Mrs. Joscelyn laid her hand upon it with a caressing touch; her poor thin white hands at which the women looked half-admiring, half-contemptuous, as good for nothing but to sew a seam and play the piano. It was a kind of link between Harry and the house that had been so unkind to him. “He’ll understand what it means,” she said to Joan, aside, as the cart lumbered off.
Joan did not make any reply, nor did she very well understand her mother, nor know what it might be supposed to mean, but it was she who had packed all that love, forgiveness, and tender thought; which were so solidly represented in that hamper from home. And it lumbered off to the railway, and was despatched by the night mail, though that was an extravagant proceeding; and the White House was solaced visibly and lightened of its care. It had not been a practice to give Harry such a hamper when he went away. He got one at Christmas, and that had hitherto been supposed to be enough; but this had more in it than met the eye.
And then there was a pause in the history of the house, a pause of suspense yet of hope and peace. Joan and her mother afterwards often looked back to these days, which did not last long, yet were sweet. The two were very good friends, not a jar between them, and Ralph Joscelyn was unusually quiet and subdued; and it happened that one or two visitors came to the house, a circumstance which did not often happen—touching one of whom, in this little lull of preparing events, we may as well take the opportunity of a word or two: for though nobody thought very much about him at that moment, he was a personage of some importance in the family life.
CHAPTER XII.
A NEW PERSONAGE.
THE visitor to whom reference has been made in the last chapter was a Mr. Selby, a relative of the doctor in the village, who had recently come down to these regions in the interests of a secondary line of railway which was then being made. He was not a very young man, nor, presumably, a very successful one, since at his mature age, he was no more than engineer to a little local railway; but he had other qualities not unattractive. He was what the village people called “a fine-made man.” He had a handsome head, with grizzled hair and beard, which, though touched by this mark of age, were otherwise very symbols of vigour and strength, so crisp were the twists and rings of curl in them, so strong and thick their growth. It was said that there was not a navvy on the line who could lift such weights as he could or perform such feats of strength: “he would put his hand to anything.” Dr. Selby was proud of his relation. “I’ll back him to run, or jump, or throw with any fellow of twenty-five in the Fell-country, though he’s forty-five if he’s a day,” the Doctor said; and he did everything else besides that a man ought to do. He was a good shot, rode well, walked well, played football even when one was wanted to make up a team, though the game is not adapted for persons of mature years. There was never much society about the White House, but Philip Selby—as he was called even by strangers, to distinguish him from the Doctor and the Doctor’s son, who was young Selby—had come up repeatedly to see the horses, of which he was supposed a judge. Indeed, he went so far as to buy a horse from Joscelyn, a colt which was not thought much of in the stables when it was born. It was this selection which established a kind of friendship between Joan and the new-comer. She was standing by when the horses were shown to him, and delivered her opinion, as she was wont to do, on the subject.
“You may say what you like against that brown colt: he’s not a beauty just now, but I like the looks of him,” Joan said, and she indicated various points in which she saw promise, which the present writer, not sharing Joan’s knowledge, is unwilling to hazard her reputation on. Philip Selby caught her up with great quickness.
“I thought the same from the moment I set eyes on him,” he said, and he took off his hat to Joan with a bow and smile which were unusual in these parts. She felt herself “colour up,” as she said, though afterwards she laughed. The men Joan was most acquainted with thought these little courtesies belonged to tailors and Frenchmen, but to no other class of reasonable beings, and there was a slight snigger even on the part of the attendant grooms to see this little incident. Mr. Selby was invited in afterwards to dinner to clench the bargain, and lingered and talked Shakespeare and the musical glasses with Mrs. Joscelyn when the meal was over, going back with her upon the elegant extracts of her youth in a way which brightened the poor lady’s eyes and recalled to her the long past superiorities of the Vicarage parlour, where it was considered right and professional to belong to the book club, and to keep up some knowledge of the new books which were supposed to be discussed in intellectual society.
“That is an educated man,” she said to her daughter, with a little air of superior knowledge which did her a great deal of good, poor lady. There was nobody else, she felt, about the White House, whose verdict would be worth much on such a subject. But she knew an educated man when she saw one: and the little talk brought some colour to her cheeks.
“Tut, mother,” said Joan, good-humouredly; but she had listened to the talk with some secret admiration, and an amused and gratified wonder that “mother” should show herself so capable. “I am sure you are the only one that can talk about these sort of things here,” she said. “Father stared, and so did I. He must have taken us for a set of ignoramuses.”
“I read a great deal in my youth,” Mrs. Joscelyn replied, with a gentle pride which was mingled with melancholy, “though I cannot say that it has been of much use to me in my married life; but I hope the gentleman will come back, for he would be a good friend for Harry.”