Franceline followed her into the handsome square room. Two projecting windows thrust themselves out to the west to catch the last rays of the setting sun at one end, and another bulged out southward to sun itself in the noon-tide warmth; an old-fashioned sofa was drawn close to the fire. Franceline fancied she saw the soles of two boots resting on the arm facing the door; and was beginning to wonder where the body was that they might belong to, when the dowager suddenly cried out in tones of amazement rather than delight:
“Good gracious, Ponce! what brought you back, and when did you come? I verily believe you have got some talisman like Riquet with the Tuft for flying about the world like a bird! Where have you come from now?”
She stooped down to kiss the invisible head that lay at the other end of the figure, and a voice from the cushions answered: “I pledged my word I would be back in a day and a month; did you ever know me break my word, lady mother?”
“You so seldom commit yourself by pledging it to me that I hardly remember; however, now that you are here, I am glad to see you, and to be able to offer you a reward for your punctuality. Come here, my dear, and let me introduce my son Ponsonby to you.”
The recumbent giant was on his feet in an instant, with an involuntary “Hollo!” as Franceline advanced at his mother’s bidding.
“This is Mlle. de la Bourbonais, Ponce; my son, Captain Anwyll.”
“It is not often punishment overtakes the guilty so fast,” said the gentleman, with a very low bow, and an awkward laugh; “I so seldom indulge in the laziness of stretching my long legs on a sofa, that it’s rather hard on me that I should be caught in the act by a lady. Mother, you ought to have given me notice in time.”
“Served you right! I’m glad you were caught; and, my dear, don’t you mind his seldom; when he is not flying through the air or over the water, this big son of mine is stretching himself somewhere. Come, now, and get your things off.” As they were leaving the room, she looked back to ask her son if he “had brought the regiment down with him,” and on hearing that he had left that appendage in Yorkshire, his mother observed that it was like him to leave it behind just when it might have been useful.
There are some people who, though inert and quiet themselves, have a faculty for putting everybody about them in a commotion. Ponsonby Anwyll was one of these. When he came down to Rydal it was as if an earthquake shook the place. He wanted next to no waiting on, yet somehow every servant in the house was busied about him. He was like a baby in a house, exacting nothing, but occupying everybody.
He was constantly either overturning something, or on the point of doing it. Like so many men of the giant type, he was as gentle as a woman and as easily cowed; and like a woman, he always wanted somebody at his elbow to look after him. If he attempted to light a lamp, ten to one he upset it and spoiled a table-cover or a carpet, or he let the chimney fall, and cut his fingers picking up the bits to prevent some one else’s being cut. He took next to no interest practically in the estate; yet his tenantry were very fond of him; he never bothered them about improvements or abuses, and they were more obliged to him for letting them alone than for benefiting them against their will. Whenever he interfered it was to take their part against the agent, who could not see why the tenants were to be let off paying full rents because the harvest happened to be a failure one year, when it had been good so many preceding ones. Lady Anwyll would bully and storm and protest that he was ruining the property, and that they would all end in the Union; but Ponsonby soon petted her into good humor. In her heart of hearts she was proud of her big, easy-going son, who cared so little for money, and she was as pleased to be patronized by him as a little kitten is when the powerful Newfoundland condescends to a game of romps with it.