstand, but feeling a foreboding throb of consternation.
'It is not my head. Willie told me.' And as she detected a sigh of
relief, 'And it is no nonsense of his either. He did it on Sunday
evening by the river-side.'
'He did it?' repeated Geraldine, willing to take a moment's refuge in
the confusion of antecedents, though too well aware what must be coming.
'You know what I mean. He--Jack--John--Captain Harewood, had it out
with her when we were all walking together.'
'My dear, impossible!'
'I mean, we were out of hearing, but we saw them at it, and walked up
and down till Lance got tired out, and Willie and I stayed to make it
proper.'
Geraldine relieved herself by a little laugh, and said, in a superior
tone of elderly wisdom, 'But, my dear, there might be a walk even
without what you call doing it.'
'Yes,' reiterated Robina; 'but I know, for the Captain shut himself up
with Mr. Harewood when we came in, and Bill heard his father telling
his mother about it at night through the wall.'
'For shame, Robin!'
'Oh! he told them long ago that he could hear, and they don't care;
besides, Mrs. Harewood told him _himself_ when he went in to wish her
good morning, and she kissed me and Lance too about it, and said they
hadn't their equals. And poor Mettie thinks no one knows of it but
their two selves, and maybe Mr. Harewood!'
'But, Robin, I don't know how to understand it. I think she would have
told Alda, at least.'
'Perhaps she has to-night,' said Robina; 'but, you see, she didn't
accept him.'
'Oh! then it doesn't signify.'
'Not out and out, I mean; and it is only because of us. At least, we
are sure she likes him.'
'We! You and Willie!'
'And Lance. He saw it all the time he was getting well. Besides, the
Captain told his father that she wouldn't listen to him, and would have
hindered his going to Felix if Lance had been fit to travel alone.'
'Then it is not an engagement now?'
'No, she won't let it be.'
'And he is coming to-day?'
'Yes, after he has seen Felix. O Cherry! he is so nice, kind and
bright, like all the Harewoods, and not ridiculous; and Lance does like
him so!'
'Does Wilmet?'
'We are almost sure. As Lance says, she has never looked so bright, or
so sweet, or so pretty. Do you think it is love, Cherry?'
'We shall see,' said Cherry. 'If she tells us nothing, we can judge;
and if--if--'
Her voice died away into contemplation; and after waiting in vain for
more, Robina somewhat resentfully decided that 'she had fallen asleep
in her very face.'
No more was said till dressing-time, when there were a few speculations
whether Alda knew; and Cherry could not help auguring that something
had opened Wilmet's eyes to her twin's possible deficiencies. Sister
Constance came, and seeing her patient's paleness, accused the sisters
of untimely bedroom colloquies; and as they pleaded guilty, Robin was
struck by the air of fixed resolution on Cherry's thin white face.
There was no sign of any confidence having been made to Alda. Wilmet
plunged into her long-deferred holiday task of inspecting the family
linen; and when she came back with a deep basket, an announcement that
every one must mend and adapt, and portions of darning and piecing
for Geraldine and Robina, they began to feel as if the morning's
conversation was a dream.
But just as dinner was near its close, there were steps on the stairs;
the drawing-room door was opened and shut, and Sibby, unnecessarily
coming through the folding leaves, announced over the head of Clement,
'Captain Harewood.'
'Come to tell about Lance!' cried Angela, leaping up, and followed
by Bernard, Alda, and even Mr. Froggatt; indeed, in the existing
connection of chairs, tables, and doors, a clearance of that side of
the table was needful before any one else could stir. Wilmet moved
after them, and Clement was heard exclaiming, 'You are pinning me down,
Bobbie!'
'I know! Oh, shut the door! There are more than enough there already.'
'True,' said Sister Constance, signing to Clement to obey. 'I meant to
go to my room, but Cherry wants to hear of her brothers.'
'No, she doesn't!' cried Robina. 'At least-- Oh! will nobody get the
others out, and leave them to themselves!'
'Why, Bobbie, what nonsense is this?' said Clement. 'One would think
you took them for Ferdinand and Alda.'
'It is all the same!--Stella, you run out to the garden--by that door,
you child!' And then it all came out to the two fresh auditors, who
listened with conviction. 'And now,' concluded Robina, 'there is not
a place where he can so much as speak to her! What shall we do to get
them away?'
'You do not know yet that she wishes it,' said Sister Constance, who
had been a wife before she was a Sister, and saw that it was matronly
tact and tenderness that the crisis needed; 'but I'll tell you what you
can safely and naturally do. Go in and fetch Cherry's folding chair,
and call the children to carry her appurtenances down to the garden.
That will make a break, and Wilmet can take advantage of it if she sees
fit.'
'Alda is worse than ten children,' said Clement; 'she has an inordinate
appetite for captains in the absence of her own.'
'It can't be helped. Better do too little than too much.'
And finding Robina shy and giggling, and Clement shy and irresolute,
Sister Constance herself made the diversion by opening the door, when
Wilmet's nervous look and manner was confirmation strong. 'Lady Herbert
Somerville--Captain Harewood,' was Alda's formal introduction in her
bad taste; while the Sister, after shaking hands, bade Bernard take
Geraldine's chair to the lawn.
'Oh, are we to go out?' said Alda. 'A good move. Of all things I detest
in summer, a town house is the worst. I'll just fetch a hat, I want
to show my pet view.--Our brothers are always fighting about their
churches, Captain Harewood.'
The thing was done; Mr. Froggatt was already gone, and as Alda's
trappings were never quickly adjusted, it needed very little
contrivance to leave a not unwilling pair on one side of the doors, and
cut off the rest. Robina, too much excited to stand still, flew about
the stairs till Alda appeared in a tiny hat fluttering with velvet
tails.
'Are they gone out?'
'Yes;' for quite enough to constitute a 'they' were gone; and when Alda
reached them, they sedulously set themselves to detain her, and thereby
betrayed the reason.
'Nonsense! How absurd! That horrid little fright of a red-haired man!
No doubt poor dear Wilmet only wants me to go and put an end to it.'
Strictly speaking, this was self-assertion. She had not the assurance
to intrude, and she contented herself with keeping Cherry on thorns
by threatening to go in, and declaring that the whole must be untrue,
since Wilmet had not told her.
Time went on very slowly; and at last Wilmet, about four o'clock, was
seen advancing, with Theodore in one hand and her great basket of
mending in the other. And before Alda had time to rise from her chair,
Robina darted across the grass, with flaming cheeks and low, hurried,
frightened confession--'Wilmet, please, it is honest to tell you;
Willie Harewood knows, and told me, and I couldn't help it; I told them
to keep away.'
'It always happens so,' said Wilmet, less discomposed than Robina
expected, though she had evidently been shedding tears. 'Not that there
is anything to tell.'
'Nothing!' cried Robina, looking blank.
'Of course not. He came to bring me a note from Felix. I hope no one
knows but those three.'
'And Sister Constance.'
'Then take care no one does.'
'But, O Wilmet, please! You have not put an end to it all?'
'No,' said Wilmet. 'They will not let me, though I think it would have
been wiser. I do not know how it is to be, except that it is utterly
impossible for the present.'
With this much from the fountain-head, Robina was forced to content
herself; and she had tact enough not to join the trio under the tree,
but to betake herself to Clement, who had gone off with his books.
'So,' said Alda lightly, 'you have cheated us of another view of your
conquest, Mettie.'
'He wanted to catch the 3.45 train,' said Wilmet gravely.
'You must have been very unmerciful to despatch him so soon. I thought
you must want me to come to your rescue, but those romantic children
wouldn't let me.'
'Thank you,' said Wilmet.
'My dear! You don't mean that you are smitten? Well! I can't flatter
you as to his beauty. And yet, after all, situated as you are, it is
a catch--that is, if he has anything but his pay; but of course he
hasn't.'
'Yes,' said Wilmet abstractedly, 'his father told me he had--what did
he call it?--"a fair independent competence of his own." Oh! they are
so kind!'
'Then, O Wilmet, is it really so?' asked Geraldine, with eager eyes,
clasped hands, and quivering frame, infinitely fuller of visible
emotion than either of the handsome twins.
'I--don't know.'
'My dear Wilmet,' cried Alda, excited, 'you can't surely have anything
better in view!'
'No,' said Wilmet, even now keeping herself blind to the offensiveness
of Alda's suggestion; 'but as it is utterly impossible for me to think
of--leaving home, I did think it would have been wiser to put a stop to
it while there wa--is time,' and the tears began to gather again.
'And have you?
'They won't let me.'
'Who?'
'_He_--and his father, and Felix,' said Wilmet, speaking steadily, but
the tears rolling down her cheeks.
'Felix! Oh, what does he say?'
'You may see;' and she held out a letter, which Alda and Cherry read
together, while she rested her elbow on her knee, her brow on her hand,
and let fall the tears, which with her were always soft, free, and
healthy outlets of emotion, not disabling, but rather relieving.
Mrs. Pettigrew's Lodgings, North Beach, East Ewmouth, 20th
July, 10 P.M.
MY DEAREST WILMET,
What I have heard to-day is a great satisfaction. I had hardly
hoped that you could have been brought within the reach of
any one so worthy of you. My only fear is that you are too
scrupulous and self-sacrificing to contemplate fairly, and
without prejudice, what is best for us all. You will imagine
yourself blinded by inclination, and not attend to common
sense. Harewood tells me he trusts you have no objection on
personal grounds. (I hope this does not sound as if he were
presuming; if so, it is my fault. Remember, I am more used
to writing 'summaries for the week' than letters on delicate
subjects.) But at any rate, my Mettie, I see there is much
worth and weight in his affection, and that you could not
manage to snub him as entirely as you wanted to do. (Didn't
you?) Now, it seems to me, that if you two are really drawn to
one another, both being such as you are, it is the call of a
Voice that you have no right to reject or stifle. I do not mean
by this that anything immediate need take place; but granting
your preference, I think it would be wrong not to avow it, or
to refuse, because you scruple to keep him waiting while you
may be necessary at home. If you imagine that by such rejection
you would be doing better for the children and me, I beg leave
to tell you it is a generous blunder. Remember that, as things
have turned out, I am quite as much the only dependence for the
others as I was seven years ago. I felt this painfully in the
spring, when I was doubtful what turn my health would take; and
the comfort of knowing you would all have such a man to look
to would be unspeakable--indeed, he has already lightened me
of much care and anxiety. Do not take this as pressing you.
Between this and the end of his leave, there will be time for
consideration. Nothing need be done in haste, least of all the
crushing your liking under the delusion of serving us. So do
not forbid him the house; and unless your objection be on any
other score, do not make up your mind till you have seen me. I
should of course have been with you instead of writing, if it
were not for Lance. Till I saw the dear little fellow, I had
no notion how very ill he has been. The five hours' journey
had quite knocked him up, and he was fit for nothing but his
bed when he came; but he revived in the evening. I only hope
I shall take as good care of him as the first-rate nurses he
describes so enthusiastically. That month must have been worth
years of common acquaintance. I wish I knew what more to say to
show you how glad I am of this day's work, and to persuade you
to see matters as I do.
Ever your loving brother,
F. C. UNDERWOOD.
P.S.--Lance is quite himself this morning, and was up to watch
us bathing before six o'clock.
'Oh! what did Captain Harewood say of Felix?' was Cherry's cry, almost
with shame and pain at not having asked before.
'You know, he had never seen him,' said Wilmet; 'but he said he did
not seem to him in the least unwell--and he watched carefully, as I
had begged him. He said he struck him as naturally delicate-looking;
but that those blue veins in his temples do not show, and he has no
cough at all, nor any difficulty in swimming, or walking up a steep
cliff. He made me laugh, for he said he hardly believed his eyes when
Lance tumbled himself out of the train on something so little bigger or
older than himself. He says the way we all talk of "my eldest brother"
made him expect something taller than Clement, and more imposing than
the senior verger; but he understood it all when he saw him and Lance
together. They have two very nice rooms; and Felix has put Lance into
the bedroom, which is luckily cool, and sleeps on a sofa bed in the
parlour; and the landlady will do anything for them.'
'But how is it to be?' broke in Alda crossly. 'You and Felix seem to
be encouraging him to come dangling here, when we all agreed that
Ferdinand must keep away in Felix's absence, though matters are in such
a different state.'
'So I told him, dear Alda,' gently said Wilmet; 'but he declared he
would bring his sisters, or poor Mrs. Harewood herself, if nothing else
would satisfy me: and what could I do, after all their kindness?'
'Umph!' muttered Alda; 'they are a queer set.'
'Now, Alda,' said Wilmet earnestly, 'you must not talk without knowing.
Till I went there, I never understood how much goodness and principle
there could be without my stiffness and particularity. I know I have
often been very unnecessarily disagreeable and disapproving, and I hope
I am shaken out of it in time.'
'Dear Mettie, no one is like you,' cried Cherry, with a little
effusion, stretching out her hand, and laying it on her sister's
shoulder. 'Oh, if we had not all been so vile while you were away!'
'It would not have made any difference, my dear! It would be impossible
to leave Felix without help. And think of Theodore!'
Alda muttered something, that no one would hear, about asylums; and
the tell-tale tears coming again, Wilmet sprang up, and bending down
to kiss Cherry, declared in her most authoritative voice that nothing
should be said to the younger children, nor to any one out of the
house; then picked up the tea-cups, and carried them in.
Excitements were, however, not yet over for the day. A telegram was put
into Alda's hands, containing the words--
'A.T. is an unmitigated brute. I sail for N.Y. to-night. All
will be right when I come back.'
The mysterious hint restored Alda at once to all the privileges of the
reigning heroine!