The Apple of Ate
Oh mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?--The Three Bears
"I do really think Terry has found the secret of happiness, for a
_little_ while at least," said Rosamond, entering Mrs. Poynsett's
room. "That funny little man in the loan museum has asked him to
help in the arrangement."
"Who is it?"
"The little watchmaker, or watch cobbler, in the old curiosity
shop."
"Yes; Terry calls him a descendant of the Genoese Frescobaldi, and
I'm sure his black eyes were never made for an English head. Terry
has always haunted those uncanny wares of his, and has pursued them
to the museum. ''Tis not every young gentleman I would wish to see
there,' says the old man, 'but the Honourable Mr. De Lancey has the
soul of an antiquarian.'"
"They say the old man is really very clever and well read."
"He looks like an old magician, with his white cap and spectacles,
and he had need to have a wand to bring order out of that awful
chaos. Everybody all round has gone and cleared out their rubbish-
closet. Upon my word, it looks so. There are pictures all one
network of cracks, and iron caps and gauntlets out of all the halls
in every stage of rust, and pots and pans and broken crocks, and
baskets of coin all verdigris and tarnish!--Pah!"
"Are Miles's birds safe?"
"Oh yes, with a swordfish's sword and a sawfish's saw making a
trophy on the top. Terry is in the library, hunting material for a
dissertation upon the ancient unicorn, which ought to conclude with
the battle royal witnessed by Alice in Wonderland. The stuffed
department is numerous but in a bad way as to hair, and chiefly
consists of everybody's grandmother's old parrots and squirrels and
white rats. Then, every boy, who ever had a fit of birds' eggs or
butterflies, has sent in a collection, chiefly minus the lower
wings, and with volunteer specimens of moth; but luckily some give
leave to do what they please with them, so the magician is making
composition animals with the debris."
"Not really!"
"I made a feeble attempt with an admiral's wings and an orange tip,
but I was scouted. About four dilapidated ones make up a proper
specimen, and I can't think how it is all to be done in the time;
but really something fit to be seen is emerging. Terry is sorting
the coins, a pretty job, I should say; but felicity to him. But oh!
the industrial articles! There are all the regalia, carved out of
cherry-stones, and a patchwork quilt of 5000 bits of silk each no
bigger than a shilling. And a calculation of the middle verse in
the Bible, and the longest verse, and the shortest verse, and the
like edifying Scriptural researches, all copied out like flies'
legs, in writing no one can see but Julius with his spectacles off,
and set in a brooch as big as the top of a thimble, all done by a
one-legged sergeant of marines. So that the line might not be out
done, I offered my sergeant-major's banner-screen, but I am sorry to
say they declined it, which made me jealous."
"Are there any drawings of the Reynolds' boy?"
"Yes, Lenore Vivian brought them down, and very good they are.
Every one says he has the making of a genius, but he does not look
as if it agreed with him; he is grown tall, and thin, and white, and
I should not wonder if those good-for-nothing servants bullied him."
"Did you see anything of Eleonora?"
"Nothing so impossible. I meet her every day, but she is always
beset with the Strangeways, and I think she avoids me."
"I can hardly think so."
"I don't like it! That man is always hanging about Sirenwood, and
Lenore never stirs an inch without one of those girls. I wish Frank
could see for himself, poor fellow."
"He does hope to run down next week. I have just heard from him in
high spirits. One of his seniors has come into some property,
another is out of health and retires, so there is some promotion in
view."
"I wish it would make haste then. I don't like the look of things."
"I can hardly disbelieve in the dear girl herself; yet I do feel as
if it were against nature for it to succeed. Did you hear anything
of Mrs. Bowater to-day?"
"Yes, she is much better, and Edith is coming to go into the gallery
with me on Tuesday when they inaugurate the Rat-house. Oh! did you
hear of the debate about it? You know there's to be a procession--
all the Volunteers, and all the Odd Fellows, and all the Good
Templars, and all the school-children of all denominations--whatever
can walk behind a flag. Our choir boys grew emulous, and asked
Herbert to ask the Rector to let them have our lovely banner with
the lilies on it; but he declined, though there's no choice but to
give the holiday that will be taken."
"Was that the debate?"
"Oh no! that was among the higher powers--where the procession
should start from. The precedent was an opening that began with
going to church, and having a sermon from the Bishop; but then
there's no church, and after that spur the Bishop gave them they
can't ask him without one; besides, the mayor dissents, and so do a
good many more of them. So they are to meet at the Market Cross,
and Mr. Fuller, in the famous black gown, supported by Mr. Driver,
is to head them. I'm not sure that Julius and Herbert were not in
the programme, but Mr. Truelove spoke up, and declared that Mr.
Flynn the Wesleyan Methodist, and Mr. Howler the Primitive
Methodist, and Mr. Riffell the Baptist, had quite as good a right to
walk in the foreground and to hold forth, and Mr. Moy supported
him."
"Popularity hunting against Raymond."
"Precisely. But Howler, Flynn, and Co. were too much for Mr.
Fuller, so he seceded, and the religious ceremonies are now to be
confined to his saying grace at the dinner. Raymond thinks it as
well, for the inaugural speech would only have been solemn mockery;
but Julius thinks it a sad beginning for the place to have no
blessing because of our unhappy divisions. Isn't that like Julius?"
"Exactly, though I see it more from Raymond's point of view. So you
are going to the dinner?"
"Oh yes. Happily my Rector has nothing to say against that, and I
am sure he owes me something for keeping me out of the bazaar. In
fact, having avoided the trouble, I _couldn't_ take the pleasure!
and he must set that against the races."
"My dear, though I am not set against races like Julius, I think,
considering his strong feelings on the subject--"
"My dear Mrs. Poynsett, it would be very bad for Julius to give in
to his fancies. The next thing would be to set baby up in a little
hood and veil like a nun!"
Rosamond's winsome nonsense could not but gain a smile. No doubt
she was a pleasant daughter-in-law, though, for substantial care,
Anne was the strength and reliance. Even Anne was much engrossed by
preparations for the bazaar. It had been a great perplexity to her
that the one thing she thought not worldly should be condemned by
Julius, and he had not tried to prevent her from assisting Cecil,
thinking, as he had told Eleonora, that the question of right and
wrong was not so trenchant as to divide households.
The banquet and inauguration went off fairly well. There was
nothing in it worth recording, except that Rosamond pronounced that
Raymond only wanted a particle of Irish fluency to be a perfect
speaker; but every one was observing how ill and depressed he
looked. Even Cecil began to see it herself, and to ask Lady Tyrrell
with some anxiety whether she thought him altered.
"Men always look worn after a Session," said Lady Tyrrell.
"If this really makes him unhappy!"
"My dear Cecil, that's the very proof of the necessity. If it makes
him unhappy to go five miles away with his wife, it ought not. You
should wean him from such dependence."
Cecil had tears in her eyes as she said, "I don't know! When I hear
him sighing in his sleep, I long to give it up and tell him I will
try to be happy here."
"My dear child, don't be weak. If you give way now, you will rue it
all your life."
"If I could have taken to his mother, I think he would have cared
more for me."
"No. The moment her jealousy was excited she would have resumed
him, and you would have been the more shut out in the cold. A
little firmness now, and the fresh start is before you."
Cecil sighed, feeling that she was paying a heavy price for that
fresh start, but her hands were too full for much thought. Guests
came to dinner, Mrs. Poynsett kept more to her own room, and Raymond
exerted himself to talk, so that the blank of the evenings was less
apparent. The days were spent at the town-hall, where the stalls
were raised early enough for all the ladies, their maids and
footmen, to buzz about them all day, decking them out.
Mrs. Duncombe was as usual the guiding spirit, contriving all with a
cleverness that made the deficiencies of her household the more
remarkable. Conny and Bee Strangeways were the best workers, having
plenty of experience and resource, and being ready to do anything,
however hard, dusty, or disagreeable; and to drudge contentedly,
with plenty of chatter indeed, but quite as freely to a female as to
a male companion; whereas Miss Moy had a knot of men constantly
about her, and made a noise which was a sore trial to Cecil's heavy
spirit all the first day, exclusive of the offence to her native
fastidiousness. She even called upon Lady Tyrrell and Mrs. Duncombe
to hold a council whether all gentlemen should not be excluded the
next day, as spoiling the ladies' work, and of no use themselves;
but there were one or two who really did toil, and so well that they
could not be dispensed with, and Mrs. Duncombe added that it would
not do to give offence.
There was a harassed look about Mrs. Duncombe herself, for much
depended on the success of her husband's filly, Dark Hag. The
Captain had hitherto been cautious, and had secured himself against
heavy loss, so as to make the turf a tolerable speculation, on but
the wonderful perfections of this animal had led him to stake much
more on her than had been his wont; and though his wife was assured
of being a rich woman in another week, she was not sorry for the
multiplicity of occupations which hindered her mind from dwelling
too much on the chances.
"How calm you look,--how I envy you!" she said, as she came to
borrow some tape of Eleonora Vivian, who was fastening the pendent
articles to the drapery of her sister's stall. Eleonora gave a
constrained smile, feeling how little truth there was in her
apparent peace, wearied out as she was with the long conflict and
constant distrust. She was the more anxious to be with Lady Susan,
whose every word she could believe, and she finally promised to
leave home with Bee and Conny the day after the ball, and to meet
their mother in London. They knew there was no chance for Lorimer,
but they took her on her own terms, hoping something perhaps, and at
any rate glad to be a comfort to one whom they really loved, while
Lady Tyrrell was delighted to promote the visit, seeing that the
family did more for Lorimer's cause than he did for himself; and in
his own home who could guess the result, especially after certain
other manoeuvres of her ladyship had taken effect?
Lady Tyrrell did not know, nor indeed did Conny or Bee, that, though
they would meet their mother in London, she would not at once go
into Yorkshire with them, but would send them to their uncle's,
while she repaired to the retreat at St. Faith's. The harass of
these last few weeks, especially the endeavour to make her go to the
races, had removed all scruples from Lenore's mind as to leaving her
home in ignorance of her intentions. To her mind, the circumstances
of her brother's death had made a race-course no place for any of
the family, especially that of Backsworth; gout coming opportunely
to disable her father in London, and one or two other little
accidents, had prevented the matter from coming to an issue while
she had been in London, and the avowal of her intention to keep away
had filled her father with passion at her for her absurd scruples
and pretences at being better than other people. It had been Lady
Tyrrell who pacified him with assurances that she would soon do
better; no one wished to force her conscience, and Lenore, always on
the watch, began to wonder whether her sister had any reason for
wishing to keep her away, and longed the more for the house of truth
and peace.
So came on the bazaar day, which Mrs. Poynsett spent in solitude,
except for visits from the Rectory, and one from Joanna Bowater, who
looked in while Julius was sitting with her, and amused them by her
account of herself as an emissary from home with ten pounds to be
got rid of from her father and mother for good neighbourhood's sake.
She brought Mrs. Poynsett a beautiful bouquet, for the elderly
spinsters, she said, sat on the stairs and kept up a constant
supply; and she had also some exquisite Genoese wire ornaments from
Cecil's counter, and a set of studs from a tray of polished pebbles
sent up from Vivian's favourite lapidary at Rockpier. She had been
amused to find the Miss Strangeways hunting over it to match that
very simple-looking charm which Lena wore on to her watch, for, as
she said, "the attraction must either be the simplicity of it, or
the general Lena-worship in which those girls indulge."
"How does that dear child look?"
"Fagged, I think, but so does every one, and it was not easy to keep
order, Mrs. Duncombe's counter was such a rendezvous for noisy
people, and Miss Moy was perfectly dreadful, running about forcing
things on people and refusing change."
"And how is poor Anne enduring?"
"Like Christian in Vanity Fair as long as she did endure, for she
retired to the spinsters on the back stairs. I offered to bring her
home, and she accepted with delight, but I dropped her in the
village to bestow her presents. I was determined to come on here;
we go on Monday."
"Shall you be at the Ordination?"
"I trust so. If mamma is pretty well, we shall both go."
"Is Edith going to the ball on Thursday?"
"No, she has given it up. It seems as if we at least ought to
recollect our Ember days, though I am ashamed to think we never did
till this time last year."
"I confess that I never heard of them," said Mrs. Poynsett. "Don't
look shocked, my dear; such things were not taught in my time."
Julius showed her the rubric and the prayer from the book in his
pocket, knowing that the one endeared to her by association was one
of the Prayer-books made easy by omission of all not needed at the
barest Sunday service.
"I see," she said, "it seems quite right. I wish you had told me
before you were ordained, my dear."
"You kept your Ember days for me by instinct, dear mother."
"Don't be too sure, Julius. One learns many things when one is laid
on one's back."
"Think of Herbert now," whispered Jenny. "I am glad he is sheltered
from all this hubbub by being at the palace. I suppose you cannot
go to the Cathedral, Julius?"
"No, Bindon will not come back till his brother's holiday is over,
nor do I even know where to write to him. Oh! here comes Anne. Now
for her impressions."
Anne had brought her little gift for Mrs. Poynsett, and displayed
her presents for Glen Fraser, but as to what she had seen it made
her shudder and say, "You were right, Julius, I did not know people
could go on so! And with all those poor people ill close by. Miss
Slater, who sat on the stairs just below me tying up flowers, is
much grieved about a lad who was at work there till a fortnight ago,
and now is dying of a fever, and harassed by all the rattling of the
carriages."
"What! close by! Nothing infectious, I hope?"
"The doctor called it gastric fever, but no one was to hear of it
lest there should be an alarm; and it was too late to change the
place of the bazaar, though it is so sad to have all that gaiety
close at hand."
If these were the impressions of Anne and Joanna early in the day,
what were they later, when, in those not sustained by excitement,
spirit and energy began to flag? Cecil's counter, with her
excellent and expensive wares, and her own dignified propriety, was
far less popular than those where the goods were cheaper and the
saleswomen less inaccessible, and she was not only disappointed at
her failure, but vexed when told that the articles must be raffled
for. She could not object, but it seemed an unworthy end for what
had cost her so much money and pains to procure, and it was not
pleasant to see Mrs. Duncombe and Miss Moy hawking the tickets
about, like regular touters, nor the most beautiful things drawn by
the most vulgar and tasteless people.
Miss Moy had around her a court of 'horsey' men who were lounging
away the day before the races, and who had excited her spirits to a
pitch of boisterousness such as dismayed Mrs. Duncombe herself when
her attempts at repression were only laughed at.
Somehow, among these adherents, there arose a proposal for the
election of a queen of beauty, each gentleman paying half-a-crown
for the right of voting. Miss Moy bridled and tried to blush. She
was a tall, highly-coloured, flashing-eyed brunette, to whom a
triumph would be immense over the refined, statuesque, severe Miss
Vivian, and an apple-blossom innocent-looking girl who was also
present, and though Lady Tyrrell was incontestably the handsomest
person in the room, her age and standing had probably prevented her
occurring to the propounders of the scheme.
The design was taking shape when young Strangeways, who was willing
to exchange chaff with Gussie Moy, but was gentleman enough to feel
the indecorum of the whole thing, moved across to his sister, and
muttered, "I say, Con, they are getting up that stupid trick of
election of a queen of beauty. Does Lady Tyrrell know it?"
"Wouldn't it be rather fun?"
"Horrid bad form, downright impudence. Mother would squash it at
once. Go and warn one of them," signing with his head.
Constance made her way to Eleonora, who had already been perplexed
and angered by more than one critical stare, as one and another man
loitered past and gazed intrepidly at her. She hurried at once to
her sister, who was sitting passively behind her counter as if
wearied out, and who would not be stirred to interference. "Never
mind, Lenore, it can't be helped. It is all for the cause, and to
stop it would be worse taste, fitting on the cap as an acknowledged
beauty, and to that I'm not equal."
"It is an insult."
"Never fear, they'll never choose you while you look so forbidding,
though perhaps it is rather becoming. They have not the taste."
Eleonora said no more, but went over to the window where Raymond was
keeping his guard, with his old-fashioned sense of protection. She
had no sooner told him than he started into incredulous indignation,
in which he was joined by his wife who only wished him to dash
forward to prevent the scheme before he would believe it real.
However, when the ballot-box came his way, and a simpering youth
presented him with a card, begging for his opinion, he spoke so as
to be heard by all, "No, thank you, sir. I am requested by the
ladies present to state that such competition was never contemplated
by their committee and would be repugnant to all their sentiments.
They beg that the election may be at once dropped and the money
returned."
Mr. Charnock Poynsett had a weight that no one resisted. There was
a moment's silence, a little murmur, apologetic and remonstrant, but
the deed was done.
Only a clear voice, with the thrillings of disappointed vanity and
exultation scarcely disguised by a laugh, was heard saying, louder
than the owner knew, "Oh, of course Mr. Charnock Poynsett spoiled
sport. It would have been awkward between his wife and his old
flame."
"For shame, Gussie," hushed Mrs. Duncombe, "they'll hear."
"I don't care! Let them! Stuck-up people!"
Whoever heard, Cecil Charnock Poynsett did, and felt as if the
ground were giving way with her.