GLADYS REAPING HER FRUITS.
Our story began at Glanyravon, in the cheery month of June, and at Glanyravon, in the same cheery month, we will end it.
I must beg my readers to pass over in their imaginations one twelvemonth, of which I do not mean to say anything, and to accompany me to the gate at Glanyravon Farm, where they first made acquaintance with Mrs Prothero and Gladys. A hasty glance will suffice to show that all is much the same at this said gate as it was ten years ago, save and except that the extraneous accompaniments are changed. Instead of a group of Irish beggars and a dying girl, it is surrounded by a party of well-dressed peasants in high, smooth hats and striped flannel gowns. Moreover, it is surrounded by an arch of evergreens and flowers, of most tasteful form and beautiful colour.
We will not linger here at present, but pursue our way along the road. We meet more peasants, in holiday costume, talking and laughing together, with Miss Gwynne's school children in their scarlet cloak and best frocks. They all seem to be lingering about, with nothing to do, and enjoying their idleness and June holiday as thoroughly as the greatest philanthropist in the world could desire. As we approach the entrance of the Park, we see another magnificent arch spanning the road. We turn to the large iron gates, and they, too, are circled with laurels and roses.
We walk through the gates, and to the right, far in amongst the trees, are long lines of tables covered with white, and bearing the remains of a huge feast, at which, we take it for granted, the people we have met have been regaled. Scattered here and there amongst the oaks, elms, and ashes are more peasants and school children amusing themselves variously.
We pursue our way up the drive until we come to the memorable oak, under which words were spoken greatly influencing the fates of two of the individuals in whom I have been endeavouring to interest my readers. From this venerable tree to another, almost as venerable, hangs another wreath, flanked with banners. We reach the house, and another garland entirely surrounds the door. White roses and lillies of the valley make the air heavy with their breath, drawn out by the attractive rays of the beaming afternoon sun.
We enter the hall, and peep into the different rooms. In the dining-room is the remains of an ample repast. At the head of the table is an enormous cake, covered with silver doves and ornaments of all kinds; servants are drinking the remains of champagne out of glasses and bottles with healths innumerable. In the library and hall, children in white frocks, with silver bows fastened to them, pattering to and fro in unchecked excitement. In the drawing-room we pause, and listen to the conversation that is passing between Mr Gwynne, Lady Mary, Colonel and Mrs Gwynne Vaughan, and Sir Hugh Pryse.
'I am so thankful it is over, and that it has all gone off so well,' says Lady Mary.
'Really, Lady Mary,' says Mr Gwynne, 'great thanks are due to you for the admirable manner in which you managed everything. I think it was wonderful that we amalgamated, and all that sort of thing, don't you, Gwynne?'
Colonel Vaughan replies, yawning,—
'I don't know what on earth we shall do without Freda! And she to throw herself away upon that stupid London parish, where all her charming manner and talent will be lavished upon ragged schools and missionary meetings. I wish she had never come back.'
'Oh, Gwynne, I'm thure Mr Prothero ith very nithe, and tho gentlemanlike and good and handthome. And, you know, clergymen are ath good ath any one in London.'
'Prothero is better than most, I think,' says Sir Hugh, 'because there is no humbug about him. And I'm sure, since Freda wouldn't have me, I'm glad she had him, though I never guessed she liked him; I used to think she liked you best, Vaughan.'
The colonel sighs.
'Oh! I never flattered myself so far, I wish—'
'Certainly, I could not have believed the Protheros were such superior people,' says Lady Mary. 'As to Mr Owen and his wife, they might be introduced into any society.'
'Thweetly pretty, Gladyth ith, I never thought tho much of her before,' lisps Mrs Vaughan. 'Tho interethting the looked in that dreth, the one the wath married in, my maid thaith.'
'I was obliged to call at the farm myself, to induce old Prothero and his wife to come,' says Mr Gwynne, 'Freda wished it so much; I cannot say I did: you see it was rather awkward. But he did not change his old manner towards me—or—in fact—you know, Sir Hugh he might have been—'
'Bumptious,' breaks in Sir Hugh; 'exactly, not a bit of it. They're better behaved. Besides, there was Mrs Jonathan to support the honour of the family, and her husband the learning.'
'Yes,' says Lady Mary; '' it is a comfort that they are really gentlefolks. And Mr and Mrs Jones too—in short, with the exception of the parents, after all, there is no great objection. Many girls make worse matches. Only they live so near.'
Here little Harold comes bouncing into the room, followed by the other children.
'Mamma! papa! do you know I am going to marry Minette, I told her so; her name is Victoria, after the Queen, she said. I shall go to see her to-morrow; she is bigger than Minnie, and looked prettier in her veil. Didn't Dot look funny in a veil? Dot nearly cried, but Aunt Freda gave her some cake. Why did Mr Prothero come, papa? isn't he a farmer?'
'And isn't your papa a farmer? and am not I a farmer, Master Harold?' exclaims Sir Hugh, catching the boy up in his arms.
'I am so sorry Aunt Freda is going away,' says quiet little Minnie to her mother.
'And tho am I, my dear.'
'And tho am I, mamma,' lisps Dot, exactly as lisps her mamma.
'I hope she will be happy,' says Mr Gwynne, aside to the colonel; 'do you think she will?'
'Yes, I am sure she will; she is evidently sincerely attached to Rowland Prothero, and he to her. He is a good man and a gentleman, one cannot deny that. Pshaw! why am I so sorry she is gone? we shall miss her dreadfully after this twelvemonth.'
'Thank you, Gwynne; she has been very good and kind to us all; so much improved, and she told me she owed it all to Rowland. Well, I liked him from the first. You saw the Bible his school children gave him, and the presents from his parishioners and the letter from the bishop, so complimentary, you know, so flattering, and all that sort of thing. God bless them,'
Mr Gwynne very nearly begins to cry, and Colonel Vaughan feels inclined to join; but by way of consoling himself, says,—
'I shall go and see the Protheros sometimes now. I never saw anything in my life so lovely as that younger Mrs Prothero.'
'Take care, my dear,' cries Lady Mary to her daughter; 'the colonel is going to visit the fair Gladys.'
'Oh! I thant allow that, Gwynne, the ith much too pretty.'
'Let us go out and look at the people before dinner,' says Colonel Vaughan; 'I must say it was cruel of Freda to refuse to have a party. This is fearfully dull; the vicar and his wife, or Mr and Mrs Jones would have been better than nobody.'
'Much obliged!' says Sir Hugh.
As all the party go into the Park, we will follow them, and leaving them there, retrace our steps to the farm.
There is high tea going on in the parlour, and a pleasant, cheerful party they are, assembled round the tea-table. Gladys in the wedding-gown, with a colour on her cheeks and a light in her eyes that were not there in former days, presides. Owen divides his attentions between her and some object in the corner of the room; first jumping up to peep into this curtained curiosity, and then returning to put cream into the tea-cups, hand the cakes and bread and butter, or do any and everything that his loving and lovely Gladys asks him, with whom he is just as much in love as ever.
Mr Jones and Mr Prothero sit on either side of Gladys, and seem to vie with one another in showing a father's and uncle's affection to her. Next to Mr Jones we have Mrs Prothero, looking more like what she looked when first we saw her, than she has done for years. Then Mr Jonathan and Mrs Jones; and between Mrs Jones and Owen we are glad to see poor Mrs Jenkins, very kindly treated by her neighbours, and dressed in the moiré and a handsome shawl; then Mrs Jonathan, in the richest of silks, and the loveliest of caps; and, finally, Minette between her and her grandfather; completing a 'round table' more cheerful and natural than that of King Arthur.
Through the open window and white netted curtains—Gladys' treasured work—the roses and sunbeams look in together, and the distant mountains are blue and hazy as the sky. Flowers are on the mantel-piece and tables, bridal-favours are scattered here and there. Above all, there is a large white and silver bow, surmounting that 'curiosity' in the corner, towards which all eyes occasionally turn. Perhaps we may as well peep within the little white curtains.
There lies a wee baby, fast asleep, with its tiny hand outside the coverlet, and its lace cap on the little pillow. 'Netta,' is the name of that small fragment of humanity. Owen and Gladys' first-born.
Having surveyed the company, we will listen to their conversation.
'Well, father, don't you feel vain-glorious to-day?' says Owen, stopping suddenly on his way to the cradle, and pulling his father's grey whisker.
'I feel very thankful that it is all over, and very unnatural.'
'Not unnatural, David, bach,' says his wife.
'Yes, unnatural. It was never intended for Miss Gwynne to be my daughter-in-law, and I breakfasting at the Park. I felt like a hog in armour, fidgeting inside and out.'
'Perhaps it was never intended for me to be your daughter, either,' says Gladys, looking archly at the farmer.
'Treue for you, my dear. That was a piece of luck that came without my seeking, and I like it all the better for that reason, I suppose.'
'I am sure you may rejoice in the present Mrs Rowland Prothero,' says Mrs Jonathan; 'and you certainly need not imagine, for one moment, that she is degrading herself by marrying your son. In London he is in the first society, and meets people constantly, on equal terms, who would quite throw your Lady Marys into the shade. Does he not, Mr Jones?'
'I cannot quite enter into these points, ma'am,' says Mr Jones; 'but he and his bride are as well suited to one another as any young people I ever saw, and will be a blessing to their parish and their friends.'
'Besides, if you come to family, brother David,' says Mr Jonathan, 'ours is of considerable antiquity, and I cannot think how it got Anglicised into Prothero. You know I have been enabled to trace it back to Rhyddrch, or Rhodri, a prince who fought with and frequently defeated Ethelbald. You may not be aware, Mrs Jones, that our name, properly Prydderch, means Ap Rhyddrch, and that we owe it to this illustrious source.'
'Now, aunt,' exclaims Owen, 'never mention the Payne Perrys again. Why, you cannot light a candle to us. I am sure your Herefordshire Perry can't date back to the conquest, and here are we long before it. What date, uncle?'
'720, Owen. And I wish you, as the eldest son, would begin to write your name in the proper way. I contemn, absolutely, this altering our fine old language into that jargon of Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Norman, and French, now yclept English.
'Very well, uncle, let us spell it R, H, Y, D, D, R, C, H,—eight consonants without the aid of one single vowel. I declare the very name is courage itself,—no auxiliary forces. Gladys, I beg you will always sign yourself so when you write to Mrs Jones; and be sure you spell your own name as it ought to be spelt,—G, W, L, A, D, Y, S. Even this shows the weakness of the female sex; you do require one little vowel to help along the consonants,'
'Ha, ha, ha!' shouts Mr Prothero, 'he has you now, brother Jo.'
'Not at all. Owen seems to have forgotten that w and y are vowels. But he never had a taste for study, Rowland is quite different; and our dear niece, Claudia, is much better suited to him than to Owen, for she appreciates the wisdom of a past age.'
'The little hypocrite,' cries Owen. 'She doesn't—'
'I never could have supposed Lady Mary could be so affable,' interrupts Gladys, fearing a dispute.
'She can be anything she likes,' says Mrs Jones. 'She pressed me and Mr Jones to stay there to-day, but I could not have done so without Freda. She was especially kind all last week, and resolved to go through everything properly. I told her that your uncle could only stay two clear days, and that we had promised to spend them here. It is such a relief to be here, Mr Gwynne and Mrs Gwynne Vaughan are very well; but her ladyship's constant tact and effort to do exactly the right thing are wearying.'
'Do my Laddy Marry be very grand? Grander than Laddy Simpson, Mrs Jones?' asked Mrs Jenkins, in an undertone, of her neighbour. She has an infinite awe of Mrs Jonathan.
'I don't think I ever saw Lady Simpson,' says Mrs Jones,
'Not be seeing Laddy Simpson! Well, it is no loss for you. She was as ugly an 'ooman as I ever was seeing. I am hating the Simpsons, and no wonder. But Miss Gwynne is a lady,—Mrs Rowland Prothero, I am meaning. She was coming to see me the other day, and says she, "I know you have been unfortunate Mrs Jenkins, fach! and no fault of yours." And she was giving me this new white shoal. And, seure, if it wasn't for Rowland Prothero and she, I 'oudn't be in that tidy cottage by there, with Mrs Owen and my grandoater coming to see me and reading to me; and Mrs Prothero too, is seure, and bringing me something nice, and my Griffey with hundreds of thousands, Mrs Jones, as you was knowing,'
Mrs Jenkins gradually gets excited, as she finds Mrs Jones listens, and by degrees she gains the ear of the rest of the party, who all, in spite of Gladys' efforts to divert their attention, turn to her when they hear the words 'Rowland and Miss Gwynne.'
'I must be telling you now, Mrs Jones, ma'am,' continues Mrs Jenkins, 'that I am not forgetting all your kindness to me up in London, when every one else was turning away. Ach a fi! and they 'joying themselves at Abertewey.'
Mrs Jones presses Mrs Griffey's arm, and whispers 'hush!'
'To be seure! I was forgetting. But, indeet, Rowland Prothero did be more than a son to me, and if Miss Gwynne was my own doater she couldn't be kinder. She was buying up enough of my beauty furniture to fill the little cottage. I did be finding it out 'esterday, and seure it was their wedding present to a poor, childless widow, as 'ould be in the Eunion, and I with hundreds and thousands!'
'Hold your tongue, name o' goodness, 'Lizbeth Jenkins!' growls Mr Prothero.
'Hush, Davy, bach! we have all our troubles,' says Mrs Prothero, brushing a tear from her eye.
'Grandfather, I liked Harold so much!' says Minette, to the great relief of the rest of the party.
'Call him Master Gwynne, you forward little minx,' says Mr Prothero, patting the child's back gently.
'Oh! but he told me he should marry me, and that Colonel Vaughan said he was my uncle.'
'Children and 'oomen all alike,' says the farmer; 'thinking of marriage as soon as they can speak. Gladys, why don't you teach the child better?'
'It was the champagne, father,' says Owen. 'My full impression is, that a few glasses more and you would have kissed Lady Mary. I wish we had brought a glass for you to drink the bride and bridegroom's health, Aunt 'Lizbeth.'
'Oh, I have been drinking that pain!'
A sudden little cry in the corner prevents any allusion to the occasion on which Mrs Jenkins drank champagne.
Gladys has her baby in her arms in a few seconds. The infant is attired in her christening robe and cap, and seems to add a new beauty to the sweet and gentle Gladys. All eyes are directed towards them, all hearts warm towards them. Minette is instantly kissing her little cousin, even Mrs Jonathan takes its tiny hand, as Gladys carries it round in her mother's pride and joy.
'Your grandchild and my grandniece, Mr Prothero,' says Mr Jones, 'may she grow up as good as her mother.'
'Amen!' replies Mr Prothero.
And with this word we end our story. The wedding wreath—the christening-robe—the shroud! Again the wreath and the robe! Such has been our tale, and 'such is life!'