CHAPTER IV.
TOWN OR COUNTRY.
letter with the London post mark, mamma,” said Eveline, “and not from Mark.”
“I hope Mark is well,” said Mrs. Fenner, taking the letter with some trepidation. “It is Mr. Echlin’s writing. What a long letter!”
As Mrs. Fenner’s eyes ran along the lines traced by the firm hand of her cousin, her colour rose, a smile broke on her lips, and as she laid down the letter the tears stood in her eyes.
“Nothing is wrong with Mark, mamma?” said Eveline, inquiringly.
“Nothing, dear; quite the contrary. But you had better read the letter; it concerns you quite as much as me.” And Mrs. Fenner held the letter to her daughter.
“Oh, mamma, how nice of him!” exclaimed Eveline, with sparkling eyes. “I knew he must love Mark. How could he help it? But to think of his wanting us to go and live in London with him and Mark—to make his house like home, he says! What will you do, mother? What will you do?”
“What do you say, Eveline? What do you wish?”
“I? Of course I like to do what you like.”
“It is very kind of Miles.”
“I should think it was. And he puts it so prettily; as if all the favour were on our side.”
“But, dear, I don’t know how you would like to live in a great city, you who have always been used to open air and country life; Manchester-square has no Sunbridge Woods within reach.”
“But it has Mark, mother; and Mark is better than Sunbridge Woods—better than Blyfield Park. Why, mother, you know that we’d both of us rather be with him where he is, than in the Gardens of the Hesperides! I suppose we couldn’t keep the cottage, and just run down to it now and then, could we?”
“I don’t think we ought to propose such an arrangement; it would be a half-hearted acceptance of my cousin’s offer; we must either go or stay. But I will take the letter up to the rectory; I must know what your aunt and uncle think of it. Don’t say anything to Elga, just for a little.”
“As you think best, mother,” said Eveline, and went out, as one in a dream, to perform her morning household duties. No sooner did she appear in the yard with her apron full of grain, than the fowls came running, flying, flustering to her feet; the pigeons, who were on the watch on the low roof of the tool-house, spread their blue wings and dropped down among them; while Eveline’s body-guardsman, the snow-white fox-terrier, Boz, stood gravely on the watch to preserve order, himself the very personification of cleanliness and decorum—his bushy tail curling over his back, every hair of his coat erect and in its proper place, glancing with his brown eyes from his mistress to her noisy pensioners, and keeping his little black nose well raised, with a slight suggestion of superiority.
“Ah, Boz,” said Eveline, when the edge was a little taken off the appetite of her feathered guests, “you little think what is hanging over you! I wonder how you’ll like it! Who will keep old Bulbo in order, if you go away, old dog?”
Old Bulbo was a rather aggressive Poland cock, who had been handsome, but whose digestion had become impaired, his top-knot floppy, and his tail-feathers ragged, while he was easily exasperated at the frivolous impertinence of the younger generations, who stole choice morsels under his very bill, and generally managed to escape his vengeance, when he, like an old bully as he was, would turn to vent his spite on the faithful partner of his roost; on which occasions Boz started into activity, and compelled the old tyrant to keep the peace.
Boz wagged his tail in answer to his mistress’s tone rather than to her words, and waited attentively while she gathered the pretty brown or white eggs, swept the hen-house, making it sweet and fresh with sprinkled lime, and ended by filling the large brown pan with clear water which the fowls immediately muddied.
The poultry-yard settled, Boz conducted his mistress to the vegetable garden, where Eveline gathered a basket of peas for dinner, some currants and raspberries for dessert, quietly wondering who would gather the fruit from those bushes next year. As she stood among the raspberry bushes her mother came out and went down the garden to the rectory gate. A sharp pain shot through Eveline’s heart.
“What will Uncle James say and Aunt Elgitha? Will they persuade mother not to go? I’m sure Uncle James will miss us, and poor Githa!” and the ready tears welled into Eveline’s eyes. “But Mark—to live with Mark, to see him every day—to live in London, to hear beautiful music, to see beautiful pictures, to go to Westminster Abbey, to the Temple, to St. Paul’s!”
Eveline sat down among the roses, fairly dazed with the thick-coming thoughts, while the bees hummed, the grasshoppers chirped, and the roses slowly swayed in the west wind that came to them charged with the fragrance of the mignonette.
The earth was so fair, the sky so blue, the wind so sweet, what need was there to think of anything but the beauty and the colour and the perfume?
Just then a chill wind blew from the north, the leaves shivered, the murmur of the grasshoppers died away under the grass as over the church a huge black cloud came sweeping, while another, jagged and angry, met it from the south, and there came a sound of rolling thunder. Eveline looked in wonder from her bower, the storm had burst so suddenly. Was it an answer to her thought, a warning not to trust in the perishable, not to make pleasure the law of life, but to aim at the imperishable, the eternal? It shot through Eveline’s mind that she might at least take such teaching from it, that if she could grasp the blessings of family love and sisterhood it would be worse than folly to magnify the blessings she must give up for them; but she was glad that the burden of the choice did not lie with her, and making her way into the house, she occupied herself in her usual studies.
Mrs. Fenner meanwhile had laid Miles Echlin’s letter before the rector and his wife, not without certain misgivings as to how the contents would strike them. Lady Elgitha at once saw the importance of the question, and quickly set herself to consider how it might affect her own household. She was personally attached to Margaret, as far at least as she could be attached to anyone unconnected with the great house of Manners, and she had always felt that it was respectable to have her husband’s widowed sister living, as it were, under the shelter of the rectory, especially as she was the widow of a man who must have been a general and a K.C.B. at the very least, if he had lived. Mark, too, had by a certain natural joyousness of temper unconsciously maintained himself in her good graces, but Eveline was already rather a difficulty to Lady Elgitha. She was decidedly so much prettier than Elgitha that it had sometimes struck the rector’s wife of late that it was unfortunate to have to introduce as her niece a girl who must be more attractive than her own daughter; it would be well at least that Eveline should be withdrawn before Elgitha came out. These thoughts shot through Lady Elgitha’s brain while the rector was taking in the idea that a great piece of good fortune had befallen his sister, which must entail nothing but loss and bereavement on him.
“We shall miss you, Margaret,” he said, while the tears rose to his eyes.
“We shall miss each other, James,” replied his sister, softly. “But what do you and Elgitha think? It is very kind of Miles, and the prettiest compliment he could have paid dear Mark; but we need not accept it, you know, if you think——”
“Of course you must accept it, Margaret,” said Lady Elgitha, and there was a touch of east wind in her voice which made the brother and sister shrink and feel ashamed; “it would be flying in the face of Providence not to accept such an offer. What is to become of Eveline if you die? You can’t depend even on a pretty girl’s marrying nowadays, if she has no fortune.”
“Yes, I think it would certainly be good for Eveline, and it would be so nice for Mark. I am sure Miles deserves all we can do for him.”
“Of course; and when you’re tired of London, you can always run down here, and I daresay Eveline will be glad to have Elgitha up for a week or two in the season. It would be a good opportunity for her to have some lessons. I’m sure, Margaret, you have much to be thankful for—Mark so well provided for, and such an opening for you and Eveline.”
And Lady Elgitha sighed, for she caught sight of her son coming up the path with his hat at the back of his head and his hands in the pocket of his loose shooting-coat, looking the picture of idleness.
The poor rector had much ado to congratulate his sister. Fortunately, he had a way of looking at events as they affected other people rather than himself; so that the pleasure he felt in the honour done to his sister’s son, and in the advantages which would accrue to her and her daughter, occupied him more than the loss and desolation to himself.
When Elgitha heard the news, she was in blank despair. Rosenhurst would be unendurable without Aunt Margaret and Eveline. No one else should live in the cottage. She would go to school; she would be trained for a nurse, and go to a hospital; she must do something, or she should die of dulness, with only father and mother, and Gilbert always loafing about.
But the end of it was that Margaret wrote to Mr. Echlin, thanking him, and promising to spend the winter in Manchester-square, that they might see how they liked each other, and to come at the beginning of October. Mr. Echlin replied that he was perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, but begged as a favour that they would say nothing about the matter to Mark.
This was a hard condition to keep when Mark came down for his summer holiday, and led to some amusing complications. Mark was full of the goodness and generosity of his cousin. He did not believe he had a single fault; and though he had had great sorrows, he was so cheerful that you forgot he was old. “I suppose cheerfulness runs in the family,” said the lad, with a loving look at his mother. “What paragons grandmamma and grandpapa must have been!”
“There is much to be thankful for in the inheritance of a cheerful temper, no doubt,” said his mother; “and I think all the Echlins I have known have been disposed to look on the bright side of things.”
“You yourself, mother,” said Eveline, admiringly, “who have had trouble enough to break a woman’s heart, Aunt Elgitha says.”
“But it seemed God’s own hand, Eva,” replied Mrs. Fenner, softly; “and who was I that I should murmur? Did He not know best?”
“And very narrow means, mother.”
“And two good children, who never fretted for what they could not have. Your cousin Miles has had more grievous sorrow than I; he has lost his wife and lost his son, who, everyone says, was all a father could wish, and he has no child left him.”
“Do you know, mother,” said Mark, very confidentially, “I have a notion that he has found someone whom he thinks of bringing home? You have no notion how the house is being brisked up. He has said nothing to me. Of course, I could not expect to be always in such comfortable quarters.”
“Of course not, my dear. And you would be sorry to have to leave Manchester-square?”
“Naturally. Why, I am lodged like a prince. I suppose Mr. Echlin must be nearly sixty; but many men of fifty look older. There is no reason why he shouldn’t—is there, mother?”
“Shouldn’t what, Mark?”
“Marry again, mother. Of course second marriages are not like first marriages; but when a man has a big house, and is all alone. He hasn’t said a word to me; but the best bedroom is to be done up—for he asked me to help him choose the paper—and one of the drawing-rooms, Mrs. Cotton said, is to be refurnished as a morning room.”
“That looks suspicious, doesn’t it, mother?” said Eveline, with saucy gravity.
“I hope,” said Mark, following out the train of his own thoughts, “it will not be too young a lady. It doesn’t look nice to see a man with a bald head with a girl who might be his daughter for a wife.”
“It would be a pity,” assented Mrs. Fenner. “I wonder why men always consider themselves so young when they marry. I remember John Brattlebury, a cousin of your father’s, as nice a man as ever lived, to whom it never occurred to marry until he was well past forty. Your father innocently suggested to him the name of a lady of about five-and-thirty, who we knew liked him, and to whom the position he was able to offer her would have been a decided gain. You’d hardly believe it, but he was almost offended, went down into Cumberland, and came home with a wife of eighteen, who knew no more of his tastes and occupations than he of hers.”
“But, mother,” said Eveline, “what was the girl thinking of?”
“Of getting a change, my dear—being mistress in a house instead of number two or three in a string of daughters. Time is apt to seem long at eighteen, and a middle-aged bachelor, when he comes to woo, has many advantages. If she cannot admire the brightness of his eyes or the elegance of his figure, she may esteem him for his experience and intelligence, and diamonds and knicknacks are powerful persuasors to some natures.”
“And really, mamma, if you think of it, it may not be so bad, after all. Shakespeare says—
‘Let still woman take
An elder than herself, so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband’s heart.’
Don’t you remember? we read it last night.”
“I remember that Shakespeare makes Duke Orsino say so. Perhaps, as Shakespeare had married a woman older than himself, he might set value on the opposite qualification; but it is not fair to make him answerable for the opinions of his characters. But now, Eva, you must go and dress, or Aunt Elgitha will not be able to start her tennis.”
And so the pleasant August days went by, and Mark visited his old friends, the farmers, enjoying the gathering-in of the harvest, the golden lights of the sun, the heavy whispering of the trees, and all the harmonies of country life, a thousand times the more for the contrast with the city life he had been leading for the last nine months. There was but one thing in which he was disappointed—he wanted to spend a large part of his handsome salary in the decoration of his mother’s cottage; but both his mother and Eveline were unaccountably indifferent to it, and Mrs. Fenner at last put him past the idea by saying that if there should be changes in Manchester-square, it might be desirable, for Eveline’s sake, that she should go to town for a few months, and then he could come and stay with them.
So Mark went back to town refreshed and happy. He was too much engrossed with his work to note all that was being done at Manchester-square, and too modest to ask questions; but the conviction of impending change grew on him.
So September passed, and October, with its bracing days and shortened evenings, was come. It was already the fifth, and Mark, after a rather hasty breakfast, was about to start for town, when Mr. Echlin said—
“Mark, you’ll be sure to be home in time to dress for dinner. I expect some friends—ladies.”
“Certainly, sir,” said Mark, and went his way, thinking that now it was coming, and wondering that he had not heard from his mother for nearly a week.
Business, which had been slack in August and September, was very brisk again. Mark’s work was increasing in interest and importance; he had several important proofs to read and a long journey to take in the afternoon. It was already a quarter to six as he let himself in at Manchester-square. He glanced into the dining-room; all looked bright and cosy, and a crisp fire sent out a rosy, joyous, frolicsome radiance, that was very pleasant to see. The table was laid for four. Mark was hungry enough to regard even the dinner rolls with satisfaction, and to eye the mats with a vague wonder as to what dishes were to be set on them—a warm odour of roasting meat rose from the culinary region.
“Is Mr. Echlin in, Martin?” he inquired of the butler, who was putting a finishing touch to his table.
“Yes, sir, dinner at six sharp. The ladies are dressing.”
“Oh, indeed; they have come then?”
“Yes, sir, we druv to meet ’em at four o’clock; the train was five minutes late.”
“Hullo! Mark, only just in,” called Mr. Echlin over the banisters. “Make haste, lad, we’re as hungry as hunters.” And Mark ran up three stairs at a time and plunged into the work of the toilette, too busy to wonder who the ladies might be.
The clock struck six as he left his room. As he ran downstairs the unwonted sound of music struck his ear; someone was playing a Lied ohne Worte, one that Eveline often played in the twilight at home. Mark was glad that one of the ladies played, and played softly, but Martin’s inexorable gong began to boom, and he must go in.
Miles Echlin had never used the drawing-room, and when Mark opened the door, and the great chandeliers were reflected from mirror to mirror, he started back dazzled. Two ladies rose at his entrance and came towards him; both called him by his name. What did it mean? Were they in very truth his own mother and sister, the ladies dearest in the world to his loyal heart?
The wonder of it almost took away his breath, and he gave a great gasp as he uttered their names.
“Mother! Eveline!”
“Forgive me, Mark,” said Mr. Echlin, taking his hand, “it was selfish of me to take you so by surprise, I ought to have told you.”
“Oh, sir, are they come to stay?” asked Mark, looking from one to the other, still incredulous.
“To stay, to live with us if we can make the old house homelike enough for them, or rather if they will make it homelike for me and my adopted son.”
“Oh, sir, how good you are to me.”
“And are you not good to me? Ever since you came to me, have you not thought, worked, and cared for me? My own dear son was taken from me, he who must ever be first in my heart, but do not think that I cannot love and honour loyalty and worth, that I cannot thank God for cheering me with such a friend as you! But there is old Martin pounding away at his gong! You all know what I would say. Come, Margaret, Mark will bring his sister.”
He led Mrs. Fenner down with old-fashioned courtesy, and placed her in the seat which his wife had once filled, then motioned to Eveline to sit at his right while Mark took his customary seat on his left. There were many larger parties in the square that night, but not one where there were more grateful hearts, and of the silent covenant made that night no one of the four ever repented.
With the presence of those good women, all that was happy and homelike came back to the big house. Music and soft laughter filled its chambers—Mr. Echlin loved to have it so. The portraits of his wife and of his son hang where they used to hang, and some beautiful landscapes now adorn the walls, and in Mrs. Echlin’s pretty sitting-room the grave, sweet face of Michael Fenner looks down on the children to whom he bequeathed the best possession, THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME.
[THE END.]
“HE STARTED BACK, DAZZLED.”