Beechcroft at Rockstone

CHAPTER XVII. — ‘THEY COME, THEY COME’

Dr. Dagger examined Mrs. White and pronounced that there had been mortal disease of long standing, and that she had nearly, if not quite, reached the last stage. While people had thought her selfish, weak, and exacting, she must really have concealed severe suffering, foolishly perhaps, but with great fortitude.

And from hearing this sentence, Kalliope had turned to find at last tidings of her brother in a letter written from Avoncester, the nearest garrison town. He told his sister that, heart-broken already at the result of what he knew to be his own presumption, and horrified at the fatal consequences of his unhappy neglect, he felt incapable of facing any of those whom he had once called his friends, and the letter of dismissal had removed all scruples. Had it not been for his faith and fear, he would have put an end to his life, but she need have no alarms on that score. He had rushed away, scarce knowing what he was doing, till he had found himself on the road to Avoncester and then had walked on thither and enlisted in the regiment quartered there, where he hoped to do his duty, having no other hope left in life!

Part of this letter Kalliope read to Miss Mohun, who had come down to hear the doctor’s verdict. It was no time to smile at the heart being broken by the return of a valentine, or all hope in life being over before twenty. Kalliope, who knew what the life of a private was, felt wretched over it, and her poor mother was in despair; but Miss Mohun tried to persuade her that it was by no means an unfortunate thing, since Alexis would be thus detained safely and within reach till Sir Jasper arrived to take up the matter, and Mr. White had been able to understand it.

‘Yes; but he cannot come to my poor mother. And Richard will be so angry—think it such a degradation.’

‘He ought not. Your father—’

‘Oh! but he will. And I must write to him. Mother has been asking for him.’

‘Tell me, my dear, has Richard ever helped you?’

‘Oh no, poor fellow, he could not. He wants all we can send him, or we would have put the little boys to a better school.’

‘I would not write before it is absolutely necessary,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘A young man hanging about with nothing to do, even under these circumstances, might make things harder.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Kalliope, with a trembling lip. ‘And if it was urgent, even Alexis might come. Indeed, I ought to be thankful that he is safe, after all my dreadful fears, and not far off.’

Miss Mohun refrained from grieving the poor girl by blaming Alexis for the impetuous selfish folly that had so greatly added to the general distress of his family, and rendered it so much more difficult to plead his cause. In fact, she felt bound to stand up as his champion against all his enemies, though he was less easy of defence than his sister; and Mr. Flight, the first person she met afterwards, was excessively angry and disappointed, speaking of such a step as utter ruin.

‘The lad was capable of so much better things,’ said he. ‘I had hoped so much of him, and had so many plans for him, that it is a grievous pity; but he had no patience, and now he has thrown himself away. I told him it was his first duty to maintain his mother, and if he had stuck to that, I would have done more for him as soon as he was old enough, and I could see what was to be done for the rest of them; but he grew unsettled and impatient, and this is the end of it!’

‘Not the end, I hope,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘It is not exactly slavery without redemption.’

‘He does not deserve it.’

‘Who does? Besides, remember what his father was.’

‘His father must have been of the high-spirited, dare-devil sort. This lad was made for a scholar—for the priesthood, in fact, and the army will be more uncongenial than these marble works! Foolish fellow, he will soon have had enough of it, with his refinement, among such associates.’

Jane wondered that the young clergyman did not regret that he had sufficiently tried the youth’s patience to give the sense of neglect and oblivion. There had been many factors in the catastrophe, and this had certainly been one, since the loan of a few books, and an hour a week of direction of study, would have kept Alexis contented, and have obviated all the perilous intercourse with Gillian; but she scarcely did the Rev. Augustine Flight injustice in thinking that in the aesthetic and the emotional side of religion he somewhat lost sight of the daily drudgery that works on character chiefly as a preventive. ‘He was at the bottom of it, little as he knows it,’ she said to herself as she walked up the hill. ‘How much harm is done by good beginnings of a skein left to tangle.’

Lady Flight provided a trained nurse to help Kalliope, and sent hosts of delicacies; and plenty of abuse was bestowed on Mr. James White for his neglect. Meanwhile Mrs. White, though manifestly in a hopeless state, seemed likely to linger on for some weeks longer.

In the meantime, Miss Mohun at last found an available house, and was gratified by the young people’s murmur that ‘Il Lido’ was too far off from Beechcroft. But then their mother would be glad to be so near St. Andrew’s, for she belonged to the generation that loved and valued daily services.

Lord Rotherwood, perhaps owing to his exertions, felt the accident more than he had done at first, and had to be kept very quiet, which he averred to be best accomplished by having the children in to play with him; and as he always insisted on sending for Valetta to make up the party, the edict of separation fell to the ground, when Lady Rotherwood, having written his letters for him, went out for a drive, taking sometimes Miss Elbury, but more often Adeline Mohun, who flattered herself that her representations had done much to subdue prejudice and smooth matters.

‘Which always were smooth,’ said Jane; ‘smooth and polished as a mahogany table, and as easy to get into.’

However, she was quite content that Ada should be the preferred one, and perhaps no one less acute than herself would have felt that the treatment as intimates and as part of the family was part of the duty of a model wife. Both sisters were in request to enliven the captive, and Jane forebore to worry him with her own anxieties about the present disgrace of the Whites. Nothing could be done for Kalliope in her mother’s present state, Alexis must drink of his own brewst, and Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield were past Brindisi! As to Mr. White, he seemed to be immersed in business, and made no sign of relenting; Jane had made one or two attempts to see him, but had not succeeded. Only one of her G.F.S. maidens, who was an enthusiastic admirer of Kalliope, and in perfect despair at her absence, mentioned that Mr. White had looked over all their work and had been immensely struck with Miss White’s designs, and especially with the table inlaid with autumn leaves, which had been set aside as expensive, unprofitable, and not according to the public taste, and not shown to him on his first visit to the works with Mr. Stebbing. There were rumours in the air that he was not contented with the state of things, and might remain for some time to set them on a different footing.

Miss Adeline had been driving with Lady Rotherwood, and on coming in with her for the afternoon cup of tea, found Mr. White conversing with Lord Rotherwood, evidently just finishing the subject—a reading-room or institute of some sort for the men at the works.

‘All these things are since my time,’ said Mr. White. ‘We were left pretty much to ourselves in those days.’

‘And what do you think? Should you have been much the better for them?’ asked the Marquis.

‘Some of us would,’ was the answer.

‘You would not have thought them a bore!’

‘There were some who would, as plenty will now; but we were a rough set—we had not so much to start with as the lads, willy nilly, have now. But I should have been glad of books, and diversion free from lawlessness might have prevented poor Dick’s scrapes. By the bye, that daughter of his can do good work.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Miss Adeline, ‘she is a very good girl, and in great trouble. I was much pleased with her, and I think, she has behaved remarkably well under very trying circumstances.’

‘I observed that the young women in the mosaic department seemed to be much attached to her,’ said Mr. White.

‘My sister thinks she has been an excellent influence there.’

‘She was not there,’ said Mr. White.

‘No; her mother is too ill to be left—dying, I should think, from what I hear.’

‘From the shock of that foolish lad’s evasion?’ asked Lord Rotherwood.

‘She was very ill before, I believe, though that brought it to a crisis. No one would believe how much that poor girl has had depending on her. I wish she had been at the works—I am sure you would have been struck with her.’

‘Have you any reason to think they are in any distress, Miss Mohun?’

‘Not actually at present; but I do not know what they are to do in future, with the loss of the salaries those two have had,’ said Adeline, exceedingly anxious to say neither too much nor too little.

‘There is the elder brother.’

‘Oh! he is no help, only an expense.’

‘Miss Mohun, may I ask, are you sure of that?’

‘As sure as I can be of anything. I have always heard that the rents of their two or three small houses went to support Richard, and that they entirely live on the earnings of the brother and sister, except that you are so good as to educate the younger girl. It has come out casually—they never ask for anything.’

Mr. White looked very thoughtful. Adeline considered whether importunity would do most harm or good; but thought her words might work. When she rose to take leave, Mr. White did the same, ‘evidently,’ thought she, ‘for the sake of escorting her home,’ and she might perhaps say another word in confidence for the poor young people. She had much reliance, and not unjustly, on her powers of persuasion, and she would make the most of those few steps to her own door.

‘Indeed, Mr. White,’ she began, ‘excuse me, but I cannot help being very much interested in those young people we were speaking of.’

‘That is your goodness, Miss Mohun. I have no doubt they are attractive—there’s no end to the attractiveness of those Southern folk they belong to—on one side of the house at least, but unfortunately you never know where to have them—there’s no truth in them; and though I don’t want to speak of anything I may have done for them, I can’t get over their professing never to have had anything from me.’

‘May I ask whether you sent it through that eldest brother?’

‘Certainly; he always wrote to me.’

‘Then, Mr. White, I cannot help believing that the family here never heard of it. Do you know anything of that young man?’

‘No; I will write to his firm and inquire. Thank you for the hint, Miss Mohun.’

They were at Beechcroft Cottage gate, and he seemed about to see her even to the door. At that instant a little girlish figure advanced and was about to draw back on perceiving that Miss Adeline was not alone, when she exclaimed, ‘Maura, is it you, out so late! How is your mother?’

‘Much the same, thank you, Miss Adeline!’

‘Here is one of the very young folks we were mentioning,’ said Ada, seeing her opportunity and glad that there was light enough to show the lady-like little figure. ‘This is Maura, Mr. White, whom you are kindly educating.’

Mr. White took the hand, which was given with a pretty respectful gesture, and said something kind about her mother’s illness, while Adeline took the girl into the house and asked if she had come on any message.

‘Yes, if you please,’ said Maura, blushing; ‘Miss Mohun was so kind as to offer to lend us an air-cushion, and poor mamma is so restless and uncomfortable that Kally thought it might ease her a little.’

‘By all means, my dear. Come in, and I will have it brought,’ said Adeline, whose property the cushion was, and who was well pleased that Mr. White came in likewise, and thus had a full view of Maura’s great wistful, long-lashed eyes, and delicate refined features, under a little old brown velvet cap, and the slight figure in a gray ulster. He did not speak while Maura answered Miss Adeline’s inquiries, but when the cushion had been brought down, and she had taken it under her arm, he exclaimed—

‘Is she going back alone?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Maura cheerfully; ‘it is not really dark out of doors yet.’

‘I suppose it could not be helped,’ said Miss Adeline.

‘No; Theodore is at the school. They keep him late to get things ready for the inspection, and Petros had to go to the doctor’s to fetch something; but he will meet me if he is not kept waiting.’

‘It is not fit for a child like that to go alone so late,’ said Mr. White, who perhaps had imbibed Italian notions of the respectability of an escort. ‘I will walk down with her.’

Maura looked as if darkness were highly preferable to such a cavalier; but Miss Adeline was charmed to see them walk off together, and when her sister presently came in with Gillian and Fergus, she could not but plume herself a little on her achievement.

‘Then it was those two!’ exclaimed Jane. ‘I thought so from the other side of the street, but it was too dark to be certain; and besides, there was no believing it.’

‘Did not they acknowledge you?’

‘Oh no; they were much too busy.’

‘Talking. Oh, what fun!’ Adeline could not help observing in such glee that she looked more like ‘our youngest girl’ than the handsome middle-aged aunt.

‘But,’ suggested Fergus, somewhat astonished, ‘Stebbing says he is no end of a horrid brute of a screw.’

‘Indeed. What has he been doing?’

‘He only tipped him a coach wheel.’

‘Well, to tip over as a coach wheel is the last thing I should have expected of Mr. White,’ said Aunt Jane, misunderstanding on purpose.

‘A crown piece then,’ growled Fergus; ‘and of course he thought it would be a sovereign, and so he can’t pay me my two ten—shillings, I mean, that I lent him, and so I can’t get the lovely ammonite I saw at Nott’s.’

‘How could you be so silly as to lend him any money?’

‘I didn’t want to; but he said he would treat us all round if I wouldn’t be mean, and after all I only got half a goody, with all the liqueur out of it.’

‘It served you right,’ said Gillian. ‘I doubt whether you would see the two shillings again, even if he had the sovereign.’

‘He faithfully promised I should,’ said Fergus, whose allegiance was only half broken. ‘And old White is a beast, and no mistake. He was perfectly savage to Stebbing’s major, and he said he wouldn’t be under him, at no price.’

‘Perhaps Mr. White might say the same,’ put in Aunt Ada.

‘He is a downright old screw and a bear, I tell you,’ persisted Fergus. ‘He jawed Frank Stebbing like a pickpocket for just having a cigar in the quarry.’

‘Close to the blasting powder, eh?’ said Miss Mohun.

‘And he is boring and worrying them all out of their lives over the books,’ added Fergus. ‘Poking his nose into everything, so that Stebbing says his governor vows he can’t stand it, and shall cut the concern it the old brute does not take himself off to Italy before long.’

‘What a good thing!’ thought both sisters, looking into each other’s eyes and auguring well for the future.

All were anxious to hear the result of Maura’s walk, and Gillian set out in the morning on a voyage of discovery with a glass of jelly for Mrs. White; but all she could learn was that the great man had been very kind to Maura, though he had not come in, at which Gillian was indignant.

‘Men are often shy of going near sickness and sorrow,’ said her aunt Ada. ‘You did not hear what they talked about?’

‘No; Maura was at school, and Kally is a bad person to pump.’

‘I should like to pump Mr. White,’ was Aunt Jane’s comment.

‘If I could meet him again,’ said Aunt Ada, ‘I feel sure he would tell me.’

Her sister laughed a little, so well did she know that little half-conscious, half-gratified tone of assumption of power over the other sex; but Miss Adeline proved to be right. Nay, Mr. White actually called in the raw cold afternoon, which kept her in when every one else was out. He came for the sake of telling her that he was much pleased with the little girl—a pretty creature, and simple and true, he really believed. Quite artlessly, in answer to his inquiries, she had betrayed that her eldest brother never helped them. ‘Oh no! Mamma was always getting all the money she could to send to him, because he must keep up appearances at his office at Leeds, and live like a gentleman, and it did not signify about Kalliope and Alexis doing common work.’

‘That’s one matter cleared up,’ rejoiced Jane. ‘It won’t be brought up against them now.’

‘And then it seems he asked the child about her sister’s lovers.’

‘Oh!’

‘It was for a purpose. Don’t be old maidish, Jenny!’

‘Well, he isn’t a gentleman.’

‘Now, Jane, I’m sure—’

‘Never mind. I want to hear; only I should have thought you would have been the first to cry out.’

‘Little Maura seems to have risen to the occasion, and made a full explanation as far as she knew—and that was more than the child ought to have known, by the bye—of how Mr. Frank was always after Kally, and how she could not bear him, and gave up the Sunday walk to avoid him, and how he had tried to get her to marry him, and go to Italy with him; but she would not hear of it.’

‘Just the thing the little chatterbox would be proud of, but it is no harm that “Mon oncle des iles Philippines” should know.’

‘“I see his little game” was what Mr. White said,’ repeated Adeline. ‘“The young dog expected to come over me with this pretty young wife—my relation, too; but he would have found himself out in his reckoning.”’

‘So far so good; but it is not fair.’

‘However, the ice is broken. What’s that? Is the house coming down?’

No; but Gillian and Valetta came rushing in, almost tumbling over one another, and each waving a sheet of a letter. Papa and mamma would land in three days’ time if all went well; but the pity was that they must go to London before coming to Rockquay, since Sir Jasper must present himself to the military and medical authorities, and likewise see his mother, who was in a very failing state.

The children looked and felt as if the meeting were deferred for years; but Miss Mohun, remembering the condition of ‘Il Lido,’ alike as to the presence of workmen and absence of servants, felt relieved at the respite, proceeded to send a telegram to Macrae, and became busier than ever before in her life.

The Rotherwoods were just going to London. The Marquis was wanted for a division, and though both he and Dr. Dagger declared his collar-bone quite repaired, his wife could not be satisfied without hearing for herself a verdict to the same effect from the higher authorities, being pretty sure that whatever their report might be, his abstract would be ‘All right. Never mind.’

Fly had gained so much in flesh and strength, and was so much more like her real self, that she was to remain at the hotel with Miss Elbury, the rooms being kept for her parents till Easter. Mysie was, however, to go with them to satisfy her mother, ‘with a first mouthful of children,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘Gillian had better come too; and we will write to the Merrifields to come to us, unless they are bound to the old lady.’

This, however, was unlikely, as she was very infirm, and her small house was pretty well filled by her attendants. Lady Rotherwood seconded the invitation like a good wife, and Gillian was grateful. Such a forestalling was well worth even the being the Marchioness’s guest, and being treated with careful politeness and supervision as a girl of the period, always ready to break out. However, she would have Mysie, and she tried to believe Aunt Jane, who told her that she had conjured up a spectre of the awful dame. There was a melancholy parting on the side of poor little Lady Phyllis. ‘What shall I do without you, Mysie dear?’

‘It is only for a few days.’

‘Yes; but then you will be in a different house, all down in the town—it will be only visiting—not like sisters.’

‘Sisters are quite a different thing,’ said Mysie stoutly; ‘but we can be the next thing to it in our hearts.’

‘It is not equal,’ said Fly. ‘You don’t make a sister of me, and I do of you.’

‘Because you know no better! Poor Fly, I do wish I could give you a sister of your own.’

‘Do you know, Mysie, I think—I’m quite sure, that daddy is going to ask your father and mother to give you to us, out and out.’

‘Oh! I’m sure they won’t do that,’ cried Mysie in consternation. ‘Mamma never would!’

‘And wouldn’t you? Don’t you like me as well as Gill and Val?’

‘I like you better. Stop, don’t, Fly; you are what people call more of a companion to me—my friend; but friends aren’t the same as sisters, are they? They may be more, or they may be less, but it is not the same kind. And then it is not only you, there are papa and mamma and all my brothers.’

‘But you do love daddy, and you have not seen yours for four years, and Aunt Florence and all the cousins at Beechcroft say they were quite afraid of him.’

‘Because he is so—Oh! I don’t know how to say it, but he is just like Epaminondas, or King Arthur, or Robert Bruce, or—’

‘Well, that’s enough’ said Fly; ‘I am sure my daddy would laugh if you said he was like all those.’

‘To be sure he would!’ said Mysie. ‘And do you think I would give mine for him, though yours is so kind and good and such fun?’

‘And I’m sure I’d rather have him than yours,’ said Fly.

‘Well, that’s right. It would be wicked not to like one’s own father and mother best.’

‘But if they thought it would be good for you to have all my governesses and advantages, and they took pity on my loneliness. What then?’

‘Then? Oh! I’d try to bear it,’ said unworldly and uncomplimentary Mysie. ‘And you need not be lonely now. There’s Val!’

The two governesses had made friends, and the embargo on intercourse with Valetta had been allowed to drop; but Fly only shook her head, and allowed that Val was better than nothing.’

Mysie had a certain confidence that mamma would not give her away if all the lords and ladies in the world wanted her; and Gillian confirmed her in that belief, so that no misgiving interfered with her joy at finding herself in the train, where Lord Rotherwood declared that the two pair of eyes shone enough to light a candle by.

‘I feel,’ said Mysie, jumping up and down in her seat, ‘like the man who said he had a bird in his bosom.’

‘Or a bee in his bonnet, eh?’ said Lord Rotherwood, while Mysie obeyed a sign from my lady to moderate the restlessness of her ecstasies.

‘It really was a bird in his bosom,’ said Gillian gravely, ‘only he said so when he was dying in battle, and he meant his faith to his king.’

‘And little Mysie has kept her faith to her mother,’ said their cousin, putting out his hand to turn the happy face towards him. ‘So the bird may well sing to her.’

‘In spite of parting with Phyllis?’ asked Lady Rotherwood.

‘I can’t help it, indeed,’ said Mysie, divided between her politeness and her dread of being given away; ‘it has been very nice, but one’s own, own papa and mamma must be more than any one.’

‘So they ought,’ said Lord Rotherwood, and there it ended, chatter in the train not being considered desirable.

Gillian longed to show Mysie and Geraldine Grinstead to each other, and the first rub with her hostess occurred when the next morning she proposed to take a cab and go to Brompton.

‘Is not your first visit due to your grandmother?’ said Lady Rotherwood. ‘You might walk there, and I will send some one to show you the way.’

‘We must not go there till after luncheon,’ said Gillian. ‘She is not ready to see any one, and Bessie Merrifield cannot be spared; but I know Mrs. Grinstead will like to see us, and I do so want Mysie to see the studio.’

‘My dear’ (it was not a favourable my dear), ‘I had rather you did not visit any one I do not know while you are under my charge.’

‘She is Phyllis’s husband’s sister,’ pleaded Gillian.

Lady Rotherwood made a little bend of acquiescence, but said no more, and departed, while Gillian inly raged. A few months ago she would have acted on her own responsibility (if Mysie would not have been too much shocked), but she had learnt the wisdom of submission in fact, if not in word, for she growled about great ladies and exclusiveness, so that Mysie looked mystified.

It was certainly rather dull in the only half-revivified London house, and Belgrave Square in Lent did not present a lively scene from the windows. The Liddesdales had a house there, but they were not to come up till the season began; and Gillian was turning with a sigh to ask if there might not be some books in Fly’s schoolroom, when Mysie caught the sound of a bell, and ventured on an expedition to find her ladyship and ask leave to go to church.

There, to their unexpected delight, they beheld not only Bessie, but a clerical-looking back, which, after some watching, they so identified that they looked at one another with responsive eyes, and Gillian doubted whether this were recompense for submission, or reproof for discontent.

Very joyful was the meeting on the steps of St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, and an exchange of ‘Oh! how did you come here? Where are you?’

Harry had come up the day before, and was to go and meet the travellers at Southampton with his uncle, Admiral Merrifield, who had brought his eldest daughter Susan to relieve her sister or assist her. Great was the joy and eager the talk, as first Bessie was escorted by the whole party back to grandmamma’s house, and then Harry accompanied his sisters to Belgrave Square, where he was kept to luncheon, and Lady Rotherwood was as glad to resign his sisters to his charge as he could be to receive them.

He had numerous commissions to execute for his vicar, and Gillian had to assist the masculine brains in the department of Church needlework, actually venturing to undertake some herself, trusting to the tuition of Aunt Ada, a proficient in the same; while Mysie reverently begged at least to hem the borders.

Then they revelled in the little paradises of books and pictures in Northumberland Avenue and Westminster Sanctuary, and went to Evensong at the Abbey, Mysie’s first sight thereof, and nearly the like to Gillian, since she only remembered before a longing not to waste time in a dull place instead of being in the delightful streets.

‘It is a thing never to forget,’ she said under her breath, as they lingered in the nave.

‘I never guessed anything could make one feel so,’ added Mysie, with a little sigh of rapture.

‘That strange unexpected sense of delight always seems to me to explain, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive,”’ said Harry.

Mysie whispered—

‘Oh, Harry, can’t we stay and see Henry VII.‘s Chapel, and Poets’ Corner, and Edward I.‘s monument?’ pleaded the sister.

‘I am afraid we must not, Gill. I have to see after some vases, and to get a lot of things at the Stores, and it will soon be dark. If I don’t go to Southampton to-morrow, I will take you then. Now then, feet or cab?’

‘Oh, let us walk! It is ten times the fun.’

‘Then mind you don’t jerk me back at the crossings.’

There are few pleasures greater of their kind than that of the youthful country cousin under the safe escort of a brother or father in London streets. The sisters looked in at windows, wondered and enjoyed, till they had to own their feet worn out, and submit to a four-wheeler.

‘An hour of London is more than a month of Rockquay, or a year of Silverfold,’ cried Gillian.

‘Dear old Silverfold,’ said Mysie; ‘when shall we go back?’

‘By the bye,’ said Harry, ‘how about the great things that were to be done for mother?’

‘Primrose is all right,’ said Mysie. ‘The dear little thing has written a nice copybook, and hemmed a whole set of handkerchiefs for papa. She is so happy with them.’

‘And you, little Mouse?’

‘I have done my translation—not quite well, I am afraid, and made the little girl’s clothes. I wonder if I may go and take them to her.’

‘And Val has finished her crewel cushion, thanks to the aunts,’ said Gillian.

‘Fergus’s machine, how about that? Perpetual motion, wasn’t it?’

‘That has turned into mineralogy, worse luck,’ said Gillian.

‘Gill has done a beautiful sketch of Rockquay,’ added Mysie.

‘Oh! don’t talk of me,’ said Gillian. ‘I have only made a most unmitigated mess of everything.’

But here attention was diverted by Harry’s exclaiming—

‘Hullo! was that Henderson?’

‘Nonsense; the Wardours are at Cork.’

‘He may be on leave.’

‘Or retired. He is capable of it.’

‘I believe it was old Fangs.’

The discussion lasted to Belgrave Square.

And then Sunday was spent upon memorable churches and services under the charge of Harry, who was making the most of his holiday. The trio went to Evensong at St. Wulstan’s, and a grand idea occurred to Gillian—could not Theodore White become one of those young choristers, who had their home in the Clergy House.

CHAPTER XVIII. — FATHER AND MOTHER

The telegram came early on Monday morning. Admiral Merrifield and Harry started by the earliest train, deciding not to take the girls; whereupon their kind host, to mitigate the suspense, placed himself at the young ladies’ disposal for anything in the world that they might wish to see. It was too good an opportunity of seeing the Houses of Parliament to be lost, and the spell of Westminster Abbey was upon Mysie.

Cousin Rotherwood was a perfect escort, and declared that he had not gone through such a course of English history since he had taken his cousin Lilias and his sister Florence the same round more years ago than it was civil to recollect. He gave a sigh to the great men he had then let them see and hear, and regretted the less that there was no possibility of regaling the present pair with a debate. It was all like a dream to the two girls. They saw, but suspense was throbbing in their hearts all the time, and qualms were crossing Gillian as she recollected that in some aspects her father could be rather a terrible personage when one was wilfully careless, saucy to authorities, or unable to see or confess wrong-doing; and the element of dread began to predominate in her state of expectation. The bird in the bosom fluttered very hard as the possible periods after the arrivals of trains came round; and it was not till nearly eight o’clock that the decisive halt of wheels was heard, and in a few moments Mysie was in the dearest arms in the world, and Gillian feeling the moustached kiss she had not known for nearly four long years, and which was half-strange, half-familiar.

In drawing-room light, there was the mother looking none the worse for her journey, her clear brown skin neither sallow nor lined, and the soft brown eyes as bright and sweet as ever; but the father must be learnt over again, and there was awe enough as well as enthusiastic love to make her quail at the thought of her record of self-will.

There was, however, no disappointment in the sight of the fine, tall soldierly figure, broad shouldered, but without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and only altered by his hair having become thinner and whiter, thus adding to the height of his forehead, and making his very dark eyebrows and eyes have a different effect, especially as he was still pallid beneath the browning of many years, though he declared himself so well as to be ashamed of being invalided.

Time was short. Harry and the Admiral, who were coming to dinner, had rushed home to dress and to fetch Susan; and Lady Merrifield was conducted in haste to her bedroom, and left to the almost too excited ministrations of her daughters.

It was well that attentive servants had unfastened the straps, for when Gillian had claimed the keys of the dear old familiar box, her hand shook so much that they jingled; the key would not go into the hole, and she had to resign them to sober Mysie, who had been untying the bonnet, with a kiss, and answering for the health of Primrose, whom Uncle William was to bring to London in two days’ time.

‘My dear silly child,’ said her mother, surprised at Gillian’s emotion.

And the reply was a burst of tears. ‘Oh, so silly! so wrong! I have so wanted you.’

‘I know all about it. You told us all, like an honest child.’

‘Oh, such dreadful things—the rock—the poor child killed—Cousin Rotherwood hurt.’

‘Yes, yes, I heard! We can’t have it out now. Here’s papa! she is upset about these misadventures,’ added Lady Merrifield, looking up to her husband, who stood amazed at the sobs that greeted him.

‘You must control yourself, Gillian,’ he said gravely. ‘Stop that! Your mother is tired, and has to dress! Don’t worry her. Go, if you cannot leave off.’

The bracing tone made Gillian swallow her tears, the more easily because of the familiarity of home atmosphere, confidence, and protection; and a mute caress from her mother was a promise of sympathy.

The sense of that presence was the chief pleasure of the short evening, for there were too many claimants for the travellers’ attention to enable them to do more than feast their eyes on their son and daughters, while they had to talk of other things, the weddings, the two families, the home news, all deeply interesting in their degree, though not touching Gillian quite so deeply as the tangle she had left at Rockstone, and mamma’s view of her behaviour; even though it was pleasant to hear of Phyllis’s beautiful home in Ceylon, and Alethea’s bungalow, and how poor Claude had to go off alone to Rawul Pindee. She felt sure that her mother was far more acceptable to her hostess than either of the aunts, and that, indeed, she might well be so!

Gillian’s first feeling was like Mysie’s in the morning, that nothing could go wrong with her again, but she must perforce have patience before she could be heard. Harry could not be spared for another day from his curacy, and to him was due the first tete-a-tete with his mother, after that most important change his life had yet known, and in which she rejoiced so deeply. ‘The dream of her heart,’ she said, ‘had always been that one of her sons should be dedicated;’ and now that the fulfilment had come in her absence, it was precious to her to hear all those feelings and hopes and trials that the young man could have uttered to no other ears.

Sir Jasper, meantime, had gone out on business, and was to meet the rest at luncheon at his mother’s house, go with them to call on the Grinsteads, and then do some further commissions, Lady Rotherwood placing the carriage at their disposal. As to ‘real talk,’ that seemed impossible for the girls, they could only, as Mysie expressed it, ‘bask in the light of mamma’s eyes’ and after Harry was gone on an errand for his vicar, there were no private interviews for her.

Indeed, the mother did not know how much Gillian had on her mind, and thought all she wanted was discussion, and forgiveness for the follies explained in the letter, the last received. Of any connection between that folly and the accident to Lord Rotherwood of course she was not aware, and in fact she had more on her hands than she could well do in the time allotted, and more people to see. Gillian had to find that things could not be quite the same as when she had been chief companion in the seclusion of Silverfold.

And just as she was going out the following letter was put into her hands, come by one of the many posts from Rockstone:—

‘MY DEAR GILLIAN—I write to you because you can explain matters, and I want your father’s advice, or Cousin Rotherwood’s. As I was on the way to Il Lido just now I met Mr. Flight, looking much troubled and distressed. He caught at me, and begged me to go with him to tell poor Kalliope that her brother Alexis is in Avoncester Jail. He knew it from having come down in the train with Mr. Stebbing. The charge is for having carried away with him L15 in notes, the payment for a marble cross for a grave at Barnscombe. You remember that on the day of the accident poor Field was taking it in the waggon, when he came home to hear of his child’s death.

‘The receipt for the price was inquired for yesterday, and it appeared that the notes had been given to Field in an envelope. In his trouble, the poor man forgot to deliver this till the morning; when on his way to the office he met young White and gave it to him. Finding it had not been paid in, nor entered in the books, and knowing the poor boy to have absconded, off went Mr. Stebbing, got a summons, and demanded to have him committed for trial.

‘Alexis owned to having forgotten the letter in the shock of the dismissal, and to having carried it away with him, but said that as soon as he had discovered it he had forwarded it to his sister, and had desired her to send it to the office. He did not send it direct, because he could only, at the moment, get one postage-stamp. On this he was remanded till Saturday, when his sisters’ evidence can be taken at the magistrates meeting. This was the news that Mr. Flight and I had to take to that poor girl, who could hardly be spared from her mother to speak to us, and how she is to go to Avoncester it is hard to say; but she has no fear of not being able to clear her brother, for she says she put the dirty and ragged envelope that no doubt contained the notes into another, with a brief explanation, addressed it to Mr. Stebbing, and sent it by Petros, who told her that he had delivered it.

‘I thought nothing could be clearer, and so did Mr. Flight, but unluckily Kalliope had destroyed her brother’s letter, and had not read me this part of it, so that she can bring no actual tangible proof, and it is a much more serious matter than it appeared when we were talking to her. Mr. White has just been here, whether to condole or to triumph I don’t exactly know. He has written to Leeds, and heard a very unsatisfactory account of that eldest brother, who certainly has deceived him shamefully, and this naturally adds to the prejudice against the rest of the family. We argued about Kalliope’s high character, and he waved his hand and said, “My dear ladies, you don’t understand those Southern women—the more pious, devoted doves they are, the blacker they will swear themselves to get off their scamps of men.” To represent that Kalliope is only one quarter Greek was useless, especially as he has been diligently imbued by Mrs. Stebbing with all last autumn’s gossip, and, as he confided to Aunt Ada, thinks “that they take advantage of his kindness!”

‘Of course Mr. Flight, and all who really know Alexis and Kalliope, feel the accusation absurd; but it is only too possible that the Avoncester magistrates may not see the evidence in the same light, as its weight depends upon character, and the money is really missing, so that I much fear their committing him for trial at the Quarter Sessions. It will probably be the best way to employ a solicitor to watch the case at once, and I shall speak to Mr. Norton tomorrow, unless your father can send me any better advice by post. I hope it is not wicked to believe that the very fact of Mr. Norton’s being concerned might lead to the notes finding themselves.

‘Meantime, I am of course doing what I can. Kally is very brave in her innocence and her brother’s, but, shut up in her mother’s sickroom, she little guesses how bad things are made to look, or how Greek and false are treated as synonymous.

‘Much love to your mother. I am afraid this is a damper on your happiness, but I am sure that your father would wish to know. Aunt Ada tackles Mr. White better than I do, and means if possible to make him go to Avoncester himself when the case comes on, so that he should at least see and hear for himself.—Your affectionate aunt,

J. M.’

What a letter for poor Gillian! She had to pocket it at first, and only opened it while taking off her hat at grandmamma’s house, and there was only time for a blank feeling of uncomprehending consternation before she had to go down to luncheon, and hear her father and uncle go on with talk about India and Stokesley, to which she could not attend.

Afterwards, Lady Merrifield was taken to visit grandmamma, and Bessie gratified the girls with a sight of her special den, where she wrote her stories, showing them the queer and flattering gifts that had come to her in consequence of her authorship, which was becoming less anonymous, since her family were growing hardened to it, and grandmamma was past hearing of it or being distressed. It was in Bessie’s room that Gillian gathered the meaning of her aunt’s letter, and was filled with horror and dismay. She broke out with a little scream, which brought both Mysie and Bessie to her side; but what could they do? Mysie was shocked and sympathising enough, and Bessie was trying to understand the complicated story, when the summons came for the sisters. There were hopes of communicating the catastrophe in the carriage; but no, the first exclamation of ‘Oh, mamma!’ was lost.

Sir Jasper had something so important to tell his wife about his interviews at the Horse Guards, that the attempt to interrupt was silenced by a look and sign. It was a happy thing to have a father at home, but it was different from being mamma’s chief companion and confidante, and poor Gillian sat boiling over with something very like indignation at not being allowed even to allow that she had something to tell at least as important as anything papa could be relating.

She hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry that the Grinsteads proved to be out of town; but at any rate she might be grateful to Lady Rotherwood for preventing a vain expedition—a call on another old friend, Mrs. Crayon, the Marianne Weston of early youth, and now a widow, as she too was out. Then followed some shopping that the parents wanted to do together, but at the door of the stores Lady Merrifield said—

‘I have a host of things to get here for the two brides. Suppose, papa, that you walk home with Gillian across the Park. It will suit you better than this fearful list.’

Lady Merrifield only thought of letting father and daughter renew their acquaintance, and though she saw that Gillian was in an agony to speak about something, did not guess what an ordeal the girl felt it to have to begin with the father, unseen for four years, and whose searching eyes and grave politeness gave a sense of austerity, so that trepidation was spoiling all the elation at having a father, and such a father, to walk with.

‘Well, Gillian,’ he said, ‘we have a great deal of lee way to make up. I want to hear of poor White’s children. I am glad you have had the opportunity of showing them some kindness.’

‘Oh, papa! it is so dreadful! If you would read this letter.’

‘I cannot do so here,’ said Sir Jasper, who could not well make trial of his new spectacles in Great George Street. What is dreadful?’

‘This accusation. Poor Alexis! Oh! you don’t know. The accident and all—our fault—mine really,’ gasped Gillian.

‘I am not likely to know at this rate,’ said Sir Jasper. ‘I hope you have not caught the infection of incoherency from Lord Rotherwood. Do you mean his accident?’

‘Yes; they have turned them both off, and now they have gone and put Alexis in prison.’

‘For the accident? I thought it was a fall of rock.’

‘Oh no—I mean yes—it wasn’t for that; but it came of that, and Fergus and I were at the bottom of it,’ said Gillian, in such confusion that her words seemed to tumble out without her own control.

‘How did you escape with your lives?’

Was he misunderstanding her on purpose, or giving a lesson on slipslop at such a provoking moment? Perhaps he was really only patient with the daughter who must have seemed to him half-foolish, but she was forced to collect her senses and say—

‘I only meant that we were the real cause. Fergus is wild about geology, and took away a stone that was put to show where the cliff was unsafe. He showed the stone to Alexis White, who did not know where it came from and let him have it, and that was the way Cousin Rotherwood came to tread on the edge of the precipice.’

‘What had you to do with it?’

‘I—oh! I had disappointed Alexis about the lessons,’ said Gillian, blushing a little;’ and he was out of spirits, and did not mind what he was about.’

‘H’m! But you cannot mean that this youth can have been imprisoned for such a cause.’

‘No; that was about the money, but of course he sent it back. He ran away when he was dismissed, because he was quite in despair, and did not know what he was about.’

‘I think not, indeed!’

‘Papa,’ said Gillian, steadying her voice, ‘you must not, please, blame him so much, for it was really very much my fault, and that is what makes me doubly unhappy. Did you read my last letter to mamma?’

‘Yes. I understood that you thought you had not treated your aunts rightly by not consulting them about your intercourse with the Whites, and that you had very properly resolved to tell them all. I hope you did so.’

‘Indeed I did, and Aunt Jane was very kind, or else I should have had no comfort at all. Was mamma very much shocked at my teaching Alexis?’

‘I do not remember. We concluded that whatever you did had your aunts’ sanction.’

‘Ah! that was the point.’

‘Did these young people persuade you to secrecy?’

‘Oh no, no; Kalliope protested, and I overpowered her, because—because I was foolish, and I thought Aunt Jane interfering.’

‘I see,’ said Sir Jasper, with perhaps more comprehension of the antagonism than sisterly habit and affection would have allowed to his wife. ‘I am glad you saw your error, and tried to repair it; but what could you have done to affect this boy so much. How old is he? We thought of him as twelve or fourteen, but one forgets how time goes on, and you speak of him as in a kind of superintendent’s position.’

‘He is nineteen.’

Sir Jasper twirled his moustache.

‘I begin to perceive,’ he said, ‘you rushed into an undertaking that became awkward, and when you had to draw off, the young fellow was upset and did not mind his business. So far I understand, but you said something about prison.’

The worst part of the personal confession was over now, and Gillian could go on to tell the rest of the Stebbing enmity, of Mr. White’s arrival, and of the desire to keep his relations aloof from him.

‘This is guess work,’ said Sir Jasper.

‘I think Cousin Rotherwood would say the same’ rejoined Gillian, and then she explained the dismissal, the flight, and the unfortunate consequences, and that Aunt Jane hoped for advice by the morning’s post.

‘I am afraid it is too late for that,’ said Sir Jasper, looking at his watch. ‘I must read her letter and consider.’

Gillian gave a desperate sigh, and felt more desperate when at that moment the very man they had had a glimpse of on Saturday met them, exclaiming in a highly delighted tone—

‘Sir Jasper Merrifield!’

Any Royal Wardour ought to have been welcome to the Merrifields, but this individual had not been a particular favourite with the young people. They knew he was the son of a popular dentist, who had made his fortune, and had put his son into the army to make a gentleman of him, and prevent him from becoming an artist. In the first object there had been very fair success; but the taste for art was unquenchable, and it had been the fashion of the elder half of the Merrifield family to make a joke, and profess to be extremely bored, when ‘Fangs,’ as they naughtily called him among themselves, used to arrive from leave, armed with catalogues, or come in with his drawings to find sympathy in his colonel’s wife. Gillian had caught enough from her four elders to share in an unreasoning way their prejudice, and she felt doubly savage and contemptuous when she heard—

‘Yes, I retired.’

‘And what are you doing now?’

‘My mother required me as long as she lived’ (then Gillian noticed that he was in mourning). ‘I think I shall go abroad, and take lessons at Florence or Rome, though it is too late to do anything seriously—and there are affairs to be settled first.’

Then came a whole shoal of other inquiries, and even though they actually included ‘poor White’ and his family, Gillian was angered and dismayed at the wretch being actually asked by her father to come in with them and see Lady Merrifield, who would be delighted to see him.

‘What would Lady Rotherwood think of the liberty?’ the displeased mood whispered to Gillian.

But Lady Rotherwood, presiding over her pretty Worcester tea-set, was quite ready to welcome any of the Merrifield friends. There were various people in the room besides Lady Merrifield and Mysie, who had just come in. There was the Admiral talking politics with Lord Rotherwood, and there was Clement Underwood, who had come with Harry from the city, and Bessie discussing with them boys’ guilds and their amusements.

Gillian felt frantic. Would no one cast a thought on Alexis in prison? If he had been to be hanged the next day, her secret annoyance at their indifference to his fate could not have been worse.

And yet at the first opportunity Harry brought Mr. Underwood to talk to her about his choir-boys, and to listen to her account of the 7th Standard boy, a member of the most musical choir in Rockquay, and the highest of the high.

‘I hope not cockiest of the cocky,’ said Mr. Underwood, smiling. ‘Our experience is that superlatives may often be so translated.’

‘I don’t think poor Theodore is cocky,’ said Gillian; ‘the Whites have always been so bullied and sat upon.’

‘Is his name Theodore?’ asked Mr. Underwood, as if he liked the name, which Gillian remembered to have seen on a cross at Vale Leston.

‘Being sat upon is hardly the best lesson in humility,’ said Harry.

‘There’s apt to be a reaction,’ said Mr. Underwood; ‘but the crack voice of a country choir is not often in that condition, as I know too well. I was the veriest young prig myself under those circumstances!’

‘Don’t be too hard on cockiness,’ said Lord Rotherwood, who had come up to them, ‘there must be consciousness of powers. How are you to fly, if you mustn’t flap your wings and crow a little?’

‘On a les defauts de ses qualites,’ put in Lady Merrifield.

‘Yes,’ added Mr. Underwood. ‘It is quite true that needful self-assertion and originality, and sense of the evils around—’

‘Which the old folk have outgrown and got used to,’ said Lord Rotherwood.

‘May be condemned as conceit,’ concluded Mr. Underwood.

‘Ay, exactly as Eliab knew David’s pride and the naughtiness of his heart,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘If you won’t fight your giant yourself, you’ve no business to condemn those who feel it in them to go at him.’

‘Ah! we have got to the condemnation of others, instead of the exaltation of self,’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘It is better to cultivate humility in one’s self than other people, eh?’ said the Marquis, and his cousin thought, though she did not say, that he was really the most humble and unself-conscious man she had ever known. What she did say was, ‘It is a plant that grows best uncultivated.’

‘And if you have it not by happy nature, what then?’ said Clement Underwood.

‘Then I suppose you must plant it, and there will be plenty of tears of repentance to water it,’ returned she.

‘Thank you,’ said Clement. ‘That is an idea to work upon.’

‘All very fine!’ sighed Gillian to Mysie, ‘but oh, how about Alexis in prison! There’s papa, now he has got rid of Fangs, actually going to walk off with Uncle Sam, and mamma has let Lady Rotherwood get hold of her. Will no-body care for anybody?’

‘I think I would trust papa,’ said Mysie.

He was not long gone, and when he came back he said, ‘You may give me that letter, Gillian. I posted a card to tell your aunt she should hear to-morrow.’

All that Gillian could say to her mother in private that evening consisted of, ‘Oh, mamma, mamma,’ but the answer was, ‘I have heard about it from papa, my dear; I am glad you told him. He is thinking what to do. Be patient.’

Externally, awe and good manners forced Gillian to behave herself; but internally she was so far from patient, and had so many bitter feelings of indignation, that she felt deeply rebuked when she came down next morning to find her father hurrying through his breakfast, with a cab ordered to convey him to the station, on his way to see what could be done for Alexis White.

That day Gillian had her confidential talk with her mother—a talk that she never forgot, trying to dig to the roots of her failures in a manner that only the true mother-confessor of her own child can perhaps have patience and skill for, and that only when she has studied the creature from babyhood. The concatenation, ending (if it was so to end) in the committal to Avoncester Jail, and beginning with the interview over the rails, had to be traced link by link, and was almost as long as ‘the house that Jack built.’

‘And now I see,’ said Gillian, ‘that it all came of a nasty sort of antagonism to Aunt Jane. I never guessed how like I was to Dolores, and I thought her so bad. But if I had only trusted Aunt Jane, and had no secrets, she would have helped me in it all, I know now, and never have brought the Whites into trouble.’

‘Yes,’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘perhaps I should have warned you a little more, but I went off in such a hurry that I had no time to think. You children are all very loyal to us ourselves; but I suppose you are all rather infected by the modern spirit, that criticises when it ought to submit to authorities.’

‘But how can one help seeing what is amiss? As some review says, how respect what does not make itself respectable? You know I don’t mean that for my aunts. I have learnt now what Aunt Jane really is—how very kind and wise and clever and forgiving—but I was naughty enough to think her at first—’

‘Well, what? Don’t be afraid.’

‘Then I did think she was fidgety and worrying—always at one, and wanting to poke her nose into everything.’

‘Poor Aunt Jane! Those are the faults of her girlhood, which she has been struggling against all her life!’

‘But in your time, mamma, would such difficulties really not have been seen—I mean, if she had been actually what I thought her?’

‘I think the difference was that no faults of the elders were dwelt upon by a loyal temper. To find fault was thought so wrong that the defects were scarcely seen, and were concealed from ourselves as well as others. It would scarcely, I suppose, be possible to go back to that unquestioning state, now the temper of the times is changed; but I belong enough to the older days to believe that the true safety is in submission in the spirit as well as the letter.’

‘I am sure I should have found it so,’ said Gillian. ‘And oh! I hope, now that papa is come, the Whites may be spared any more of the troubles I have brought on them.’

‘We will pray that it may be so.’ said her mother.