[337]
]‘Oh, well,’ said Vanda, ‘perhaps one would feel more contented if one had a few good works to put on the credit side of the account. I know I’ve been rather dissipated lately. This quiet country life may do us good, in more ways than one. Oh, mother’ (as Mrs. Banneret came in to see if the young people were ready, and to notify that the great bell for luncheon was about to clang), ‘Hermione and I have just resolved to be good. We are going to visit the poor, and teach in the Sunday school, and do our duty, just like the Jane Austen girls.’
‘I am very pleased to hear it, my dears; only I don’t wish you to take such a resolution in any but a serious sense, and an earnest resolve to do your duty and set an example, as far as in you lies, to the people among whom our lot for some years, if not always, will be cast. You have had all the rational amusement, and quite a full allowance of what the world calls pleasure, to last you for some time. I quite agree with you that it will be a good opportunity to begin in some respects a different and, with God’s grace, a higher life.’
On the Sunday morning following this important conversation, the Banneret family made their appearance in the roomy enclosure which had been for many generations consecrated to the use of the Lord of the Manor, his family, and apparently as many of his relations and dependants as he chose thus to honour. The church was fairly well filled, as it happened, much to the gratification of the Vicar, who was not displeased to note the presence of neighbouring magnates, [338] ]with their wives, who from time to time directed an intermittent gaze towards the new occupants of the Hall pew. Arnold Banneret with his wife and daughters made a good appearance therein. Indeed it had been for some years unoccupied, during the absence of the family abroad: such being the traditional custom. Mrs. Banneret and her daughters were well but quietly dressed—her wish to that effect having been gently but firmly expressed. ‘We have recently come from town,’ she said; ‘it is reported, no doubt, that we are very rich. In this quiet place nothing could be more vulgar than any display of fashion bordering upon finery.’ This settled the matter. The dresses were studiously plain; so much so, that the rustics of the congregation were secretly disappointed in not seeing unusual splendour, doubting in consequence whether the new-comers were so rich as they had been led to believe.
As the service proceeded, the thought came into the mind of this Australian squire of the many differing localities and positions in which he, with his wife and children, had worshipped before they came to this lordly abode. Not infrequently had he been the officiating lay minister, reading the Burial Service over the dead miner, victim of some sudden landslip or premature explosion; reciting the words of the litany, now sounding in his ears, in a half-finished wooden building, roofed with eucalyptus bark or corrugated iron; driving miles through snow for the purpose, or in mid-summer crossing the brick-red plain, amid dust and simoom-like [339] ]blasts. Through all these incongruous scenes, and from these and a hundred other various parts played by him in the great drama of life, he had emerged safe and unharmed. Not only unharmed, but placed in this position of honour and dignity—by no merit of his own, but by the operation of, apparently, the primary forces of Nature. Riches, too, had been added for the further advantage and enjoyment of those whom he loved more—yes, far more, than his own life. Ought he not then, out of the fulness of a heart welling over with gratitude, to echo the solemn prayer of the concluding litany?
At the conclusion of the service, the mail-phaetons, dog-carts, carriages, and other vehicles showed that some at least of the parishioners had a distance to come, which necessitated driving. The party from the Hall were scarcely a half-mile from the church, so that there was no need for taking out the carriage. The family, as a whole, were good pedestrians—‘The short walk was quite a pleasure,’ as Vanda told every one, ‘and it would have been absurd to take out the horses.’
When Lord Hexham returned to his family at Bruges, after a concluding week in London, in which to show himself to his clubs, and have a little social companionship with old friends and comrades, he took with him a letter from Mrs. Banneret, of so sympathetic and unaffectedly kind a nature, that Lady Hexham nearly relented. She would have been indeed more than human if she had not felt the least little bit of envy and jealousy of these people from a far country, who [340] ]had entered into their labours, so to speak, for no other reason than the chance possession of more money than they knew what to do with. Hard, no doubt, did it seem to her, that while she and her girls had to stint and save, scarcely able to afford themselves decent frocks, the daughters of these nouveaux riches should have their Paris gowns noticed in every fashion paper, and described as ‘confections,’ and so on, of the latest style. They were also seen at Ascot, royal Ascot, these new dwellers in their ancestral halls, their property in which, owing to the extravagance of one generation and the apathetic indifference of the next, had gradually declined, and was now lost to the family for ever.
However, his Lordship’s persistent advocacy of their claims to consideration gradually weakened her prejudices, finally inducing her to reply to Mrs. Banneret’s letter in manner approaching to the spirit in which it was written.
‘You know, my dear,’ he had said, in one of the discussions about ways and means which had followed his return to the peaceful home-life at Bruges, ‘it really was an immense relief our getting hold of such a lot of hard cash for poor old Hexham. It puts us and our credit in such a different position from what it has been for years.’
‘I daresay it has, but I don’t want any more credit, if you please—we have had more than was good for us all along. What sort of people are they? I suppose the girls are good-looking? [341] ]That’s what you mean by crediting them with all the virtues.’
‘They certainly are; but it’s very unfair of you to talk in that jealous way. If you saw Mrs. Banneret, not to mention her husband and the sons.’