The parish and the neighborhood also took a great interest in the Chantry. Such of the neighbors as thought Miss Augustine mad, awaited, with a mixture of amusement and anxiety, the opening of this new chapel, which was said to be unlike anything seen before—a miracle of ecclesiastical eccentricity; while those who thought her papistical looked forward with equal interest to a chance of polemics and excitement, deploring the introduction of Ritualism into a quiet corner of the country, hitherto free of that pest, but enjoying unawares the agreeable stimulant of local schism and ecclesiastical strife. The taste for this is so universal that I suppose it must be an instinct of human nature, as strong among the non-fighting portion of the creation as actual combat is to the warlike. I need not say that the foundress of the Chantry had no such thoughts; her object was simple enough; but it was too simple—too onefold (if I may borrow an expressive word from my native tongue: ae-fauld we write it in Scotch) for the apprehension of ordinary persons, who never believe in unity of motive. Most people thought she was artfully bent on introducing the confessional, and all the other bugbears of Protestantism; but she meant nothing of the kind: she only wanted to open another agency in heaven on behalf of the Austins, and nothing else affected her mind so long as this was secured.
The Chantry, however, afforded a very reasonable excuse to Kate and Sophy Farrel-Austin for paying a visit to Whiteladies, concerning which they had heard some curious rumors. Their interest in the place no doubt had considerably died out of late, since Herbert’s amendment in health had been proved beyond doubt. Their father had borne that blow without much sympathy from his children, though they had not hesitated, as the reader is aware, to express their own sense that it was “a swindle” and “a sell,” and that Herbert had no right to get better. The downfall to Farrel-Austin himself had been a terrible one, and the foolish levity of his children about it had provoked him often, almost past bearing; but time had driven him into silence, and into an appearance at least of forgetting his disappointment. On the whole he had no very deadly reason for disappointment: he was very well off without Whiteladies, and had he got Whiteladies, he had no son to succeed him, and less and less likelihood of ever having one. But I believe it is the man who has much who always feels most deeply when he is hindered from having more.
The charm of adding field to field is, I suppose, a more keen and practical hunger than that of acquiring a little is to him who has nothing. Poverty does not know the sweetness that eludes it altogether, but property is fully aware of the keen delight of possession. The disappointment sank deep into Farrel-Austin’s heart. It even made him feel like the victim of retributive justice, as if, had he but kept his word to Augustine, Herbert might have been killed for him, and all been well; whereas now Providence preserved Herbert to spite him, and keep the inheritance from him! It seemed an unwarrantable bolstering up, on the part of Heaven and the doctors, of a miserable life which could be of very little good either to its owner or any other; and Farrel-Austin grew morose and disagreeable at home, by way of avenging himself on some one. Kate and Sophy did not very much care; they were too independent to be under his power, as daughters at home so often are under the power of a morose father. They had emancipated themselves beforehand, and now were strong in the fortresses of habit and established custom, and those natural defences with which they were powerfully provided. Rumors had reached them of a new inmate at Whiteladies, a young woman with a child, said to be the heir, who very much attracted their curiosity; and they had every intention of being kind to Herbert and Reine when they came home, and of making fast friends with their cousins. “For why should families be divided?” Kate said, not without sentiment. “However disappointed we may be, we can’t quarrel with Herbert for getting well, can we, and keeping his own property?” The heroes who assembled at afternoon tea grinned under their moustachios, and said “No.” These were not the heroes of two years ago; Dropmore was married among his own “set,” and Ffarington had sold out and gone down to his estates in Wales, and Lord Alf had been ruined by a succession of misfortunes on the turf, so that there was quite a new party at the Hatch, though the life was very much the same as before. Drags and dinners, and boatings and races and cricket-matches, varied, when Winter came on, and according to the seasons, by hunting, skating, dancing, and every other amusement procurable, went on like clock-work, like treadmill work, or anything else that is useless and monotonous. Kate Farrel-Austin, who was now twenty-three in years, felt a hundred and three in life. She had grown wise, usual (and horrible) conclusion of girls of her sort. She wanted to marry, and change the air and scene of her existence, which began to grow tired of her as she of it. Sophy, on her way to the same state of superannuation, rather wished it too. “One of us ought certainly to do something,” she said, assenting to Kate’s homilies on the subject. They were not fools, though they were rather objectionable young women; and they felt that such life as theirs comes to be untenable after awhile. To be sure, the young men of their kind, the successors of Dropmore, etc. (I cannot really take the trouble to put down these young gentlemen’s names), did carry on for a very long time the same kind of existence; but they went and came, were at London sometimes, and sometimes in the country, and had a certain something which they called duty to give lines, as it were, to their life; while to be always there, awaiting the return of each succeeding set of men, was the fate of the girls. The male creatures here, as in most things, had the advantage of the others; except that perhaps in their consciousness of the tedium of their noisy, monotonous lot, the girls, had they been capable of it, had a better chance of getting weary and turning to better things.
The Austin Chantry furnished the Farrel-Austins with the excuse they wanted to investigate Whiteladies and its mysterious guest. They drove over on a December day, when it was nearly finished, and by right of their relationship obtained entrance and full opportunity of inspection; and not only so, but met Miss Augustine there, with whom they returned to Whiteladies. There was not very much intercourse possible between the recluse and these two lively young ladies, but they accompanied her notwithstanding, plying her with mock questions, and “drawing her out;” for the Farrel-Austins were of those who held the opinion that Miss Augustine was mad, and a fair subject of ridicule. They got her to tell them about her pious purposes, and laid them up, with many a mischievous glance at each other, for the entertainment of their friends. When Stevens showed them in, announcing them with a peculiar loudness of tone intended to show his warm sense of the family hostility, there was no one in the drawing-room but Giovanna, who sat reclining in one of the great chairs, lazily watching the little boy who trotted about her, and who had now assumed the natural demeanor of a child to its mother. She was not a caressing mother even now, and in his heart I do not doubt Johnny still preferred Cook; but they made a pretty group, the rosy little fellow in his velvet frock and snow-white pinafore, and Giovanna in a black dress of the same material, which gave a most appropriate setting to her beauty. Dear reader, let me not deceive you, or give you false ideas of Miss Susan’s liberality, or Giovanna’s extravagance. The velvet was velveteen, of which we all make our Winter gowns, not the more costly material which lasts you (or lasted your mother, shall we say?) twenty years as a dinner dress, and costs you twice as many pounds as years. The Farrel-Austins were pretty girls both, but they were not of the higher order of beauty, like Giovanna; and they were much impressed by her looks and the indolent grace of her attitude, and the easy at-home air with which she held possession of Miss Susan’s drawing-room. She scarcely stirred when they came in, for her breeding, as may be supposed, was still very imperfect, and probably her silence prolonged their respect for her more than conversation would have done; but the child, whom the visitors knew how to make use of as a medium of communication, soon produced a certain acquaintance. “Je suis Johnny,” the baby said in answer to their question. In his little language one tongue and another was much the same; but in the drawing-room the mode of communication differed from that in the kitchen, and the child acknowledged the equality of the two languages by mixing them. “But mamma say Yan,” he added as an afterthought.
The two girls looked at each other. Here was the mysterious guest evidently before them: to find her out, her ways, her meaning, and how she contemplated her position, could not be difficult. Kate was as usual a reasonable creature, talking as other people talk; while Sophy was the madcap, saying things she ought not to say, whose luck it was not unfrequently to surprise other people into similar indiscretions.
“Then this charming little fellow is yours?” said Kate. “How nice for the old ladies to have a child in the house! Gentlemen don’t always care for the trouble, but where there are only ladies it is so cheerful; and how clever he is to speak both English and French.”
Giovanna laughed softly. The idea that it was cheerful to have a child in the house amused her, but she kept her own counsel. “They teach him—a few words,” she said, making the w more of a v; and rolling the r a great deal more than she did usually, so that this sounded like vorrds, and proved to the girls, who had come to make an examination of her, that she knew very little English, and spoke it very badly, as they afterward said.
“Then you are come from abroad? Pray don’t think us impertinent. We are cousins; Farrel-Austins; you may have heard of us.”
“Yes, yes, I have heard of you,” said Giovanna with a smile. She had never changed her indolent position, and it gave her a certain pleasure to feel herself so far superior to her visitors, though in her heart she was afraid of them, and afraid of being exposed alone to their scrutiny.
Kate looked at her sister, feeling that the stranger had the advantage, but Sophy broke in with an answering laugh.