CHAPTER I.
On a certain sunny morning in the pleasant month of June, in a pleasant room, the French-windows of which opened on to a terraced garden, with the gleaming waters of the Channel heaving and falling no great distance away, sat Mrs Bowood, wife of Captain James Bowood—formerly of the mercantile marine, but now of Rosemount, The Undercliff, Isle of Wight—busily engaged with her correspondence. Mrs Bowood was a pleasant-looking woman of some forty summers, whose brown hair was already tinged with gray. She had never been accounted a beauty, and she made no pretensions to a gift with which nature had failed to endow her. But her dark eyes looked the home of kindliness and good temper, with now and then a glint of merry humour breaking through them; and she possessed the gift—so precious in a woman—of a voice at once soft, clear, and persuasive. The verdict of every one who knew Mrs Bowood was, that the more you saw of her the better you grew to like her.
All women, whether married or single, like to have one particular friend to whom they can open their minds without fearing that their confidence will be betrayed, to whom they can tell things that they will tell to no one else, not even to their husbands. Mrs Bowood’s particular friend and confidante was a certain Miss Dorothea Pennell, who, being a lifelong invalid, and consequently debarred from playing any active part on the world’s stage, welcomed all the more eagerly every scrap of news which her correspondent could send her, and responded all the more sympathetically, whenever sympathy was looked for at her hands. It was to Miss Pennell that Mrs Bowood was this morning inditing her fortnightly budget of news. As she turns over the first page and begins on the second, let us take the liberty of peeping over her shoulder and of reading what her pen puts down.
‘We are rather more than usually lively at Rosemount just now,’ she writes; ‘in fact, I should be justified in saying that we are decidedly uproarious. You will know, my dear Dolly, what I mean when I tell you that my sister’s two youngsters, Freddy and Lucy, are here on a visit. Maria wanted to go to Paris for a few weeks, so I gladly offered to take charge of them. Their sweet childish laughter makes pleasant music in the old house. I know I shall have a good cry to myself when the time comes for them to leave us. They are at once the pride and the torment of their uncle. You know that my dear old Bow-wow has a fine natural irritability of temper, which really means nothing when you come to know him, and is merely a sort of safety-valve which, I verily believe, saves him from many a fit of gout. So, when the youngsters steal his pocket-handkerchief or hide his spectacles, he stamps—not with his gouty foot—and storms, and his red face grows redder—which is quite unnecessary—and he threatens condign punishment. Then the children pretend to be frightened, and hide themselves for a quarter of an hour; after which they go hand in hand and stand a little distance away from him and rub a knuckle in a corner of their eyes. Then of course they are called up, scolded for half a minute, and forgiven. Then come lollipops. But all the time I feel sure that the young monkeys are laughing at him in their sleeves. Dear old Jamie! he is as transparent as a sheet of glass, and the children’s sharp eyes read him through and through.
‘The other day they found a quantity of coloured paper, which they persuaded Biggles, their nurse-maid, to cut up and fashion into so-called “roses.” Of these paper flowers they made festoons, with which they decorated themselves; but by-and-by, seeing their uncle’s white hat on the table in the hall, the temptation was too much for them, and forthwith the chapeau was decorated with a wreath of paper flowers. Then the young imps hid behind the half-open library door, waiting till their uncle should set out for his afternoon stroll, about which he is generally as regular as clock-work. Presently, out he came, humming some old sea-song to himself, and took his cane out of the stand and clapped his hat on his head, never perceiving—you know how short-sighted he is—that there was anything amiss with the latter article, and so went his way; and very comical he must have looked. As soon as he had disappeared, the children came out of their hiding-place and performed a war-dance on the veranda. Meanwhile, my dear old boy marched gaily on his way towards Ventnor. He told me afterwards that he could not make out why people turned and stared so at him. Before long, he had quite a gathering of urchins of both sexes following at his heels—but at a respectful distance, having probably the fear of his cane in their eyes. Then a butcher’s boy, as he drove past, called out: “Hi! Bill, here’s another guy!” This bewildered the Captain. He turned and glared at his following, and examined his coat-tails, for fear anything might have been pinned surreptitiously behind him; but he never thought of looking at his hat. It was not till he reached the outskirts of the town that some one who knew him stopped him and told him what was the matter. He came back in a great fume, on castigatory thoughts intent; but of course the culprits were not to be found, nor did they venture to put in an appearance till bedtime, when they sneaked up-stairs under the wing of Biggles, without venturing into the drawing-room to bid either their uncle or me their usual “good-night.” After this, you will perhaps be surprised to learn that on peeping into the children’s room about half-past nine, I found the candles alight, the urchins sitting up in their beds, and their uncle seated on a chair between the two, telling them a sea-yarn and stuffing them with chocolate creams. What is a poor woman to do with such a husband?
‘And this reminds me that I have promised my sister to engage a French governess for her while she is away. Maria has a charming knack of throwing on to other people’s shoulders any little worry which she does not care to encounter herself. What would seem more natural and proper than that she, whose home is in London, should engage a governess on the spot. But, no; she did not care to face the nuisance of having to pick and select from among a score or two of candidates, and so delegated the labour to me, who live here in this out-of-the-way spot. “You know, dear Caroline, that I lack your firmness in matters of this sort,” she wrote in that insinuating way of hers. “I cannot deal with people as you can. I am impulsive; you are just the opposite. I should inevitably engage the first applicant whose appearance pleased me, without reference to her abilities or anything else; while you, dear Caroline”—— And so on. You know Maria’s style.
‘As a consequence of my advertisement, I have been inundated with letters during the last week—the postman will want an extra half-crown at Christmas—all of which I have had to wade through; the result being that I have selected half-a-dozen of the most likely candidates to see personally. I fervently hope that I shall be able to find one out of the half-dozen that will meet Maria’s requirements, and so bring this troublesome business to an end.
‘The day after I posted my last letter to you, Elsie Brandon came to us on a visit. You will remember her as being at Rosemount when you were staying with us last summer. She has shot up wonderfully in the interim. She is now seventeen, and is nearly as tall as I am. You will remember my telling you that she is a ward in Chancery, and that she will come into a considerable fortune when she is of age. Her aunt, Miss Hoskyns, who has charge of her, brought her to Rosemount to stay for a couple of months. She is a bright intelligent girl, full of life and high spirits when away from her severely methodical aunt. Miss Hoskyns—whose dearest wish it is to be looked upon as a femme savante, and who has just started for Italy to decipher some Etruscan inscriptions which have lately been unearthed there—would fain train up Elsie to eschew all thoughts of matrimony, and develop gradually into a blue-stocking like herself. The child is learning Latin and mathematics, and is to begin Greek next winter, and by-and-by go to Girton College for a couple of years. But I am afraid that all Miss Hoskyns’ well-meant efforts will never make a “girl graduate” of Elsie Brandon. Far dearer to her heart than Latin or mathematics is a game of lawn-tennis on a sunny afternoon; and young as she is—unless an old woman is mistaken—she already knows more of the art of flirtation than she is likely to know of the Greek poets as long as she lives. Meanwhile, a little gentle repression will do her no harm. I equalise matters by insisting that her studies shall not be neglected—the Rev. Septimus Dale comes and coaches her three times a week—but when once her lessons have been mastered, she is at liberty to do as she likes. I need scarcely say that she twists Captain James Bowood round her little finger.
‘Now that I have written so much about Elsie, it seems only natural that I should tell you the latest news about the Captain’s nephew, Charley Summers, who was such a favourite with you when you were here. You know already how he ran through the small fortune which came to him after his mother’s death; and how, subsequent to that, his uncle paid his debts twice over. You know also how, as a last resource, the Captain placed him in a tea-broker’s office in the City, and how, after a three months’ trial of office-life, he broke away from it, and took to the stage for a living. This was the last straw; and when James heard that his nephew had turned actor, he vowed that he should never darken his doors again, and that he washed his hands of him for ever. My dear husband had certain prejudices instilled into his mind when he was young, and there they live and flourish to the present day. It is his firm belief that in earning his bread as he does at present, Charley has irrevocably disgraced both himself and his family. And yet, for all that, he still holds the boy as the apple of his eye. Love and prejudice have been fighting against each other in his heart, and for the present, prejudice has carried the day; but if I know anything of my husband, the victory is only a temporary one. Love will conquer in the end.