AN AFTERNOON IN CASTLESTEADS
'The fields were all i' vapour veil'd
Till, while the warm, breet rays assail'd,
Up fled the leet, grey mist.
The flowers expanded one by one,
As fast as the refreshing sun
Their dewy faces kiss'd.
'And pleasure danced i' mony an e'e
An' mony a heart, wi' mirth and glee
Thus flutter'd and excited—
An' this was t' cause, ye'll understand
Some friends a grand picnic had plann'd,
An' they had been invited.'
Tom Twisleton's Poems in the Craven Dialect.
It had been arranged that Mildred should form one of the luncheon-party at the vicarage, and that Richard should accompany her, while the rest of the young people were regaled at the Hall, where pretty May Chesterton held a sort of court.
The pleasant old vicarage was soon crowded with gaily-dressed guests—amongst them Mr. Trelawny and his daughter, and the Heaths of Brough.
Mildred, who had a predilection for old houses, found the vicarage much to her taste; she liked the quaint dimly-lighted rooms, with their deep embrasures, forming small inner rooms—while every window looked on the trim lawn and churchyard.
At luncheon she found herself under Mr. Delaware's special supervision, and soon had abundant opportunity of admiring the straightforward common sense and far-seeing views that had gained him universal esteem; he was evidently no mean scholar, but what struck Mildred was the simplicity and reticence that veiled his vast knowledge and made him an appreciative listener. Miss Trelawny, who was seated at his right hand, monopolised the greater share of his attentions, and Mildred fancied that her naïveté and freshness were highly attractive, as every now and then an amused smile crossed his face.
Mrs. Delaware bloomed at them from the end of the table. She was rather more quietly dressed and looked prettier than ever, but Mildred noticed that the uneasy look, of which Richard had spoken, crossed her husband's face, as her voice, by no means gently modulated, reached his ears; evidently he had a vexed sort of affection for the happy dimpling creature, who offended all his pet prejudices, wounded his too sensitive refinement, and disturbed the established régime of his scholarly life.
Susie's creams and roses were unimpeachable, and her voice had the clear freshness of a lark, but dearly as he might love her, she could hardly be a companion to her husband in his higher moods—the keynote of sympathy must be wanting between this strangely-assorted couple, Mildred thought, and she wondered if any vague regrets for that youthful romance of his marred the possible harmonies of the present.
Would not a richly-cultivated mind like Ethel Trelawny's, for example, with strong original bias and all kinds of motiveless asceticism, have accorded better with his notions of womanly perfection, the classic features and low-pitched voice gaining by contrast with Susie's loud tuneful key and waste of bloom?
By an odd coincidence Mildred found herself alone with Mrs. Delaware after luncheon; the other ladies had already gone over to the park with the vicar, but his wife, who had been detained by some unavoidable business, had asked Mildred to wait for her.
Presently she appeared flushed and radiant.
'It is so good of you to wait, Miss Lambert; Stephen is so particular, and I was afraid things might go wrong as they did last year; I suppose he has gone on with the others.'
'Yes.'
'And Miss Trelawny?'
'I believe so.'
Mrs. Delaware's bright face fell a little.
'Miss Trelawny is a rare talker, at least Stephen says so; but I never understand whether she is in fun or earnest; she must be clever, though, or Stephen would not say so much in her praise.'
'I think she amuses him.'
'Stephen does not care for amusement, he is always so terribly in earnest. Sometimes they talk for hours, till my head quite aches with listening to them. Do you think women ought to be so clever, Miss Lambert?' continued Susie, a little wistfully; and Mildred thought what a sweet face she had, and wondered less over Mr. Delaware's choice—after all, blue eyes, when they are clear and loving, have a potent charm of their own.
'I do not know that Miss Trelawny is so very clever,' she returned; 'she is original, but not quite restful; I could understand that she would tire most men.'
'But not men like my Stephen,' betraying in her simplicity some hidden irritation.
'Possibly not for an hour or two, only by continuance. The cleverest man I ever knew,' continued Mildred artfully, 'married a woman without an idea beyond housekeeping; he was an astronomer, and she used to sit working beside him, far into the night, while he carried on his abstruse calculations; he was a handsome man, and she was quite ordinary-looking, but they were the happiest couple I ever knew.'
'Maybe she loved him dearly,' returned Susie simply, but Mildred saw a glittering drop or two on her long eyelashes; and just then they reached the park gates, where they found Mr. Delaware waiting for them.
The park now presented a gay aspect, the sun shone on the old Hall and its trimly-kept gardens, its parterres blazing with scarlet geraniums, and verbenas, and heliotropes, and its shady winding walks full of happy groups.
On the lawn before the Hall the band was playing, and rustic couples were already arranging themselves for the dance, tea was brewing in the great white tent, with its long tables groaning with good cheer, children were playing amongst the trees; in the meadow below the sports were held—the hound trail, pole-leaping, long-leaping, trotting-matches and wrestling filling up the afternoon.
Mildred was watching the dancers when she heard herself accosted by name; there was no mistaking those crisp tones, they could belong to no other than Ethel Trelawny.
Miss Trelawny was looking remarkably well to-day, her cheeks had a soft bloom, and the rippling dark-brown hair strayed most becomingly from under the little white bonnet; she looked brighter, happier, more animated.
'I thought you were busy in the tent, Miss Trelawny.'
Ethel laughed.
'I gave up my place to Mrs. Cooper; it is too much to expect any one to remain in that stiffling place four mortal hours; just fancy, Miss Lambert, tea commences at 2 P.M. and goes on till 6.'
'I pity the tea-makers; Mrs. Delaware is one of course.'
'She is far from cool, but perfectly happy. Mrs. Delaware's table is always crowded, mine was so empty that I gave it up to Mrs. Cooper in disgust. Mr. Delaware will give me a scolding for deserting my post, but I daresay I shall survive it. How cool it is under these trees; shall we walk a little?'
'If you like; but I enjoy watching those dancers.'
'Distance will lend enchantment to the view—there is no poetry of movement there;' pointing a little disdainfully to a clumsy bumpkin who was violently impelling a full-blown rustic beauty through the mazes of a waltz.
'What is lost in grace is made up in heartiness,' returned Mildred, bent on defending her favourite pastime. 'Look how lightly and well that girl in the lilac muslin is dancing; she would hardly disgrace a ballroom.'
'She looks very happy,' returned Ethel, a little enviously; 'she is one of Mr. Delaware's favourite scholars, and I think she is engaged to that young farmer with whom she is dancing; by the bye, have you seen Dr. Heriot?'
'No. I did not know he was here.'
'He was in the tent just now looking for you. He said he had promised to report himself as soon as he arrived. He found fault with the cup of tea I gave him, and then he and Richard went off together.'
Mildred smiled; she thought she knew the reason why Miss Trelawny looked so animated. She knew Dr. Heriot was a great favourite up at Kirkleatham, in spite of the many battles that were waged between him and Ethel; somehow she felt glad herself that Dr. Heriot had come.
Following Miss Trelawny's lead, they had crossed the park and the pleasure garden, and were now in a little grove skirting the fields, which led to a lonely summer-house, set in the heart of the green meadows, with an enchanting view of the blue hills beyond.
'What a lovely spot,' observed Mildred.
'Here would my hermit spirit dwell apart,' laughed Ethel. 'What a sense of freedom those wide hills give one. I am glad you like it,' she continued, more simply. 'I brought you here because I saw you cared for these sort of things.'
'Most people care for a beautiful prospect.'
'Yes; but theirs is mere surface admiration—yours goes deeper. Do you know, Miss Lambert, I was wondering all luncheon time why you always look so restful and contented?'
'Perhaps because I am so,' returned Mildred, smiling.
'Yes, but you have known trouble; your face says so plainly; there are lines that have no business to be there; in some things you are older than your age.'
'You are a keen observer, Miss Trelawny.'
'Do not answer me like that,' she returned, a little hurt; 'you are so earnest yourself that you ought to allow for earnestness in others. I knew directly I heard your voice that I should like you; does my frankness displease you?' turning on her abruptly.
'On the contrary, it pleases me!' replied Mildred, but she blushed a little under the scrutiny of this strange girl.
'You are undemonstrative, so am I to most people; but directly I saw your face and heard you speak I knew yours was a true nature, and I was anxious to win you for my friend; you do not know how sadly I want one,' she continued, her voice trembling a little. 'One cannot live without sympathy.'
'It is not meant that we should do so,' returned Mildred, softly.
'I believe mine to be an almost isolated case,' returned Ethel. 'No mother, no——' she checked herself, turned pale and hurried on, 'with only a childlike memory of what brother-love really is, and a faint-off remembrance of a little white wasted face resting on a pillow strewn with lilies. I was very young then, but I remember how I cried when they told me my baby-sister was an angel in heaven.'
'How old were you when your brothers died?' asked Mildred, gently. Ethel's animation had died away, and a look of deep sadness now crossed her face.
'I was only ten, Rupert was twelve, and Sidney fourteen; such fine manly boys, Sid. especially, and so good to me. Mamma never got over their death; and then I lost her; it seems so lonely their leaving me behind. Sometimes I wonder for what purpose I am left, and if I have much to suffer before I am allowed to join them?' and Ethel's eyes grew fixed and dreamy, till Mildred's sympathetic voice roused her.
'I should think nothing can replace a brother. When I was young I used to wish I were one of a large family. I remember envying a girl who told me she had seven sisters.'
Ethel looked up with a melancholy smile.
'I wonder what it would be like to have a sister? I mean if Ella had lived—she would be sixteen now. I used to have all sorts of strange fancies about her when I was a child. Mamma once read me Longfellow's poem of Resignation, and it made a great impression on me. You remember the words, Miss Lambert?' and Ethel repeated in her fresh sweet voice—
'"Not as a child shall we again behold her,
For when with raptures wild,
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child.
"But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace,
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face."
That image of progressive beatitude and expanding youth seized strongly upon my childish imagination.' Mildred's smile was a sufficient answer, and Ethel went on in the same dreamy tone, 'After a time the little dead face became less distinct, and in its place I became conscious of a strange feeling, of a new sort of sister-love. I thought of Ella growing up in heaven, not learning the painful lessons I was so wearily learning here, but schooled by angels in the nobler mysteries of love; and so strong was this belief, that when I was naughty or had given way to temper, I would cry myself to sleep, thinking that Ella would be disappointed in me, and often I did not dare look up at the stars for fear her eyes should be sorrowfully looking down on me. You will think me a fanciful visionary, Miss Lambert, but this childish thought has been my safeguard in many an hour of temptation.'
'I would all our fancies were as pure. You need not fear that I should laugh at you as visionary, my dear Miss Trelawny; after all you may have laid your grasp on a great truth—there can be nothing undeveloped and imperfect in heaven, and infancy is necessarily imperfect.'
'I never sympathised with the crude fancies of the old masters,' returned Miss Trelawny; 'the winged heads of their bodiless cherubs are as unsatisfactory and impalpable as Homer's flitting shades and shivering ghosts; but your last speech has chilled me somehow.'
Mildred looked up in surprise; but Ethel's smile reassured her.
'No one but my father ever calls me Ethel—to the world I am Miss Trelawny, even Olive and Chriss are ceremonious, and latterly Mr. Lambert has dropped the old familiar term; somehow it adds to one's feeling of loneliness.'
'Do you mean that you wish me to drop such ceremony?' returned Mildred, laughing a little nervously. 'Ethel! it is a quaint name, hardly musical, and with a suspicion of a lisp, but full of character; it suits you somehow.'
'Then you will use it!' exclaimed Ethel impulsively. 'We are strangers, and yet I have talked to you this afternoon as I have never done to any one before.'
'There you pay me a compliment.'
'You have such a motherly way with you, Mildred—Miss Lambert, I mean.'
Mildred blushed, 'Please do not correct yourself.'
'What! I may call you Mildred? how nice that will be; I shall feel as though you are some wise elder sister, you have got such tender old-fashioned ways, and yet they suit you somehow. I like you better, I think, because there seems nothing young about you.'
Ethel's speech gave Mildred a little pang—unselfish and free from vanity as her nature was, she was still only a woman, and regret for her passing youth shadowed her brightness for a moment. Until her mother's death she had never given it a thought. Why did Ethel's fresh beauty and glorious young vitality raise the faint wish, now heard for the first time, that she were more like the youthful and fairer Mildred of long ago? but even before Ethel had finished speaking, the unworthy thought was banished.
'I believe a wearing and long-continued trouble ages more than years; women have no right to grow sober before thirty, I know. Some lighter natures go haymaking between the tombs,' she went on quaintly, and as Ethel looked up astonished at the strange simile—'I have borrowed my metaphor from a homely circumstance, but as I sat working in the cool lobby yesterday they were making hay in the sunny churchyard, and somehow the idea seemed incongruous—the idea of gleaning sweetness and nourishment from decay. But does it not strike you we are becoming very philosophical—what are the little rush-bearers doing now I wonder?'
'After all, your human sympathies are less exclusive than mine,' returned her companion, regretfully. 'I like this cool retreat better than the crowded park; but we are not to be left any longer in peace,' she continued, with a slight access of colour, 'there are Dr. Heriot and Richard bearing down on us.' Mildred was not sorry to be disturbed, as she thought it was high time to look after Olive and Chriss, an intention that Dr. Heriot instantly negatived by placing himself at her side.
'There is not the slightest necessity—they are under Mrs. Chesterton's wing,' he remarked coolly; 'we have been searching the park and grounds fruitlessly for an hour, till Richard hit on this spot; the hiding-place is worthy of Miss Trelawny.'
'You mean it is romantic enough; your words have a double edge, Dr. Heriot.'
'Pax,' he returned, laughingly, 'it is too hot to renew the skirmish we carried on in the tent. I have brought you a favourable report of your brother, Miss Lambert; Mr. Warden, an old college chum of his, had arrived unexpectedly, and he was showing him the church.'
One of Mildred's sweet smiles flitted over her face.
'How good you are to take all this trouble for me, Dr. Heriot.'
Dr. Heriot gave her an inscrutable look in which drollery came uppermost.
'Are you given to weigh fractional kindnesses in your neighbour? Most people give gratitude in grains for whole ounces of avoirdupois weight; what a grateful soul yours is, Miss Lambert.'
'The moral being that Dr. Heriot dislikes thanks, Mildred.'
Dr. Heriot gave a low exclamation of surprise, which evidently irritated Miss Trelawny. 'It has come to that already, has it,' he said to himself with an inward chuckle, but Mildred could make nothing of his look of satisfaction and Ethel's aggravated colour.
'Why don't you deliver us one of your favourite tirades against feminine caprice and impulse?' observed Miss Trelawny, in a piqued voice.
'When caprice and impulse take the form of wisdom,' was the answer in a meaning tone, 'Mentor's office of rebuke fails.'
Ethel arched her eyebrows slightly, 'Mentor approves then?'
'Can you doubt it?' in a more serious tone. 'I feel we may still have hopes of you;' then turning to Mildred, with the play of fun still in his eyes, 'Our aside baffles you, Miss Lambert. Miss Trelawny is good enough to style me her Mentor, which means that she has given me a right to laugh at her nonsense and talk sense to her sometimes.'
'You are too bad,' returned Ethel in a low voice; but she was evidently hurt by the raillery, gentle as it was.
'Miss Trelawny forms such extravagant ideals of men and women, that no one but a moral Anak can possibly reach to her standard; the rest of us have to stand tiptoe in the vain effort to raise ourselves.'
'Dr. Heriot, how can you be so absurd?' laughed Mildred.
'It must be very fatiguing to stand on tiptoe all one's life; perhaps we might feel a difficulty of breathing in your rarer atmosphere, Miss Trelawny—fancy one's ideas being always in full dress, from morning to night. When you marry, do you always mean to dish up philosophy with your husband's breakfast?'
The hot colour mounted to Ethel's forehead.
'I give you warning that he will yawn over it sometimes, and refresh himself by talking to his dogs; even Bayard, that peerless knight, sans peur and sans reproche, could be a little sulky at times, you may depend on it!'
'Bayard is not my hero now,' she returned, trying to pluck up a little spirit with which to answer him. 'I have decided lately in favour of Sir Philip Sidney, as my beau-ideal of an English gentleman.'
'Rex and I chose him for our favourite ages ago,' observed Richard eagerly, who until now had remained silent.
'Yes,' continued Ethel, enthusiastically, 'that one act of unselfishness has invested him with the reverence of centuries; can you not fancy the awful temptation, Mildred—the death thirst under the scorching sun, the unendurable agony of untended wounds, the cup of cold water, just tasted and refused for the sake of the poor wretch lying beside him; one could lay down one's life for such a man as that!'
'Yes, it was a gentlemanly action,' observed Dr. Heriot, coolly; and as Ethel's face expressed resentment at the phrase, 'have you ever thought how much is comprehended under the term gentleman? To me the word is fuller and more comprehensive than that of hero; your heroes are such noisy fellows; there is always a sound of the harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer about them; and they pass their life in fitting their attitudes to their pedestal.'
'Dr. John is riding one of his favourite hobbies,' observed Richard, in a low voice. 'Never mind, he admires Sir Philip as much as we do!'
'True, Cardie; but though I do not deny the heroism of the act, I maintain that many a man in his place would do the same thing. Have we no stories of heroism in our Crimean annals? Amongst the hideous details of the Indian mutiny were there no deeds that might match that of the dying soldier at Zutphen?'
'Perhaps so; but all the same I have a right to my own ideal.'
A mocking smile swept over Dr. Heriot's face.
'Virtue in an Elizabethan ruff surpasses virtue clad in nineteenth century broadcloth and fustian. I suspect even in your favourite Sir Philip's case distance lends enchantment to the view; he wrote very sweetly on Arcadia, but who knows but a twinge of the gout may not have made him cross?'
'How you persist in misunderstanding me,' returned Ethel, with a touch of feeling in her voice. 'I suppose as usual I have brought this upon myself, but why will you believe that I am so hard to please? After all you are right; Bayard and Sir Philip Sidney are only typical characters of their day; there must be great men even in this generation.'
'There are downright honest men—men who are not ashamed to confess to flaws and inconsistencies, and possible twinges of gout.'
'There you spoil all,' said Mildred, with an amused look; but Dr. Heriot's mischievous mood was not to be restrained.
'One of these honest fellows with a tolerably tough will, and not an ounce of imagination in his whole composition—positively of the earth, earthy—will strike the right chord that is to bring Hermione from off her pedestal—don't frown, Miss Trelawny; you may depend upon it those old Turks were right, and there is a fate in these things.'
Ethel curved her long neck superbly, and turned with a slightly contemptuous expression to Richard: her patience was exhausted.
'I think my father will be wondering what has become of me; will you take me to him?'
'There they go, Ethel and her knight; how little she knows that perhaps her fate is beside her; they are too much of an age, but that lad has the will of half a dozen men.'
'Why do you tease her so?' remonstrated Mildred. Dr. Heriot still retained his seat comfortably beside her. 'She is very girlish and romantic, but she hardly deserved such biting sarcasms.'
'Was I sarcastic?' he asked, evidently surprised. 'Poor child! I would not have hurt her for the world. And these luxuriant fancies need pruning; hers is a fine nature run to seed for want of care and proper nurture.'
'I think she needs sympathy,' returned gentle Mildred.
'Then she has sought it in the right quarter,' with a look she could hardly misunderstand, 'and where the supply is always equal to the demand; but I warn you she is somewhat of an egotist.'
'Oh no!' warmly. 'I am sure Miss Trelawny is not selfish.'
'That depends how you interpret the phrase. She would give you all her jewels without a sigh, but you must allow her to talk out all her fine feeling in return. After all, she is only like others of her sex.'
'You are in one of your misanthropical moods.'
'Men are not always feeling their own pulse and detailing their moral symptoms, depend upon it; it is quite a feminine weakness, Miss Lambert. I think I know one woman tolerably free from the disease, at least outwardly;' and as Mildred blushed under the keen, yet kindly look, Dr. Heriot somewhat abruptly changed the subject.