Edina: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

At this moment the children came rushing with one accord to the window, and stood—those who were tall enough—with their arms on the sill, Alice with the cowslips gathered up in her apron. Little Robert—often called Baby—who toddled up last, could only stretch his hands up to the edge of the sill.

"Mamma—papa," said Alice, a graceful girl, with the clearly-cut Raynor features and her mother's mild blue eyes, "we want to have a little party and a feast of strawberries and cream. It would be so delightful out here on the grass, with tables and chairs, and——"

"Strawberries are not in yet," interrupted the major. "Except those in the dearer shops."

"When they are in, we mean, papa. Shall we?"

"To be sure," said papa, as pleased with the idea as were the children. "Perhaps we could borrow a cow and make some syllabubs!"

Back ran the children to the grass again, to plan out the anticipated feast. Alice was seventeen; but in mind and manners she was still very much of a child. As they quitted the window, the room-door opened, and a tall, slender, well-dressed stripling entered. It was the eldest of them all, Charles Raynor. He also had the well-formed features of the Raynors, dark eyes and chestnut hair; altogether a very nice-looking young man.

"Why, Charley, I thought you were out!" cried his father.

"I have been lying down under the tree at the back, finishing my book," said Charley. "And now I am going into Bath to change it."

It was the greatest pity—at least most sensible people would have thought it so—to see a fine, capable young fellow wasting the best days of his existence. This, the dawning period of his manhood, was the time when he ought to have been at work, preparing himself to run his career in this working world. Instead of that, he was passing it in absolute idleness. Well for him that he had no vice in his nature: or the old proverb, about idle hands and Satan, might have been exemplified in him. All the reproach that could at present be cast on him was, that he was utterly useless, thoroughly idle: and perhaps he was not to blame for it, as nothing had been given him to do.

Charles Raynor was not brought up to any profession or business. Various callings had been talked of now and again in a desultory manner; but Major and Mrs. Raynor, in their easy-going negligence, had brought nothing to pass. As the heir to Eagles' Nest, they considered that he would not require to use his talents for his livelihood: Charles himself decidedly thought so. Gratuitous commissions in the army did not seem to be coming Major Raynor's way; he had not the means to purchase one: and, truth to tell, Charles's inclinations did not tend towards fighting. The same drawback, want of money, applied to other possibilities: and so Charles had been allowed to remain unprofitably at home, doing nothing; very much to his own satisfaction. If obliged to choose some profession for himself, he would have fixed on the Bar: but, first of all, he wanted to go to one of the universities. Everything was to be done, in every way, when Eagles' Nest dropped in: that would be the panacea for all present ills. Meanwhile, Major Raynor was content to let the time slip easily away, until that desirable consummation should arrive, and to allow his son to let it slip away easily too.