The Population of Compton Poynsett
He wanted a wife his braw hoose to keep,
But favour wi' wooin' was fashous to seek.--Laird o' Cockpen
In the bright lamplight of the dining-table, the new population
first fully beheld one another, and understood one another's looks.
There was much family resemblance between the five brothers. All
were well-grown well-made men, strong and agile, the countenance
pleasing, rather square of mould, eyebrows straight and thick, nose
well cut and short, chin firm and resolute-looking, and the
complexion very dark in Raymond, Frank, and the absent Miles.
Frank's eyes were soft, brown, rather pensive, and absent in
expression; but Raymond's were much deeper and darker, and had a
steadfast gravity, that made him be viewed as formidable, especially
as he had lost all the youthful glow of colouring that mantled in
his brother's olive cheek; and he had a short, thick, curly brown
beard, while Frank had only attained to a black moustache, that
might almost have been drawn on his lip with charcoal.
Charlie was an exception--fair, blue-eyed, rosy, and with a soft
feminine contour of visage, which had often drawn on him reproaches
for not being really the daughter all his mother's friends desired
for her.
And Julius, with the outlines of the others, was Albino, with
transparent skin mantling with colour that contrasted with his snowy
hair, eyebrows, and the lashes, veiling eyes of a curious coral hue,
really not unpleasing under their thick white fringes, but most
inconveniently short of sight, although capable of much work; in
fact, he was a curiously perfect pink-and-white edition of his dark
and bronzed brother the sailor.
The dark eyes came from the father's side; Cecil had them, and very
observing orbs they seemed to be, travelling about from one face to
another, and into every corner of the room, scrutinizing every
picture or piece of plate, and trying to see into the conservatory,
which had a glass door opening from one end of the room. She was
the youngest of the brides, and her features and form seemed hardly
developed, nor had she attained the air of a matron; her fashionable
dress of crisp white worked muslin with blue trimmings, and blue
ribbons in her brown hair, only gave her the air of a young girl at
her first party, in spite of her freedom from all shyness as she sat
at the head of the table in contented self-possession, her little
slender figure as upright as a perfect spine could make it.
Very different was the bride on Raymond's right hand. She was of
middle height, soft, round, and plump, carrying her head a little
tenderly on one side with a delightful degagee kind of ease, and air
of vivacious indolence. Her complexion was creamy and colourless,
her nose rather retrousse, her lips full and parting in a delicious
roguish smile, answering to the sleepily twinkling eyes, whose
irides seemed to shade so imperceptibly into the palest gray, that
there was no telling where the pupils ended, especially as the lids
were habitually half closed, as if weighed down by the black length
of their borders. The habit of arching up one or other of the
eyebrows, in surprise or interrogation, gave a drollery to the
otherwise nonchalant sweetness of the countenance. The mass of
raven black hair was only adorned by a crimson ribbon, beneath which
it had been thrust into a net, with a long thing that had once been
a curl on the shoulder of the white tumbled bodice worn over a gray
skirt which looked as if it had done solitary duty for the five
weeks since the marriage, and was but slightly relieved by a crimson
sash.
Rosamond made some apology when she saw Cecil's dainty equipment.
"Dressed, you correct little thing! You put me to shame; but I had
no notion which box my evening things are in, and it would have been
serious to irritate the whole concern."
"And she was some time with Anne," added Julius.
"Ah! with my good will Anne should not have been here!" rejoined
Rosamond. "Didn't I meet old Mrs. Nurse at your threshold, with an
invitation from Mrs. Poynsett to dine with her in her room, and
didn't we find the bird flown at the first stroke of the gong?"
"Oh, I am very well!" repeated Anne.
Yet she was far more colourless than Julius, for her complexion was
not only faded by sickness, but was naturally of the whitest blonde
tint; the simple coils of her hair "lint white," and her eyes of the
lightest tint of pure blue. The features were of Scottish type, all
the more so from being exaggerated by recent illness; but they were
handsome enough to show that she must have been a bonnie lassie when
her good looks were unimpaired. Her figure far surpassed in height
that of both the other ladies, and was very slender, bending with
languor and fatigue in spite of her strenuous attempts to straighten
it. She was clad in a perfectly plain, almost quaker-looking light
dove-coloured silk dress, fitting closely, and unrelieved by any
ribbon or ornament of any description, so that her whole appearance
suggested nothing but the words "washed out."
It was clear that to let her alone was merciful, and there was no
lack of mutual communications among the rest. Frank and Charlie
gave their account of the condition of the game.
"Do you let your tenants shoot rabbits?" exclaimed Cecil, as if
scandalized. "We never do at Dunstone."
"It prevents an immense amount of discontent and ill-will and
underhand work," said Raymond.
"My father never will listen to any nonsense about rabbits,"
proceeded Cecil. "If you once begin there is no end to it, they are
sure to encroach. He just sends them a basket of game at the
beginning and end of the season."
"By the bye," said Raymond, "I hope ours have all been sent out as
usual."
"I can answer for a splendid one at our wedding breakfast," said
Rosamond. "The mess-man who came to help was lost in admiration.
Did you breakfast on ortolans, Cecil?"
"Or on nightingales' tongues?" added Charlie.
"You might as well say fatted dormice and snails," said Frank. "One
would think the event had been eighteen hundred years ago."
"Poor Frank! he's stuffed so hard that it is bursting out at all his
pores!" exclaimed Charlie.
"Ah! you have the advantage of your elder, Master Charles!" said
Raymond, with a paternal sound of approbation.
"Till next time," said Frank. "Now, thank goodness, mine is once
for all!"
The conversation drifted away to Venice and the homeward journey,
which Raymond and Cecil seemed to have spent in unremitting sight-
seeing. The quantities of mountains, cathedrals, and pictures they
had inspected was quite appalling.
"How hard you must have worked!" exclaimed Rosamond. "Had you never
a day's rest out of the thirty?"
"Had we, Cecil? I believe not," said Raymond.
"Sundays?" gasped Anne's low voice at his elbow.
"Indeed," triumphantly returned Cecil, "between English service and
High Mass, and Benediction, and the public gardens, and listening to
the band, we had not a single blank Sunday."
Anne started and looked aghast; and Raymond said, "The opportunity
was not to be wasted, and Cecil enjoyed everything with unwearied
vigour."
"Why, what else should we have done? It would have been very dull
and stupid to have stayed in together," said Cecil, with a world of
innocent wonder in her eyes. Then turning to her neighbour,
"Surely, Julius, you went about and saw things!"
"The sea at Filey Bridge, and the Church Congress at Leeds," he
answered, smiling.
"Very shocking, is it not, Cecil?" said Rosamond, with mock gravity;
"but he must be forgiven, for he was tired to death! I used to
think, for my part, that lovers were a sort of mild lunatics, never
to be troubled or trusted with any earthly thing; but that's one of
the things modern times have changed! As he was to be going, all
the clerical staff of St. Awdry's must needs have their holiday and
leave him to do their work; indeed, one was sent off here. For six
weeks I never saw him, except when he used to rush in to say he
couldn't stay; and when at last we were safe in the coupe, he fairly
went to sleep before we got to the first station.--Hush! you _know_
you did! And no wonder, for he had been up two nights with some
sort of infidel who was supposed to be dying. Then that first week
at Filey, he used to bring out his poetry books as the proper sort
of thing, and try to read them to me on the sands: but by the time
he had got to the bottom of a page, I used to hear the words
dragging out slower and slower--
Whereon the--lily--maid--of--Astolat
Lay--smiling--like--a--star-fish--fast--asleep."
Wherewith Rosamond dropped her head and closed her eyes; while the
brothers shouted with mirth, except Frank, whose countenance was 'of
one hurt on a vulnerable side.'
"Disrespect to Elaine? Eh, Frank?" said Charlie; "how many pegs has
Julius gone down in your estimation?"
Frank would not commit himself, but he was evidently at the era of
sensitiveness on the poetical side. Cecil spoke for him. "How very
provoking! What did you do to him, Rosamond?"
"I kept off the sand-flies! I can't say but I was glad of a little
rest, for I had been packing up for the whole family for ten days
past, with interludes of rushing out into the town; for whatever we
had not forgotten, the shops had not sent home! Oh! what a paradise
of quiet it was under the rocks at Filey--wasn't it, Julius?"
"We will go there again next time we have a chance," said Julius,
looking blissful.
"I would never go again to the same place," cried Cecil. "That's
not the way to acquire new ideas."
"We are too old to acquire new ideas, my dear," drawled Rosamond,
sleepily.
"What did you go to the Church Congress for!" asked Charlie.
"I hope Julius was awake by that time," said Frank.
"Not if we are to have all the new ideas tried on us," said Raymond,
dryly.
"I went to a Congress once!" exclaimed Cecil.
"Indeed!" said her husband, surprised.
"Yes. We thought we ought to encourage them. It was the Congress
of Sunday-school managers for our archdeaconry."
"Did you acquire any new ideas?" asked Frank; while Rosamond's very
eyelashes seemed to curl with suppressed diversion.
"Oh yes. We explained our system of tickets, and the Arch-deacon
said it was a very good one, and ought to be adopted everywhere."
This mode of acquisition of new ideas was quite too much for Julius
and Charlie, who both exploded; but Frank retained composure enough
to ask, "Did you explain it in person?"
"No. We made Mr. Venn."
"The schoolmaster?" said Julius.
"No. He is _our_ clergyman, and he always does as _we_ tell him;
and _so_ Dunstone is quite the model parish of the archdeaconry."
Julius could not help making an odd little bend of the head, half
deferential, half satirical; and Raymond said, "Cecil, I believe it
rests with you to make the move." An ingenuous girlish blush
mantled on her cheek as she looked towards Rosamond and moved.
The drawing-room adjoined the dining-room, and likewise had a glass
door leading into the conservatory; but this, like the other
windows, was concealed by the pale-blue damask curtains that
descended from cornices gilded like the legs of the substantial
chairs and sofas. There was, however, no lack of modern light cane
and basket seats round the fire, and it looked cheery and
comfortable. Rosamond put an arm round Anne's waist--"Poor tired
dear, come and lie on the sofa."
"Oh no, I couldn't. The gentlemen will come in."
"All brothers! What, will you only be satisfied with an easy-chair!
A charming room, and a charming fire!"
"Not so nice as a library," said Cecil, stabbing the fire with the
poker as a sort of act of possession. "We always sit in the library
at Dunstone. State rooms are horrid."
"This only wants to be littered down," said Rosamond. "That's my
first task in fresh quarters, banishing some things and upsetting
the rest, and strewing our own about judiciously. There are the
inevitable wax-flowers. I have regular blarney about their being so
lovely, that it would just go to my heart to expose them to the
boys."
"You have always been on the move," said Cecil, who was standing by
the table examining the ornaments.
"You may say so! there are not many of Her Majesty's garrisons that
I have not had experience of, except my native country that I wasn't
born in. It was very mean of them never once to send us to
Ireland."
"Where were you born?" said Cecil, neither of the two catching at
the bull which perhaps Rosamond had allowed to escape by way of
trying them.
"At Plymouth. Dick and I were both born at Plymouth, and Maurice at
Scutari; then we were in the West Indies; the next two were born all
up and down in Jamaica and all the rest of the Islands--Tom and
Terry--dear boys, I've got the charge of them now they are left at
school. Three more are Canadians; and little Nora is the only
Irish-born one amongst us."
"I thought you said you had never been in Ireland."
"Never quartered there, but on visits at Rathforlane," said
Rosamond. "Our ten years at home we have been up and down the
world, till at last you see I've ended where I began--at Plymouth."
"Oh, what a lovely Florentine mosaic!" exclaimed Cecil, who had
taken but slight interest in this itinerary. "It is just like a
weight at Dunstone." Then opening a miniature-case, "Who is this--
Mrs. Poynsett when she was young?"
"Most likely," said Rosamond. "It is like her now, and very like
Charlie."
"Yes. Charles is quite unlike the family."
"What family?" said Rosamond.
"The Charnocks, of course. Raymond is a perfect Charnock!"
"A vast advantage," murmured Rosamond.
"Of course," said Cecil, taking it quite seriously. "No one else
could be the same thing to us. Papa said there was not a match in
the whole world that could have gratified him so much."
"How old are you, Cecil?" quoth Rosamond, with a ripple in her
voice.
"Oh, his age was no matter. I don't like young men. That's not the
drawback; no, it is that horrid Poynsett at the end of the name."
"You see you had better have waived your objections to youth, and
taken a younger son."
"I couldn't," said this naive young person. "Besides, there is much
more of a field for me here than at Dunstone since papa's marriage."
Whatever Rosamond had on the tip of her tongue was averted by the
entrance of the three younger brothers. Julius seated himself
beside her in the cushioned fireside corner; and Cecil asked where
Raymond was.
"Just stepped in to see my mother," said Frank. "This room opens
into hers. Will you come to them?"
"Not yet," said Cecil. "I want you to tell me about the
neighbourhood."
"Just what I want," said Rosamond. "Whenever I ask, Julius always
says there's Dr. Easterby."
Frank and Charlie burst out laughing.
"Dr. Easterby is one of the greatest men in the English Church,"
said Julius.
"Precisely! But what is the regiment at Backsworth?" and as Charlie
named it, "Oh, what fun! That's where Laurie Cookson exchanged. He
will be sure to send us cards for everything."
"At Dunstone we never used to go to garrison gaieties," said Cecil,
gravely.
"Oh! I'm a military pariah," said Rosamond, hastily.
"Who are the land-owners?" continued Cecil. "There was a place I
saw from the line, but Raymond didn't hear when I asked whose it
was. Close to the station, I mean."
"That is Sirenwood," said Charles. "Sir Harry Vivian's. He is just
come back there with his two daughters."
"I thought Emily Vivian was dead," said Julius. "You don't mean
_that_ women!"
"_That_ woman?" laughed his wife. "What has she done to be a _that_
woman?"
"Offended his Reverence," said Frank, in that sort of jocose tone
which betrays annoyance.
"A heartless mischievous woman!" said Julius.
Rosamond cocked up her left eyebrow with an ineffably droll look,
which encouraged Charlie to say, "Such fierceness can only be
prompted by personal experience. Look out, Rosamond!"
"Come 'fess, Julius," said she, merrily. "'Fess and make it up."
"I--I have nothing to confess," said Julius, seriously.
"Hasn't he indeed?" said she, looking at the brothers.
"Oh! don't ask us," said Charlie. "His youthful indiscretions were
over long before our eyes had risen above the horizon!"
"Do you mean that they have really come home to live here?" demanded
Julius, with singular indifference to the personal insinuations.
"I am sorry it is so painful to you," said I Frank, somewhat
ironically; "but Sir Harry thinks it right to return and end his
days among his own people."
"Is he ill, then?"
"I can't gratify you so far," returned Frank; "he is a fine old
fellow of sixty-five. Just what humbugging papers call a regular
specimen of an old English gentleman," he added to Cecil.
"Humbugging indeed, I should hope," muttered Julius. "The old
English gentleman has reason to complain!"
"There's the charity of the clergy!" exclaimed Frank. "No
forgiveness for a man who has spent a little in his youth!"
"As an essential of the old English gentleman?" asked Julius.
"At any rate, the poor old fellow has been punished enough," said
Charlie.
"But what is it? Tell me all about it," said Cecil. "I am sure my
father would not wish me to associate with dissipated people."
"Ah! Cecil," said Rosamond. "You'll have to take refuge with the
military, after all!"
"It is just this," said Charlie. "Sir Harry and his only son were
always extravagant, one as bad as the other--weren't they, Julius?
Phil Bowater told me all about it, and how Tom Vivian lost fifteen
thousand pounds one Derby Day, and was found dead in his chambers
the next morning, they said from an over-dose of chloroform for
neuralgia. Then the estate was so dipped that Sir Harry had to give
up the estate to his creditors, and live on an allowance abroad or
at watering-places till now, when he has managed to come home. That
is to say, the house is really leased to Lady Tyrrell, and he is in
a measure her guest--very queer it must be for him in his own
house."
"Is Lady Tyrrell _that_ woman?" asked Rosamond.
"I conclude so," said Charlie. "She was the eldest daughter, and
married Lord Tyrrell, who died about two years ago. She has no
children, so she has taken the family in charge, patches up Sir
Harry's affairs with her jointure, and chaperons her sister."
"What is she like?"
"Ask Frank," said Charlie, slyly.
"No!" said Frank, with dignity. "I shall say no more, I only excite
prejudice."
"You are right, Frank," said Julius, who had evidently recovered
from the shock. "It is not fair to judge people now from what they
were eleven years ago. They have had some terrible lessons, and may
be much changed."
"Ay," said Frank; "and they have been living in an atmosphere
congenial to you, at Rockpier, and are hand and glove with all the
St. Chrysostom folk there. What do you say to that, Julius? I can
tell you they are enchanted with your curate!"
"They are not in this parish."
"No, but they turn up here--the ladies, at least--at all the
services at odd times that Bindon has begun with."
"Ah! by the bye, is Herbert Bowater come?"
"Yes, the whole family came over to his installation in Mrs.
Hornblower's lodgings."
"I saw him this morning, poor old Herbs," added Frank, "looking
uncommonly as if he felt himself in a strait waistcoat."
"What, are there two curates?" demanded Cecil, in a tone of
reprobation.
Julius made a gesture of assent, with a certain humorous air of
deprecation, which, however, was lost upon her.
"We never let Mr. Venn have one," continued Cecil, "except one
winter when he was ill, and then not a young one. Papa says idle
young clergymen are not to be encouraged."
"I am entirely of Mr. Charnock's opinion. But if I have exceeded
the Dunstone standard, it was not willingly. Herbert Bowater is the
son of some old friends of my mother's, who wanted to keep their son
near home, and made it their request that I would give him a title."
"And the Bowaters are the great feature in the neighbourhood," added
Frank. "Herbert tells me there are wonderful designs for
entertaining the brides."
"What do they consist of?" asked Rosamond.
"All the component parts of a family," said Frank. "The eldest
daughter is a sort of sheet-anchor to my mother, as well as her own.
The eldest son is at home now. He is in the army."
"In the Light Dragoons?" asked Rosamond. "Oh! then I knew him at
Edinburgh! A man with yellow whiskers, and the next thing to a
stutter."
"I declare, Julius, she is as good as any army list," exclaimed
Charlie.
"There's praise!" cried Frank. "The army list is his one book!
What a piece of luck to have you to coach him up in it!"
"I dare say Rosamond can tell me lots of wrinkles for my outfit,"
said Charles.
"I should hope so, having rigged out Dick for the line, and Maurice
for the artillery!"
Charlie came and leant on the mantel-shelf, and commenced a
conversation sotto voce on the subject nearest his heart; while
Cecil continued her catechism.
"Are the Bowaters intellectual?"
"Jenny is very well read," said Julius, "a very sensible person."
"Yes," said Frank; "she was the only person here that so much as
tried to read Browning. But if Cecil wants intellect, she had
better take to the Duncombes, the queerest firm I ever fell in with.
He makes the turf a regular profession, actually gets a livelihood
out of his betting-book; and she is in the strong-minded line--
woman's rights, and all the rest of it."
"We never had such people at Dunstone," said Cecil. "Papa always
said that the evil of being in parliament was the having to be civil
to everybody."
Just then Raymond came back with intelligence that his mother was
about to go to bed, and to call his wife to wish her good night.
All went in succession to do the same.
"My dear," she said to Anne, "I hoped you were in bed."
"I thought I would wait for family worship."
"I am afraid we don't have prayers at night, my dear. We must
resume them in the morning, now Raymond and Julius are come."
Poor Anne looked all the whiter, and only mumbled out a few answers
to the kind counsels lavished upon her. Mrs. Poynsett was left to
think over her daughters-in-law.
Lady Rosamond did not occupy her much. There was evidently plenty
of good strong love between her and her husband; and though her
training might not have been the best for a clergyman's wife, there
was substance enough in both to shake down together in time.
But it was Raymond who made her uneasy--Raymond, who ever since his
father's death had been more than all her other sons to her. She
had armed herself against the pang of not being first with him, and
now she was full of vague anxiety at the sense that she still held
her old position. Had he not sat all the evening in his own place
by her sofa, as if it were the very kernel of home and of repose?
And whenever a sense of duty prompted her to suggest fetching his
wife, had he not lingered, and gone on talking? It was indeed of
Cecil; but how would she have liked his father, at the honeymoon's
end, to prefer talking of her to talking with her? "She has been
most carefully brought up, and is very intelligent and industrious,"
said Raymond. His mother could not help wondering whether a Roman
son might not thus have described a highly accomplished Greek slave,
just brought home for his mother's use.