INVASIONS.
'He muttered, "Eggs and bacon,
Lobster, and duck, and toasted cheese."'
Phantasmagoria.
'When did Bernard Underwood say his people were coming?'
'On Wednesday.'
'To-day! That's right. I can take you over to-morrow to call on them.'
'So soon!'
'Welcomes can't be too soon.'
'If one is not settled in?'
'The furniture was left to them.'
'That's all men know about it!'
'I know this, that if I don't go to-morrow, I have not another free day for a fortnight.'
'It is all very well for you. I daresay the man-kind have a room in some trim, or don't know it if they have not; but to fall promiscuously on the female sect, with their little amenities in an experimental state of development, is the way to be obnoxious. Can't you go solus, and make pretty speeches?'
'No, Ethel; it must be attention here from woman to woman. It may help them to start in the neighbourhood.'
'I submit. How are we to go? What is the distance?'
'Twelve miles. Suppose we went by railway, and took a boat up from Ewmouth. What do you say to that, Daisy?'
'That I have had quite enough specimens of the family in Master Bernard and his clerical brother.'
'You liked the former specimens well enough. Eh! Do you remember Daisiana?'
An angry flush rose to Gertrude May's cheeks, but she tried to answer composedly, 'The man-kind, as Ethel calls them, are no matter; but what can woman-kind be, after a life-struggle to preserve gentility over a stationer's shop?'
'The more reason they should be susceptible to mortification from their father's old friends,' said Dr. May, as he left the room.
'No, you can't get off, Daisy,' said Ethel. 'It must be done, and I only wish it could be a little later, for fear we should inflict more vexation than pleasure.'
'No; it can't be helped. He is going to run a-muck and take us in his train,' said the spoilt child, shrugging her shoulders.
On the Thursday morning, at the Vale Leston breakfast-table it was, 'The first thing is to make the drawing-room habitable before any one calls.'
'No one will presume on such barbarity till after Sunday!' exclaimed Cherry.
'Unless the Miss Hepburns should—' said Wilmet.
'No,' decidedly stated Clement; 'they told me they should wait till Monday.'
'And your library is as respectable as it is in the nature of the male animal to keep its lair,' said Cherry; 'so I don't mind if a gentleman comes, such as Captain Audley.'
'You need not trouble yourself about Captain Audley,' interposed Bernard. 'Never calls on ladies by any chance; hates 'em worse than poison.'
'Bosh, Bear! We met him at a picnic,' quoth Lance.
'That was long ago, and it grows on him; and it's monstrous hard lines on Charlie, now he's big enough to be spooney, that he never will go anywhere among humans. He's gone off in his yacht now to shoot seals, and cut the Arckey—Archey—Archidiaconal meeting.'
'Archidiaconal? He's not a churchwarden, is he?'
'What is it, Clem? You know. A whole lot of fine ladies and swells and dons and big-wigs coming to Ewmouth to go on about Gothic arches, and Roman camps, and Britons' bones, and all that sort of rubbish.'
'Does Stoneborough derive archæology from arches?' said Felix.
'Perhaps he thinks Archidiaconal functions consist in looking after them,' added Will.
'I remember now,' said Clement; 'there is really to be a meeting of the Archæological Society at Ewmouth, and it is to be apprehended that they may make a descent upon this place.'
'Happy hunting grounds,' said Felix. 'I only hope they will give us due notice.'
The bare idea quickened the breakfast. By ten o'clock a survey had been taken, and Cherry had thankfully accepted Wilmet's assurance that there were sufficient resources scattered through the house to repair the ravages of Mrs. Fulbert without more serious expense than that of a piece of chintz; and having resigned the command into her hands, beheld her consulting Clement on the possibility of being driven into Ewmouth, which he undertook to do in person in his dog-cart without loss of time. An exchange of all the other existing vehicles had been arranged for one roomy waggonette, and a basket pony-carriage, fit for Cherry to drive if ever she took courage—they had only been kept to meet the exigencies of the arrival en masse.
By a quarter to one Dr. May had landed his daughters at the garden steps, and was walking them up to the cloister door, when they were greeted with a hideous whistling bray, followed by the apparition of a figure with a pink and white shirt and grey legs, a great deal of dust and brown moustaches, upon inflated cheeks puffing vigorously through a big golden tube, which he next proceeded to spy down with one eye, and through that telescope became aware of one of the new comers, and uttered an ejaculation, 'Dr. May, by all that's lucky!' at the same time, using both eyes more naturally, he perceived the two ladies, blushed up to the eyes, and came forward with an apologetic greeting and hands far too dusty for any grasp less eager than the doctor's. 'Grown out of knowledge, but you're an old friend, I see.'
'I'm sorry to be in this awful mess, but I want to get the organ to rights before Saturday, when I must get back,' he said, as he led them through a world of organ-pipes, scattered here, there, and everywhere, and conducted them straight to the drawing-room. There the scene disclosed a giddy fabric, consisting of the round table, pushed up to a window and surmounted by a chair, and that again by a footstool, on the top of all a lady, dropping a measuring-tape to the floor, where a little girl was holding it by the ring at the end. The floor was bespread with slippery glossy lengths of chintz, patterned with pink and purple heather, on which a third sister was performing with a big pair of scissors in a crawling position on the floor, and a fourth was supplying the yawning shelves of a chiffonier with books. Ethel's prognostic was justified to the full.
'Wilmet!' exclaimed Lance, 'take care! How could you? Why didn't you send me up?'
'I should not have trusted you; but now you may help me, down.' And there she became conscious of the guests, but with a curious simplicity and dignity, she took no notice of them; while they thought it best to engross themselves in shaking hands with the lame sister, with her who scrambled up from the floor with a red and fagged visage, and with the little one, who, amid all the dust and confusion, looked as dainty and shining-haired as if she had been newly adorned for a feast.
'Here she is on the ordinary level of society!' said Geraldine. 'This is Mrs. Harewood, Dr. May—Wilmet, whom I think you remember.'
Wilmet had brought her composure down with her, and astonished the visitors therewith, as well as by the rare quality of her beauty, reminding Ethel of the fair matronly dames of early Italian art, both for her silence and her substantial stateliness. Nor was there the least flutter or affectation about Cherry; she thought the adventure fun, and had seen in a moment what sort of treatment was suitable to the present company, so she merrily observed, 'Now that Lance has given you a pleasing peep behind the scenes, won't you come to a less dismantled region?'
'It is only the consequence of resigning oneself to one's gentlemen,' returned Ethel. 'If I had had my way, you should have had time to "big your bower."'
'Ah! but we could not afford to miss a kind welcome,' said Geraldine, with the little pathos of sweetness that was such an attraction. 'My brother is surveying his new domains, but he will come in almost directly to early dinner. You are come for it? You'll come and take off your hats. Lance!'
Lance had fled, so soon as he had extricated Wilmet from her perilous attitude. No wonder; particular as he was about young ladies, his déshabillé, nearly as bad as that of Cleomenes, must have been dreadful to him; and it was Wilmet who gave Cherry an arm over the oak floor. They put Dr. May into the library, where Clement came to light; while they took the daughters upstairs, where they were almost as much pleased to see, as the sisters to show, the beauties of the quaint old house, and were perfectly sensible of the well-bred simplicity, playfulness, and absence of all false shame, so entirely different from what they had expected.
Ethel had been prepared to spend her day in a state of good-humoured forbearance and repression of Gertrude's intolerance. Instead of which she found herself in that state of ease which comes of accordance of tone, and she saw—what she had never beheld before—in her keen unvenerative sister, who had never formed any kind of attachment out of her own family and not many in it, the process of falling into an enthusiasm. That lame Miss Underwood, like an old fairy with her ivory-headed crutch stick; her marked eye-brows, thin expressive face, with its flashes of fun and plaintive sweetness, youthful complexion and pronounced features, was—what Daisy called—'so uncommon' as to strike her fancy, to a wonderful degree, and she had hardly eyes or ears to spare for anybody else; when at the sound of the dinner-bell, which had a charming little extinguisher of its own at the top of the octagon tower, the whole of the party were exhibited in the dining-room—Felix and John Harewood from a round of inspection with the bailiff; Angela from the kitchen-garden. She had been set to work unpacking books with Robina, but becoming discursive, had flown off to a tour on the leads with Bernard. 'So much less considerate than Stella!' sighed Robin, left to the tasks that could only fall to the quietest and strongest female of the family. For one happy half hour she was cheered by Will, who volunteered help, gave her all the volumes wrong, or put them upside-down, then lighting on Chaucer, read aloud Palæmon and Arcite, with comments, until Angela burst in, and whirled him away to shake an apple-tree for half a dozen urchins, with whom she had made acquaintance in the churchyard; and Robina had toiled on alone till, on Wilmet's return, she was swept into the furniture vortex.
Dr. May's heart, like Ethel's, warmed to the long table so like their own best days; and the perfect absence of pretension in the plain leg of mutton and vegetables delighted them eagerly. Moreover, he was dazzled by Wilmet's grand beauty, and the general comeliness of his old friend's family, while he talked with immense satisfaction to Felix and Major Harewood; but some strange change had fallen on Daisy.
She had been only fourteen at the time of her escapade on the Kitten's Tail, and now at nineteen the presence of the gentleman concerned in it seemed actually to keep her silent, so that she did not respond to the advances of her nearest contemporaries, Robina and Angela, one of whom had a good deal more manner and the other a good deal more assurance than she could boast; and though Lance had reappeared in irreproachable costume, she daunted his attempts at conversation by her evident determination to listen to the elders' discussion of architects.
'Aren't you going to the Church?' asked Robina, finding him leaning against the cloister door when there had been a move to show the Church to the visitors.
'No use in crowding them up with all the ruck. I shall strip, and go back to my organ-pipes. I shall not come here much. 'Tis no use being in a false position.'
'Nonsense. A false position is pretending to be what one is not.'
'Here I pretend to be on equality, and am shown my place,' said Lance, disconsolately; for he was very soft-hearted, and had an immense turn for young ladies.
'You're annihilated by a breath,' said Robin; 'besides, it was only shyness.'
'Shy? You should have seen her last time!'
'That's the very reason. If you only knew how horrid things done at one end of one's teens feel at the other!'
However, with Robina things were mending. Will had recovered his temper. There had been nothing to remind him of the obnoxious family at Repworth, when the pointlace had yielded perforce to the heather-patterned chintz, which was crackling about in all directions under the needles of all the ladies, and even of Krishnu. Everybody, except Angela, who said it hurt her fingers, was at work at petticoats for ottomans and robes for armchairs, or coats for curious settees routed out from upstairs, while Wilmet used the sewing-machine on the curtains, to supply the place of the brocade borne off by Mrs. Fulbert, and brought to light exquisite tamboured work of Lady Geraldine's that happily had been entirely unappreciated in the last reign.
Robina was stitching away the next day, when she had a treat. Bill came after her with the blottiest of all rolls of MS., being an essay to prove that the sun, the dawn, and the clouds, were not the origin of everything and everybody everywhere in legend and mythology, and he wanted a pair of ears to which to read it, so that he might hear it himself before submitting it to John. Lance was perpetrating worse screeches than ever with his organ-pipes, and could not Robin bring her needling out of the sound of them and listen to a fellow?
Ample space was no small privilege to a family accustomed to be cramped and crowded, and there was a pleasant sense of expansion in sitting down under the cedar-tree, with Bill luxuriously spread on the grass.
Such a sense Felix had in sorting his papers into the numerous drawers and pigeon-holes in his ample study-table, trusting himself not to make them so many traps for losing things, since he did not hold with Bill, that it is best to have no partitions, and have only one place to search through. Clement was making over to him the memoranda of the transactions conducted in his absence, when horses' feet were heard at the front-door, and Clement reconnoitring at the window, said, 'Mr. Milwright—the Rector of Ewford—no doubt it is about the Archæology.'
'A friend of yours?'
'Not particularly. I sat next him at the Visitation, and as the Charge ended, he touched me and said, "I'll show you the only bit of fourteenth-century glass in the choir;" and when we came out, and he heard my name, he said, "I congratulate you on the possession of the finest specimen of Cistercian architecture in the rural deanery." I'm afraid he minds his ecclesiology more than his ecclesia.'
By this time the entrance was effected of a lively well-bred man of middle age, not at all the conventional antiquarian, though still with one master idea. He apologized for his early call, but explained his purpose, namely to ask permission to conduct a party of the archæologists over the Church and Priory, and to make a preliminary inspection at once, to compare his old notes and prepare fresh ones. They were both willingly granted; and Felix went to summon his sisters, who would gladly profit by the primary survey without a crowd, and be delighted to learn the traditions of the place, which were necessarily a good deal lost to them. When the pair under the cedar looked round on hearing voices, Robina exclaimed with surprise and recognition of the guest.
'How do you know him?' asked her companion.
'He was staying at the Towers last winter. He was once a curate at Repworth.'
'Will he know you?'
'Not so likely as if he had seen me as a brass; but I must go and speak to him.'
'Such an enchanting encounter in your exile!'
'Nonsense! I only don't choose to seem ashamed of my vocation,' she answered rather proudly, as she came forward to join the party, for whose benefit Mr. Milwright was drawing the plan of the original Priory with his stick in the gravel. Felix was about to introduce her, but she held out her hand, saying, 'I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Milwright before at Repworth. I am one of the governesses.'
He made civil acknowledgment, but would hardly have cared if she had avowed herself kitchen-maid there. He knew only that two intelligent auditors had come up; and all were soon absorbed in the interest of his discourse, an entirely new pleasure to most.
To read in the peculiarity of the dog-tooth round the pointed arch, as clearly as in Arabic figures, the date when the church was founded, and to bring out stone by stone each fresh stage of improvement; to see when a building prior came from France, and put in a flamboyant window in the south transept; when a sturdy baron atoned for ravages in Brittany, by giving that perpendicular tower and cloister; and when, in a spirit of renovation, the last effort broke forth in those marvellous fan pendants in the Lady Chapel—these were feats delightful to enter into, and it was amusing as well as instructive to see the ecclesiologist poke into rubbishy corners, and disinter fragments of capitals and mouldings, sedilia and piscinæ, altars, and prior's coffin-lids with floriated crosses, giving an account of their origin as confidently as if he had had a pre-existence as a brother in the Priory. Moreover, his intentions furnished an excellent pretext for doing away with the seventy-five yards of black without outraging the squire's memory; indeed, Clement undid a good deal of it to facilitate the researches, and no one could pass it without a sly tweak to detach another nail.
'I'll keep the hatchment over the door as long as man can wish,' said Felix; 'but the Church in mourning I cannot stand.'
'And I think the three-decker might come down too,' added Clement. 'It is clearly within the chancel, and is your undisputed property.'
In which opinion Mr. Milwright, as a Rector, confirmed him, and likewise bestowed some good advice as to the manner of the intended restoration. 'The worst of it is,' he said, 'it can't be done under some thousands; and there's so much work of that sort about, the public is nearly wrung dry. However, it would be the very time to set a subscription going.'
'Paying toll,' said Felix, drily. 'No. I think the Rectory ought to do it gradually.'
'Oh, I beg your pardon.' And Mr. Milwright recollected that he had heard something of young Underwood being in trade, and concluded that he had made a good thing of it; and when on the way to the house some question was asked as to what was usual on such domiciliary visits, he did not scruple to say that a luncheon was usually bestowed by the inhabitants.
The visit to the house was still more entertaining. The long room was explained to be the remnant of the old hospitium below, with the Prior's chamber above; but the cellar was the oldest part of the house. Felix had been thither to take stock of the wine, and had only carried away a sense of the elaborate arrangement of the bins, and the ages it would take to consume their contents; but Mr. Milwright passed all these, and finally made a set like a pointer at a big beer-barrel, pointing to a low door behind it. Golightly was sent for to assist in moving it, which he did with great reluctance, asserting on the authority of Mrs. Macnamara (Sibby) that it led to nothing but ruins and foul air.
'Ah!' said Mr. Milwright, 'I am glad my friend Dobby is not quite forgotten.'
'Indeed, Sir, if you mean to imply that I ever was actuated by such a superstition!' cried Golightly, giving all his strength to assist his young masters; while Angela capered about in delight at having acquired a ghost as well as a prophecy, and Felix recollected having been threatened with Dobby by a young nursery-maid. The door proved to lead to a vaulted passage cut out in the solid rock, and ending in a beautiful semicircular chamber with melon-like divisions, uniting in one large boss at the summit, carved with the five stars which had been the shield of the Priory. The bad conscience of some despoiling Underwood had probably led to the idea of a walled-up monk, whose phantom was accustomed to take his walks abroad, rattling a chain, under the pleasing name of Dobby.
But the vault was a grand possession, and the access to it was to be made as favourable as circumstances would permit. Mr. Milwright next showed that the big knobs at the posts of the balustrade of the staircase unscrewed for the insertion of flambeaux, since the builders of the mansion, following instincts bequeathed from times of peril, had put their banqueting-room at the top of the house. All that was now divided by floor and wainscot into the long corridor and a rabbit-warren of rooms, had once been a banqueting-hall, the ceiling of which, in the upper story, still showed handsome chequer-work of plaster mouldings, the intersections alternately adorned with roods and crowns, L.U., and J.R. The octagon tower at the end was of earlier date, and had formed a part of the principal entrance, flanking one of the two great gateway towers, of which only one stump remained, built into a wood shed.
And, as to the Prior's kitchen, a splendid octagon, with eight arches for as many fires, and a chimney in the middle, it had been so hemmed in with sheds and leans-to, that though it existed as a coalhole, no one had yet explored it. Geraldine was ashamed, both as housewife and antiquary; but she had been so much engrossed during these two first days that she had by no means learnt all the ins and outs of her new old home, of which all felt much prouder than before, and on the renovation of which Mr. Milwright preached as earnestly as that of the Church.
He took leave, having greatly excited the whole family as to the coming feast of antiquities, and their own especial share of it.
'What shall you do about this luncheon?' asked Wilmet, when the party next assembled round the long table.
'Give it,' briefly answered Felix.
'It will be tremendously expensive.'
'An elegant cold collation from the pastrycook at Ewmouth would be; but I don't see why we should not have a few cold joints. Eh, Cherry?'
'Like our celebrated supper to the Minsterham choir,' responded she.
'You neither of you know what it will lead to,' was the old phrase into which Wilmet relapsed.
'Never mind her,' interposed her husband. 'She is demoralized by regimental déjeûners.'
'It serves you right for dragging me to them,' retorted Wilmet.
'I don't do so to please you, my dear, but because I can't have Major Harewood said to mew up his handsome wife out of sight.'
'I own,' she said, not quite pleased, 'I am afraid of this affair being more expensive than Felix imagines. If it is done at all, it must be done properly.'
'Of course it must,' pronounced Bernard. 'If it is to be a snobbish concern, I wash my hands of it. I shall go off to Jem Shaw out of the way!'
'I'll tell you how to make it snobbish, Bear,' said Cherry. 'To have the very same waiters in the very same cotton gloves, handing about the very same lobster-salad, in the very same moulds, and and tongues in the very same ruffles, with the very same carrot and turnip flowers on them, that have haunted the archæologists at every meal.'
'Bravo, Cherry!' broke in Will. 'Commend me to the unconventional woman!'
'Whereas,' proceeded Cherry, still directing herself on Bernard, 'no snob ever had such a place as the hospitium, nor such a salt-cellar as Amelia showed me this morning, and which I'm sadly afraid was filched from my Lord Prior, nor such wonderful old China plates and dishes, with all the acts of the romance of the willow pattern.'
'It's all plates and dishes so far, with nothing on them, like a Spanish don,' said Lance.
'Stay a bit,' said Cherry. 'We'll get a big piece of hung beef, and break into Mrs. Froggatt's parting gift of hams. Then Will and Bear shall kill us some rabbits, and they and the pigeons in that delicious old dovecote will make no end of pies; and what with the chick-a-biddies in the yard, and the unlimited lobsters Tripp talks of, and a big dish of curds and cream, and Wilmet's famous lemon cheesecakes, and all the melons and the cucumbers, and the apricocks and mulberries, the purple grapes, green figs, and dewberries, I think Bear's snob will be rather surprised! Then we'll have clean plates on the side-table, and let the gentlemen fetch them for the ladies; and if John will lend us Zadok, and Miss Lightfoot and Mr. Golightly act according to their names, I think we shall manage it all without any outgoing except for the solid eatables.'
'And drinkables there are enough and to spare in the cellar,' said Felix; 'and John must sit in judgment on them. It seems to me a clear matter of hospitality to feed hungry and tired people who turn up at one's house, and they must be content without mere display. In fact I see how to pay for such a feast as Cherry's genius sketches, and our tickets into the bargain. I'll write up to the "Old World," and offer an account of the whole concern.'
'Learning is better than house and land,' muttered Will.
'But it makes extra work of your holiday,' objected Wilmet.
'Reporting comes as natural to me as listening,' said Felix; 'besides, I mean this to be only a sketch at the end of each day. I won't go as a reporter this time, it is thrusting it too much down people's throats; and besides, this is rather out of Pur's line.'
'I shall do it for that,' said Cherry. 'I won't have poor Pur neglected.'
'We must have my father up here,' added John. 'What a banquet it will be to him!'
'He might deliver his mind of his lecture on mediæval seals, which got so much too learned for Minsterham,' added Will.
There ensued a dispute for the possession of the Librarian. Major and Mrs. Harewood meant to move off to their lodgings at the Glebe Farm on the Monday, for even these two days showed that Theodore and Kit were incompatible elements in the household. The poor little uncle's uncertain conscience had been so far reached, that he knew he must keep his hands off; but to see the child noticed by any one he loved was misery to him, and 'Master Kistofer' was by no means safe from being the aggressor. He viewed all toys as his exclusive right, and did not scruple to snatch from the astonished fingers; and as he was active and enterprising, and could climb stairs and open doors, it was never certain where he might next appear, nor would he obey anybody except his own natural lawful authorities. Poor Stella was continually on the alert; indeed she was the greatest sufferer, for her only weapon against her nephew was coaxing, the sight of which excited Theodore to a passion of jealousy; and though she never uttered a murmur, she was undergoing a perpetual agony between them. The only safety was when Kit was in the charge of Zadok, whose dark face was Theodore's horror, and another reason for relieving the Priory of the establishment. John apologized for the luxury of such an attendant as Krishnu. He had brought him home with the idea of letting him study at St. Augustine's, but his care had become a necessity during that tardy convalescence; and when it proved that his attainments were not up to the St Augustine's mark, and that he had no strong inclination to make them so, but shrank from leaving his master, the decision was welcome. He was northern mountaineer enough to bear the climate; and Wilmet declared that he did the work of half there besides his own proper business. He certainly was invaluable in those days of bustle and arrival, and would have been more so but for the unlucky feud between Kit and Theodore. However, the farm was so near, that the safe members of the family could be together almost as much as ever.
Visitors thickened. The reported excursion of the Archæological Society made every one feel that it was expedient that the first call should have been previously made. Sunday was the limit Even the Miss Hepburns came not till that day; Clement merely presented them when he brought down his imposing staff of new assistants to the horse-boxes that so conveniently partitioned the classes, and gladly made over the big boys to the well-practised Squire—a set of little stolid urchins to Angela, and all the infants to Stella. If he hoped his display would induce the former teachers to withdraw, he was mistaken; their close white-trimmed bonnets still kept guard over the girls.
On the Monday they called, and kept on safe commonplace ground, like the ladies they were, and grew so cordial that Wilmet proposed walking back to see the invalid and introduce Robina, her namesake godchild.
The girl's staid looks and manners gave great satisfaction, in contrast with Geraldine and Angela, who were thought flighty, and demonstrations were made which led to the explanation that she was only on a visit at home. 'A governess!' The four ladies were horror-struck. 'So selfish of Mr. Underwood!'
Robin swelled up like her kind preparing for duels on the October lawn. 'My BROTHER!' she said, in the emphatic tone that never meant any one but Felix.
'It is entirely her own choice,' added Wilmet.
'Nothing should have induced him to consent,' said Miss Isabella, decidedly.
'We did not see it in that light,' said Wilmet. 'He has worked so hard for us all, that we are glad to do anything to relieve him.'
'It can't be necessary!' exclaimed Miss Bridget, who always spoke breathlessly, and looking appealingly to Isabella.
'Not absolutely necessary,' said Wilmet; 'but you know that so many would be a burthen on a much larger property.'
There was a gasp all round at this, and Miss Isabella warmly said, 'My dear Mrs. Harewood, do not let yourself be blinded. We know perfectly what the property is, and allowing for Mrs. Fulbert's settlement and any follies of the poor young man, I can assure you there is no reason your sisters should not remain at home, which is the only proper place for young women. I speak to you, as the married sister, who, as your brother Edward tells me, have acted the part of a mother. It is your bounden duty to protect your sisters.' (Wilmet had to frown at Robin, who sprang up in her chair.) 'Of course your brother is meaning to marry;' (The negative went for nothing.) 'You cannot expect anything else; but still it is his first obligation not to cast them off, but to provide a home for them near at hand—the only becoming thing.'
'Home is quite ready for us all, always,' cried Robina. 'My brother would never let us want that; but while I can, I had rather maintain myself than be a burthen upon him.'
'Ah! my dear, that is a dangerous because plausible spirit of pride and independence. As those who have tried can tell you, very little suffices single women, who have long ago broken with the world.'
This beautiful sentiment was received with an assenting breath by the other three, while Miss Isabella triumphantly added, 'And that your brother is bound to provide.'
'I saw it stated,' continued Miss Martha, 'that no one worthy the name of man will permit the ladies of his family to go out into the world for maintenance.'
'A man that provideth not for his own household,' whispered sadly even gentle Miss Hepburn.
'And, Isabella—tell them,' pursued Miss Bridget, 'from facts we know—'
'Yes,' said Miss Isabella, striking the nail. 'If it is alleged to you that the estate is not sufficient, I warn you that there must be something wrong about the matter.'
'You know,' said Wilmet, feeling it almost wrong to extend the misdeeds of the dead so much, 'the estate does not come clear.'
'I allow for that, but I know from Mrs. Fulbert herself what that is; and, pardon me, that is no sufficient plea, and you ought not to be allowed to think it is. Why, the Rectory alone is twelve hundred a year!'
Was Felix's secret to be kept at the expense of his character? However, Miss Martha brought some relief, by saying, 'And of course it can't be true that those persons who were staying with Mr. Edward were monks, come down to take possession of the Priory and restore it?'
The sisters laughed, and Wilmet explained. 'They were former fellow-curates of his. They came down to help, because he was so much knocked up.'
'Then,' said Miss Isabella, hushing some further observations that evidently quivered on her sisters' tongues, 'we may assure our friends that there is no truth in the preposterous rumour of a so-called restitution.'
'Certainly not of the Priory,' said Wilmet.
'Nor the Rectory?' chimed in Miss Bridget.
'I am hardly at liberty to answer,' said Wilmet. 'I do not know what my brother means to do, nor will he act hastily; but I know he has strong feelings about tithes, and that all the rest wish to be no hindrance in the way of what he thinks right.'
'To sacrifice his family to a scruple!'
'Quite fanatical!'
'And we heard he was so sensible!' mourned the sisterhood; while their spokeswoman returned to the charge.
'You remember, my dear lady, that the wealth which corrupted the clergy was curtailed by the wisdom of our forefathers?'
'Tithes!' breathed Robin, for here she thought they had an indisputable stronghold.
'We are not under the Jewish dispensation,' said Miss Isabella, with a half severe, half triumphant expression; 'but I see how it is. I have traced it all along—the system of works.'
'Yes, Isabella; you saw from the time that Mr. Edward, dear misguided young man, took from the poor dear children that precious hymn,
"Till to Redemption's[1] work you cling
By a simple faith,
'Doing' is a deadly thing,
'Doing' ends in death."'
So sighed Bridget; while Martha added, 'If Mr. Underwood would only come to discuss it with Isabella, I am sure she would convince him.'
'And then you need not be sacrificed, my dear!' said the eldest lady.
'Nor his position in society!' added another.
'For you know, Mrs. Harewood, it is hardly fair towards the neighbourhood to connect it with trade. Our county people are not accustomed to it.'
'I daresay not,' said Wilmet, who had risen during the last sayings. 'Good-bye! I will tell my brother what you say.'
'Do so, my dear; I cannot bear to see a family I have known so long, suffer for, I must say, a mere Judaizing scruple!'
Robina uttered two gasps on her way home. 'Doing ends in death!' The other—'Single women who have broken with the world!'
Confession to Felix of the betrayal of his purpose was needful. He took it coolly enough. 'Never mind! We can't charge poor Fulbert's memory with such a deficit; but there are not many who will probe so hard.'
As Cherry saw, he could stand its being talked of much better as a very chimerical and unjustifiable action than even as simple honesty. 'Do you mean to encounter them?' she asked. 'I see now the meaning of Perseus going among the Graiæ,-for they seem to have but one eye; and I think poor Clement would be glad if they had but one tooth.'
'No,' said that misguided young man; 'don't be unfair on them. They are not in the least spiteful. Miss Martha is the only one who has the gossip in her, and her sisters always repress her. They are very good women, and I believe I have learnt much from them.'
He said it with melancholy candour; and Robina indignantly recurred to their unconscious worldliness about what was due to the county; to which Clement replied, that he feared that they would find that Felix's resolution did cost them something besides mere luxury.
Cherry understood this when the Staples family called. The father was all that was warm and cordial; and his wife meant to be the same, but she patronized. She expatiated on the rapacity of Mrs. Fulbert in carrying off so many handsome articles, and gave a sort of 'all very well' commendation of the substitutes. And she proffered recommendations to shops and servants, and the use of her name, and even chaperonage, in a manner that made Cherry shrink into herself with dry thanks. It was credible that Mrs. Staples pitied the present Underwoods, and thought they had been so much damaged by their present circumstances as not to know how to do justice to their promotion.
The daughter Felix and Lance had liked best was married to Mr. Welsh, the member for Ewmouth, a self-made man, and great shipowner, who, though disappointed that working among the people had not imbued Mr. Underwood with popular politics, was friendly and pleasant; and his wife, a merry prosperous young matron, much more lady-like than her mother, and drolly vehement in her new opinions, was only vexed that the new comers declined her dinner-parties, and could only be engaged to lunch on the first great archæological day. She knew nothing about archæologists, but she should keep open house, and it would be great fun.
Very different were the next visitors—namely, Sir Vesey Hammond, the patriarch of the county, the undisturbed forty years' member, the very picture of a country gentleman, white-haired, clear-eyed, ruddy-cheeked, tall and robust, all vigorous health, and bringing an almost equally beautiful old wife. Theirs was a real welcome. They had come fifteen miles to give it; for had not Sir Vesey been a friend of great-uncle Fulbert, and had not Mary been the admiration of both? Did not Lady Hammond recollect the twins, and was not she equally ready to do homage to 'Master Kistofer'? Nay! did she not even appease any lurking furniture regrets, by exclaiming, 'I am so fond of this room, and now it looks like old times. I never could like it as Mrs. Fulbert Underwood made it, but now it is so bright and fresh and liveable! Ah! there's the dear old treble-seated settee again. I must go and sit in it for old acquaintance' sake!'
There was a wonderful matronly charm about her, with her dark eyes that had last none of their softness, her snowy hair, and her sweet old face; and all the sisters drew round, unspeakably attracted by the motherliness that gave them a sense of what had been so long wanting to them.
Her husband seemed to be satisfying himself that the new squire's politics neither disgraced him, nor he his politics. Cherry caught an echo of—'tells me you have been editing a Conservative paper.'
'Yes, Sir; I do so still.'
'I am glad of it. You are a benefactor to the country!'
Wherewith Cherry had to respond to the old lady; and when next her ears were open county matters had set in, and the baronet was hailing a useful auxiliary, and pressing Felix to come to dinner, next Thursday, to be introduced to the lord-lieutenant of the county; and she found herself included by both in the invitation.
There was a pause for an answer, and the colour came into Felix's face. 'You are very kind, Sir Vesey; but my sister is rather an invalid, and I am still in business—only backwards and forwards here. In short, as I told Mr. Staples just now, we cannot afford dinner visiting.'
'I understand,' said Sir Vesey, quickly and kindly, and no doubt crediting poor Fulbert with a good deal. 'We are quite out of distance for mere dinners. Fifteen miles is far too much for driving home at night; but could not you and your sister come and spend a couple of nights? We would meet you at the station.'
Lady Hammond not only backed the invitation with all her might, but guessing perhaps that the lame invalid wanted help, extended it to a second sister. It was impossible to decline, it was not a case of reciprocity; and when Felix mentioned his acceptance to Mr. Staples, he found the worthy man as gratified at his adoption by Sir Vesey as if it had been a personal compliment.
Robina was the other sister who was to go; for, said Cherry, 'She has customs and costumes adapted to high society, which can't be said for all of us!' Robina thought Angela should benefit by the introduction, but Felix declared that he could not trust Cherry to her—a cruel stroke which she did not quite deserve, for she had a good deal of the nursing instinct.
The expedition was chiefly memorable to Cherry in that she first saw Felix there as a country gentleman, and could judge of his appearance among others. The party was, however, mostly of the higher order of 'county people,' above the mark of even the original Underwoods, more of the London-going type of which members are made. They and their woman-kind were not as full of talent and brilliancy as Cherry's artist friends, but had none of the stiff dullness of her cousin Tom's circle. They were well bred, and had no lack of sensible and fairly intellectual talk about the subjects of the day, and all were intimately at home with one another. All the gentlemen, and most of the ladies, were addressed by their host like one who had known them from boys and girls. Yet though every one was so intimate, there was no exclusiveness, and the two girls were at once let into the circle, as it were, and made one with the rest of the ladies; in truth, Cherry effected one of her usual conquests, and quite subdued Sir Vesey's heart as he drove her from the station. The dinner and appointments would not have been pronounced by Mrs. Tom Underwood comifo; they lagged a good deal behind the complications of delicacies, and vessels, and implements, which modern luxury delights in multiplying, and the dresses were of a quieter style than Cherry expected, so that it by no means fulfilled her awful notions of a state dinner in the country.
And how did her own Squire hold his place compared with others? Looking at him critically, as she tried to do, she saw that his complexion was devoid of the embrowning of sun and wind, his hands were over-white and delicate, and too many cares had pressed on his young shoulders not to have rounded them; so that he did not look like the active athletic men who had led an out-of-door life; but in look, movement, and tone, he was as thorough a gentleman as any one. Evening dress was perhaps most favourable to him, for he had rejected, with a sort of dislike, all semi-sporting morning costumes; and there was a little precision in his neatness, not like the ideal squire, but thoroughly individual in him, and the effect of his doing whatever he was about in the best way he could. When Bernard once declared that Felix's dress looked as if it were always Sunday, Stella gravely made answer, 'I think it is always the Fourth Commandment with him!' In which, perhaps, the little woman found the key of his nature.
There was no lack of ease about him; he did perhaps say 'Sir' more than is the ordinary custom, but this had rather a graceful effect to an elderly man; and he had no backwardness in conversation, but was as well-informed and intelligent as any newly-arrived squire could be expected to be, or more so. If he did not shoot, or hunt, that was his own affair: these were not men of the calibre to appreciate nothing else; they felt they had got a sensible, honourable, practical man among them, and accepted him as a fellow-worker for the welfare of their county. If he did sell books elsewhere, that was nothing to them; they felt he was a gentleman, and that was all they wanted.
Perhaps it was altogether more gratification than enjoyment, where all was so new and strange; but the second evening was pleasanter than the first, and the last breakfast made them like old friends. The introductions during those two evenings had been very opportune, in giving a little foothold among the denizens of the county before the great gathering of the antiquaries.
Ewmouth had been selected as head-quarters, on account of its castle, its church, and a bit of Roman wall, besides a Roman villa, and several curious churches within distance for excursions. The names of readers of papers were very promising, and included 'Mediæval Seals, by the Reverend Christopher Harewood.' These lectures were to be given in the mornings; in the afternoons the excursions were to take place, and one evening there was to be a soirée at Mr. Welsh's.
Tickets for the week cost a guinea. Felix took one apiece for himself and Geraldine; and Wilmet, not caring for such things, made her ticket over to Robina. This week would nearly finish William Harewood's holiday. A few days later he was to meet a reading-party at a vast old farm-house called Penbeacon, in the moors at the source of the Leston—five miles off, but still in the vast straggling parish, whose acreage little corresponded to its population.
Clement and the Harewoods, meantime, spent their leisure moments in routing in Abednego Tripp's rubbish holes, and bringing out quantities of fragments of lace-work canopies, heads of saints and demons, and shattered Priors' coffin-lids. The black cloth came down; two divisions of the three-decker were stored away in the hay-loft over the vicarage-stable. The third and lowest was to serve Clement for his sermon, and Abednego must make the best of a place in the choir. As to the trumpeting angel at the top of the sounding-board, Felix was so constant to it, that he carefully dusted it, proved it to be really rather graceful, and set it up against the wall in his own bedroom. Will Harewood declared it was the idol representing the Pursuivant, and he rejoined that he only hoped that the Pursuivant might sound in accordance with that trumpet.
[1] The real word is too sacred for quotation. (Author)— (transcriber's note: "real word": 'Jesus', in the original hymn (J. Proctor and I.D. Sankey, 'Nothing, either great or small').