Rosamond's Apologue
Pray, sir, do you laugh at me?--Title of Old Caricature
Was Cecil's allegiance to Dunstone, or was it to the heiress of
Dunstone? Tests of allegiance consist in very small matters, and it
is not always easy to see the turning-point. Now Cecil had always
stood on a pinnacle at Dunstone, and she had found neither its
claims nor her own recognized at Compton. One kind of allegiance
would have remained on the level, and retained the same standard,
whether accepted or not. Another would climb on any pinnacle that
any one would erect for the purpose, and become alienated from
whatever interfered with such eminence.
So as nobody seemed so willing to own Cecil's claims to county
supremacy as Lady Tyrrell, her bias was all towards Sirenwood; and
whereas such practices as prevailed at Dunstone evidently were
viewed as obsolete and narrow by these new friends, Cecil was
willing to prove herself superior to them, and was far more
irritated than convinced when her husband appealed to her former
habits.
The separation of the welfare of body and soul had never occurred to
the beneficence of Dunstone, and it cost Cecil a qualm to accept it;
but she could not be a goody in the eyes of Sirenwood; and besides,
she was reading some contemporary literature, which made it plain
that any religious instruction was a most unjustifiable interference
with the great law, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and so, when she met
Anne with a handful of texts neatly written out in printing letters,
she administered her warning.
Cecil and Anne had become allies to a certain extent, chiefly
through their joint disapproval of Rosamond, not to say of Julius;
and the order was so amazing that Anne did not at first take it in;
and when she understood that all mention of religion was forbidden,
she said, "I do not think I ought to yield in this."
"Surely," said Cecil, "there is no connection between piety and
cutting out."
"I don't know," said Anne; "but it does not seem to me to be right
to go on with a work where my Master's Name is forbidden."
"Religion ought never to be obtruded," said Cecil.
"The Word ought to flavour everything, in season or out of season,"
said Anne, thoughtfully.
"Oh! that's impossible. It's your narrow view. If you thrust
preaching into everything, we can never work together."
"Oh, then," said Anne, quickly, "I must give it up!" And she turned
away with a rapid step, to carry her texts back to her room.
"Anne!" called Cecil, "I did not mean _that_!"
Anne paused for a moment, looked over the baluster, and repeated
firmly, "No, Cecil; it would be denying Christ to work where His
Name is forbidden."
Perhaps there was something in the elevation and the carved rail
that gave the idea of a pulpit, for Cecil felt as if she was being
preached at, and turned her back, indignant and vexed at what she
had by no means intended to incur--the loss of such a useful
assistant as she found in Anne.
"Such nonsense!" she said to herself, as she crossed the hall alone,
there meeting with Rosamond, equipped for the village. "Is not Anne
going to-day?" she said, as she saw the pony-carriage at the door.
"No. It is so vexatious. She is so determined upon preaching to
the women, that I have been obliged to put a stop to it."
"Indeed! I should not have thought it of poor Anne; but no one can
tell what those semi-dissenters think right."
"When she declared she ought to do it in season or out of season,
what was one to do?" said Cecil.
"I thought that was for clergymen," said Rosamond, hitting the right
nail on the head in her ignorance, as so often happened.
"She sees no difference," said Cecil. "Shall I drive you down?" she
added graciously, according to the fashion of uniting with one
sister-in-law against the other; and Rosamond not only accepted, but
asked to be taken on to Willansborough, to buy a birthday present
for her brother Terry, get stamps for an Indian letter, and perform
a dozen more commissions that seemed to arise in her mind with the
opportunity. Her two brothers were to spend the Christmas holidays
with her, and she was in high spirits, and so communicative about
them that she hardly observed how little interest Cecil took in
Terry's achievements.
"Who is that," she presently asked, "with those red-haired children?
It looked like Miss Vivian's figure."
"I believe it was. Julius and I often see her walking about the
lanes; but she passes like--like a fire-flaught, whatever that is--
just bows, and hardly ever speaks."
"She is a strange girl," said Cecil. "Lady Tyrrell says she cannot
draw her into any of her interests, but she will go her own way."
"Like poor Anne?"
"No, not out of mere moping and want of intellect, like Anne. But
Lady Tyrrell says she feels for her; she was brought a great deal
too forward, and was made quite mistress of the house at Rockpier,
being her father's darling and all, and now it is trying to her,
though it is quite wholesome, to be in her proper place. It is a
pity she is so bitter over it, and flies off her own way."
"That boy!" said Rosamond; "I hope she does something for his good."
"She teaches him, I believe; but there's another instance of her
strange ways. She was absolutely vexed when Lady Tyrrell took him
into the house, though he was her protege, only because it was not
done in _her_ way. It is a great trial to Camilla."
"I could fancy a reason for that," said Rosamond. "Julius does not
like the tone of the household at all." But she added hastily, "Who
could those children be? They did not look _quite_ like poor
children."
"Ah! she is always taking up with some odd person in her own away,"
said Cecil. "But here we are. Will you drive on to the hotel, or
get out here?"
When, at the end of two hours, the sisters-in-law met at the work-
room, and Rosamond had taken a survey of the row of needle-women,
coming up one by one to give their work, be paid and dismissed,
there was a look of weariness and vexation on Cecil's face. She had
found it less easy to keep order and hinder gossip, and had hardly
known how to answer when that kind lady, Mrs. Miles Charnock, had
been asked after; but she would have scorned to allow that she had
missed her assistant, and only politely asked how Rosamond had sped.
"Oh! excellently. People were so well advised as to be out, so I
paid off all my calls."
"You did not return your calls without Julius?"
"There's nothing he hates so much. I would not have dragged him
with me on any account."
"I think it is due to one's self."
"Ah! but then I don't care what is due to myself. I saw a friend of
yours, Cecil."
"Who?"
"Mrs. Duncombe," said Rosamond. "I went to Pettitt's--the little
perfumer, you know, that Julius did so much for at the fire; and
there she was, leaning on the counter, haranguing him confidentially
upon setting an example with sanatory measures."
"Sanitary," corrected Cecil; "sanitas is health, sano to cure.
People never know the difference."
"Certainly I don't," said Rosamond. "It must be microscopic!"
"Only it shows the difference between culture and the reverse," said
Cecil.
"Well, you know, I'm the reverse," said Rosamond, leaning sleepily
back, and becoming silent; but Cecil was too anxious for
intelligence to let her rest, and asked on what Mrs. Duncombe was
saying.
"I am not quite sure--she was stirring up his public spirit, I
think, about the drainage; and they were both of them deploring the
slackness and insensibility of the corporation, and canvassing for
Mr. Whitlock, as I believe. It struck me as a funny subject for a
lady, but I believe she does not stick at trifles."
"No real work can be carried out by those who do," said Cecil.
"Oh!" added Rosamond, "I met Mrs. and Miss Bowater, and they desired
me to say that Jenny can't come till the dinner-party on the 20th,
and then they will leave her."
"How cool to send a message instead of writing!"
"Oh! she has always been like one of themselves, like a sister to
them all."
"I can't bear that sort of people."
"What sort?"
"Who worm themselves in."
"Miss Bowater could have no occasion for worming. They must be
quite on equal terms."
"At any rate, she was only engaged to their poor relation."
"What poor relation? Tell me! Who told you?"
"Raymond. It was a young attorney--a kind of cousin of the Poynsett
side, named Douglas."
"What? There's a cross in the churchyard to Elizabeth Douglas,
daughter of Francis Poynsett, and wife of James Douglas, and at the
bottom another inscription to Archibald Douglas, her son, lost in
the Hippolyta."
"Yes, that must be the man. He was flying from England, having been
suspected of some embezzlement."
"Indeed! And was Jenny engaged to him? Julius told me that Mrs.
Douglas had been his mother's dearest friend, and that this Archie
had been brought up with them, but he did not say any more."
"Perhaps he did not like having had a cousin in an attorney's
office. I am sure I had no notion of such a thing."
Rosamond laughed till she was exhausted at the notion of Julius's
sharing the fastidious objections she heard in Cecil's voice; and
then, struck by the sadness of the story, she cried, "And that makes
them all so fond of Miss Bowater. Poor girl, what must she not have
gone through! And yet how cheerful she does look!"
"People say," proceeded Cecil, unable to resist the impulse to
acquire a partaker in her half-jealous aversion, "that it was a
great disappointment that Mrs. Poynsett could not make her sons like
her as much as she did herself."
"Oh!" cried Rosamond, "how little peace we should have if we always
heeded what people say!"
"People that know," persisted Cecil.
"Not very wise or very kind people to say so," quoth Rosamond;
"though, by the bye, the intended sting is happily lost, considering
that it lies among five."
"Why should you assume a sting?"
"Because I see you are stung, and want to sting me," said Rosamond,
in so merry a tone that the earnestness was disguised.
"I! I'm not stung! What Mrs. Poynsett or Miss Bowater may have
schemed is nothing to me," said Cecil, with all her childish
dignity.
"People talk of Irish imagination," said Rosamond in her lazy
meditative tone.
"Well?" demanded Cecil, sharply.
"Only it is not _my_ Irish imagination that has devised this
dreadful picture of the artful Jenny and Mrs. Poynsett spinning
their toils to entrap the whole five brothers. Come, Cecil, take my
advice and put it out of your head. Suppose it were true, small
blame to Mrs. Poynsett."
"What do you mean?" said Cecil, in a voice of hurt dignity.
"I may mean myself." And Rosamond's peal of merry laughter was most
amazing and inexplicable to her companion, who was not sure that she
was not presuming to laugh at her.
There was a silence, broken at last by Rosamond. "Cecil, I have
been tumbled about the world a good deal more than you have, and I
never found that one got any good by disregarding the warnings of
the natives. There's an immense deal in the cat and the cock."
"I do not understand, said Cecil.
Whereupon Rosamond, in a voice as if she were telling the story to a
small child, began: "Once upon a time there was a wee bit
mousiekie, that lived in Giberatie O--that trotted out of her hole
upon an exploring expedition. By and by she came scuttling back in
a state of great trepidation--in fact, horribly nervous. 'Mother,
mother!' said the little mouse, 'I've seen a hideous monster, with a
red face, and a voice like a trumpet, and a pair of spurs.'"
"Of course, I know that," broke in Cecil.
"Ah, you haven't heard all. 'I should have died of terror,' said
the little mouse, 'only that I saw a dear sweet graceful creature,
with a lovely soft voice, and a smooth coat, and the most beautiful
eyes, and the most exquisite pathetic expression in her smile; and
she held out her velvet paw to me, and said, 'Dear little mousiekie-
pousie, you're the loveliest creature I ever met, quite
unappreciated in these parts. That horrid old cock is terribly
vulgar and commonplace; and never you believe your mother if she
tells you he is better worth cultivating than one who has such a
deep genuine love and appreciation of all the excellences of all
mice, and of you in particular with your dun fur.'"
Rosamond could not for her very life help putting in that word dun;
and Cecil, who had been driving straight on with her eyes fixed on
her pony's ears, and rather a sullen expression of forced endurance,
faced about. "What you mean by all this I don't know; but if you
think it applies to me or my friends, you are much mistaken."
"I told you," said Rosamond, with the same languor, looking out
under her half-shut eyes, "that I apply things to myself. I've met
both sorts in my time."
And silence reigned for the rest of the way. Cecil had read many
more books, knew much more, and was altogether a far more cultivated
personage than the Lady Rosamond; but she was not half so ready in
catching the import of spoken words; and all this time she was by no
means certain whether all this meant warning or meant mockery,
though either was equally impertinent, and must be met with the same
lady-like indifference, which Cecil trusted that she had never
transgressed.
Neither of them, nor indeed any other living creature, knew of a
little episode which had occurred about eighteen months previously,
when Joanna Bowater had been taking care of Mrs Poynsett during
Raymond's first absence from home after her accident. Of course he
took her back to Strawyers as soon as he arrived; and about half-
way, after a prolonged and unusual silence, he said, "Jenny, I
believe we know one another's histories pretty well. It would be a
great happiness and blessing if you could bring yourself to sink the
past so far as to take me, and become indeed my mother's daughter.
Do not answer me in haste. Think it over, and tell me if it is
possible."
Jenny let him drive on more than a mile before she spoke; and when
she did, the tears stood on her cheek, and it was quite an effort
that her voice was made steady. "No, Raymond, I am very sorry, but
it will not do. Two griefs will not make one joy."
"Yes, they would, to my mother."
"Ah! there it lies! Indeed, Raymond, I do feel for you all so much,
especially your dear mother, that I would bring myself to it, if I
could; but the very thought brings Archie up so vividly before me
that I cannot! He has almost seemed to be sitting by me all this
time. It seems as though beginning again would kill my right to
think of him foremost of all."
"I could bear with that and trust to time," said Raymond. "Think it
over, Jenny. I will be candid with you. The old delusion was too
strong for any repetition of that kind, as you may see by the lame
performance I am making now."
Jenny gave a little agitated laugh, and ejaculated, "Dear Raymond!"
then added, "It is not on your account, but mine."
"But," he added, "my marriage is becoming a necessity, if only for
my mother's sake; and you stand far before any other woman with me,
if that would but satisfy you. I verily believe that in a short
time we should be just as comfortable together as if we could start
with more romance."
"I dare say we should, dear Raymond," said Jenny; "but I cannot feel
that it is the right thing, while I have not _that_ feeling for you
which overpowers everything else; it seems to me that I ought not to
give up my place at home. Papa depends on me a good deal, and they
both will want me more and more."
"Less than my mother."
"I don't know; and they are my first duty. I can always come to
your mother when I am wanted, and I know in your secret soul you
prefer me on those terms."
He made no answer, only when passing the lodge he said, "Will you
consider it a little longer, Jenny?"
But this only resulted in a note:--
"DEAR RAYMOND,--Considering only shows me that I must be Archie
Douglas's now and for ever. I can't help it. It is better for
you; for you can find some young girl who can wake your heart
again, as never could be done by your still affectionate J. B."
Raymond and Jenny had met so often since, that the matter was
entirely past, and no one ever guessed it.
At any rate, Rosamond, the most ready to plunge into counsel to
Cecil, was the least likely to have it accepted; Rosamond had
foibles of her own that Cecil knew of, and censured freely enough
within herself.
That never-ending question, whether what became the Colonel's
daughter became the clergyman's wife, would crop up under endless
forms. Rosamond, in all opinions, was good-natured and easy, and
always for pardon and toleration to an extent that the Compton code
could not understand. She could not bear that anybody should be
punished or shut out of anything; while there was no denying that,
now the first novelty was passing, she was very lazy as to her
parochial work, and that where her feelings were not stirred she was
of little use.
Julius seemed shamefully tolerant of her omissions, and likewise of
her eagerness for all gaieties. He would not go himself, would not
accept a dinner invitation for any of the three busy nights of the
week, and refused all those to dances and balls for himself, though
he never hindered Rosamond's going.
She used absolutely to cry with passionate entreaties that he would
relent and come with her, declaring that he was very unkind, he knew
it took away all her pleasure--he was a tyrant, and wanted her not
to go. And then he smiled, and owned that he hoped some day she
would be tired of it; whereat she raged, and begged him to forbid
her, if he really thought her whole life had been so shocking,
declaring in the same breath that she would never disown her family,
or cast a slur on her mother and sisters.
It always ended in her going, and though never again offending as by
her bridal gown, she seldom failed to scandalize Cecil by an excess
of talking and of waltzing, such as even Raymond regretted, and
which disabled her for a whole day after from all but sofa, sleep,
novels, and yawns.
Was this the person whose advice the discreet heiress of Dunstone
was likely to follow?
It may be mentioned here, among other elements of difficulty, that
Cecil's maid Grindstone was a thorough Dunstonite, who 'kept herself
to herself,' was perfectly irreproachable, lived on terms of distant
civility with the rest of the household, never complained, but
constantly led her young mistress to understand that she was
enduring much for her sake.
Cecil was too well trained, and so was she, for a word of gossip or
censure to pass between them; but the influence was not the less
strong.