"Helena's a capital walker," said the Colonel.
"It is fortunate for ladies to be good walkers," replied her ladyship, "when they have no carriage-horses."
Here was a stab; and the worst of it was, that it might clearly be proved to be deserved. The Colonel had suggested in his letter to Lady Helena that she would do well to come by way of Manchester to Sootythorn, instead of going by Bradford to a little country station ten miles on the Yorkshire side of Wenderholme. Her ladyship had not replied to this communication, but had written the day before her return to the housekeeper at Wenderholme, ordering her carriage, as usual, to the Yorkshire station. The carriage had not come; the housekeeper had only been able to send the pony carriage, a tiny basket that Lady Helena drove herself, with seats for two persons, no place for luggage, and a black pony a little bigger than a Newfoundland dog. Lady Helena had driven herself from the station; there had been a smart shower, and, notwithstanding a thin gray cloak, which was supposed to be waterproof, she had been wet through. The Colonel had taken possession of all the carriage-horses for his four-in-hand, and they were at Sootythorn. Her ladyship would continue to be equally carriageless, since the Colonel would take his whole team back with him, unless he sent back the horses from Sootythorn on the day following. These things occupied John Stanburne's mind when he should have been attending to the service. They had always kept four carriage-horses since their marriage, but never more than four; and though one of the two pairs had been often kept at Sootythorn, when circumstances required them to go there frequently, still her ladyship had never been left carriageless without being previously consulted upon the subject, and then only for twenty-four hours at the longest. The idea of setting up a four-in-hand with only two pairs of horses, one of which was in almost daily requisition for a lady's carriage, would indeed have been ridiculous if John Stanburne had quite seriously entertained it; but, though admitting vaguely the probable necessity of an increase, he had not yet recognized that necessity in a clear and definite way. It came to his mind, however, on that Sunday morning with much distinctness. "Well, hang it!" he thought, as he settled down in his corner at the beginning of the sermon, "I have as much right to spend my own money as Helena has. Every journey she makes to town costs more than a horse. I spend nothing on myself—really nothing whatever. Look at my tailor's bill! I positively haven't any tailor's bill. Helena spends more on dress in a month than I do in a year. And then her jeweller's bill! She spends hundreds of pounds on jewellery, and I never spend one penny. Every time she goes to a Drawing-room she has all her old jewels pulled to pieces and set afresh, and it costs nobody knows what—it does. I'll have my four-in-hand properly horsed with horses of my own, by George! and none of those confounded Sootythorn hacks any more; and Helena shall keep her carriage-horses all to herself, and drive about all day long if she likes. Of course I can't take her carriage-horses—she's right there."
On her own part, her ladyship was steadily resolved not to be deprived of any of those belongings which naturally appertained to a person of her rank and consideration; and there had existed in her mind for several years a feeling of jealous watchfulness, which scrutinized at the same time John Stanburne's projects of economy and his projects of expense. It had happened several times within the experience of this couple that the husband had taken little fits of parsimony, during which he attacked the expenditure he least cared for, but which, by an unfortunate fatality, always seemed to his wife to be most reasonable and necessary. It might perhaps have been more favorable to his tranquillity to ally himself with some country girl acclimatized to the dulness of a thoroughly provincial existence, and satisfied with the position of mistress of Wenderholme Hall, who would have let him spend his money in his own way, and would never have dragged him beyond the circle of his tastes and inclinations. He hated London, especially during the season; and though he enjoyed the society of people whom he really knew something about, he disliked being in a crowd. Lady Helena, on the other hand, was fond of society, and even of the spectacle of the court. John Stanburne had regularly accompanied his wife on these annual visits to the metropolis until this year, when the militia afforded an excellent pretext for staying in the country; but every year he had given evidence of an increasing disposition to evade the performance of his duties; and it had come to this at last, that Lady Helena was obliged to go about with the Adisham family, since John Stanburne could not be made to go to parties any more. He grumbled, too, a good deal about the costliness of these London expeditions, and sometimes talked of suppressing them altogether. There was another annual expedition that he disliked very much, namely, a winter expedition to Brighton; and it had come to pass that a coolness had sprung up between John Stanburne and the Adisham family (who went to Brighton every year), because his indisposition to meet them there had been somewhat too openly manifested. His old mother was the confidant of these rebellious sentiments. She lived in a picturesque cottage situated in Wenderholme Park, which served as a residence for dowagers. She came very regularly to Wenderholme church, and sat there in a small pew of her own, which bore the same relation to the big family pew that the cottage bore to the Hall. John Stanburne had objected very strongly to his mother's removal to the cottage, and he had also objected to the separate pew, but his mother maintained the utility of both institutions. She said it was good for an old woman, who found some difficulty in fixing her attention steadily, not to be disturbed in her devotions by the presence of too many strangers in the same pew; and as there would often be company at the Hall, she would stick to her own seat. So she sat there as usual on this particular Sunday, looking very nice in her light summer dress. The Colonel's little daughter, Edith, had slipped into her grandmamma's pew, as she often did, when they were walking up the aisle. She had been staying at the cottage during her mother's absence, as was her custom when Lady Helena went to London; and it had cost her, as usual, a little pang to leave the old lady by herself again. Besides, she felt that it would be pleasanter to sit with her grandmother than with all those strange militia officers. She would have felt, in the family pew, as a very young sapling may be supposed to feel when it is surrounded by over-poweringly big trees—sufficiently protected, no doubt, but more than sufficiently overshadowed.
Amongst the officers in the Wenderholme pew was Lieutenant Ogden, and by his side a young gentleman whose presence has not hitherto been mentioned, namely, little Jacob. Little Jacob's curious eyes wandered over the quaint old church during the sermon, and they fixed frequently upon the strange hatchments and marble monuments in the chapel of the Stanburnes. He had never seen such things before in his life (for there were no old families at Shayton), and he marvelled greatly thereat. Advancing, however, from the known to the unknown, he remembered the royal arms which decorated the front of the organ gallery in Shayton church, and finding a similar ornament at Wenderholme, proceeded to the inference that the hatchments were something of the same kind, in which he was not far wrong. Gradually his eyes fell upon Mrs. Stanburne's pew, and rested there. A vague new feeling crept into his being; Edith Stanburne seemed very nice, he thought. It was pleasant to look upon her face.
Here the more rigid of my readers may exclaim, "Surely he is not going to make little Jacob fall in love at that age!" Well, not as you would fall in love, respected reader, if that good or evil fortune were to happen to you; but a child like little Jacob is perfectly capable of falling in love in his own way. The loves of children bear about the same proportion to the great passion which rules the destiny of men, that their contests in fisticuffs do to the bloody work of the bayonet; but as we may many of us remember having given Bob or Tom an ugly-looking black eye, or perchance remember having received one from Tom or Bob, so also there may linger amongst the recollections of our infancy some vision of a sweet little child-face that seemed to us brighter than any other face in the whole world. In this way did Edith Stanburne take possession of Master Jacob's honest little heart, and become the object of his silent, and tender, and timid, and exceedingly respectful adoration. He intensely felt the distance between himself and the heiress of Wenderholme Hall, and so he admired her as some young officer about a court may admire some beautiful princess whom it is his dangerous privilege to see. Children are affected by the externals of ancient wealth to a degree which the mature mind, dwelling amongst figures, is scarcely capable of realizing; and the difference between Wenderholme and Twistle Farm, or Wenderholme and Milend, seemed to little Jacob's imagination an utterly impassable abyss. But there was steam in Ogden's mill, and there was a leak in John Stanburne's purse, and the slow months and years were gradually bringing about great changes.
Little Jacob's adventure on the moor, and his fortunate arrival at the Hall, had given him a peculiar footing there. Colonel Stanburne had taken a marked fancy to the lad; and Lady Helena—who, as the reader may perhaps remember, had lost two little boys in their infancy—was always associating him with her tenderest regrets and recollections, so that there was a sad kindness in her ways with him that drew him very strongly towards her. Isaac Ogden spoke the Lancashire dialect as thoroughly, when it suited him, as any cotton-spinner in the county; but he could also speak, when he chose, a sort of English which differed from aristocratic English by greater hardness and body, rather than by any want of correctness, and he had always strictly forbidden little Jacob to speak the Lancashire dialect in his presence. The lad spoke Lancashire all the more energetically for this prohibition when his father was not within hearing; but the severity of the paternal law had at least given him an equal facility in English, and he kept the two languages safely in separate boxes in his cranium. It is unnecessary to say that at Wenderholme Hall the box which contained the Lancashire dialect was shut up with lock and key, and nothing but the purest English was produced, so that her ladyship thought that the little boy "spoke very nicely—with a northern accent, of course, but it was not disagreeable."
When they came out of church Lady Helena said to Lieutenant Ogden, "Of course you will bring your little boy here on Thursday for the presentation of colors;" and then, whilst Mr. Ogden was expressing his acknowledgments, she interrupted him: "Why not let him remain with us till then? We will try to amuse him, and make him learn his lessons." Mr. Ogden said he would have been very glad, but—in short, his mother was staying at Sootythorn, and might wish to keep her little grandson with her. Colonel Stanburne came up just then, and her ladyship's answer was no doubt partially intended for his ear. "Let me keep little Jacob till to-morrow at any rate. I have several people to see in Sootythorn, and must go there to-morrow. I scarcely know how I am to get there, though, for I have no carriage-horses."