All this was long before the hour at which ordinary mortals have their breakfast, before even Mrs. Joscelyn, trembling and pale, had ventured to get up. The morning had been a long one for the poor lady; she had not slept any more than her daughter; she had lain still, not daring to move after all the house was astir, feeling as if she were fixed to her uneasy bed by a stake. She writhed upon it faintly, but could not pull it up, and lay still with her ears open to every sound till her husband, usually early enough, but whose disturbed night had made him late this morning of all mornings, got up and took himself away. Then it was for the first time that poor Mrs. Joscelyn really felt a little of the warmth of that sympathy for which she had longed all her life. Joscelyn had scarcely stamped off with his big tread downstairs, when an equally firm, if not so loud, step came up, and after a moment Joan appeared at her mother’s bedside with a cup of tea in her hand.
“Here is something to comfort you a bit, mother,” she said. Mrs. Joscelyn like most nervous women believed that there was a kind of salvation in tea.
“Oh! have you any news of my Harry, Joan? that will comfort me more than anything else,” she cried.
“Now, mother,” said Joan, “why will you make a fuss? Could I send over to the ‘Red Lion’ first thing in the morning to ask, is Harry lodging in your house? as if we were frightened of him. We’ve no reason to be frightened of him that I know. Am I to go and give him a bad character because father’s behaved bad, and Harry’s taken offence. We mustn’t be unreasonable. You wouldn’t like to raise an ill name on the poor boy.”
“Oh, no, no—anything but that,” Mrs. Joscelyn said. She was silenced by this plea; but her heart was still torn with anxiety. She looked wistfully in her daughter’s face with her lips trembling. “Do you think there is nothing that can be done without exposing him, Joan?”
“Well, mother, I’ll see. We don’t want to expose anybody. I’ve told a heap of fibs myself,” said Joan, with a broad smile, “and all the women think they’ve caught me. I know what they’re thinking, they’re wondering who I had to chatter with at the door. They’ll maybe on the whole,” she added, laughing, “think all the better of me if they think I am courtin’—so I will let them think what they like, and we must expose nobody. Father’s a trial, but as long as we can we must just keep him to ourselves.”
“Ah, Joan,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, wringing her thin hands, “you can laugh, but I feel a great deal more like crying. I can think upon nothing but my poor boy.”
“Well, mother,” said Joan, “crying is not my line. I’ll not pretend to more; but it’s just as well there is one of us that can laugh, or what would become of us both I don’t know. Take your tea; it will be quite cold; and lie still and get a rest. The very first news I have I will bring you, and you’re far better out of the way if you’ll take my advice.”
“I wish I was out of the way altogether. I wish I were in my grave. When I was young I could bear it, but now my heart’s failed me. Oh, I just wish that once for all I was out of the way!”
“You make too much fuss, mother,” said Joan. “I am always telling you. If you could take things easy it would be far better. Out of the way! and what would Liddy do, poor little pet, when she comes home?”
“Ah, Liddy!” The mother breathed out this name with a softened expression; here was still a last hope that had not been torn from her. Joan for her part went out of the room briskly, but stood and gazed out of the window on the landing, which looked towards the village, holding her hands very tightly clasped, and looking for the return of the messenger whom she would not acknowledge to have sent. “Ah, Liddy,” she said to herself, “she’ll be just such another as mother herself, and what will I do between them? but I wish old Simon would come back with some news of that boy.”
CHAPTER X.
INQUIRIES.
SIMON went down to the village, stooping over his stick and laden with his big basket with a crab-like progression, which, nevertheless, was by no means slow. There were few people to be met on the road, children going to school for the most part, with whom he was no favourite, and who called out little taunts after him when they were far enough off to be safe from pursuit. He was not an amiable old man, but unless an urchin came in his way he did not attempt to take any vengeance. “Little scum o’ t’ earth,” he would say, shaking his fist, but that amused and stimulated instead of alarming the youngsters. The village was mildly astir, wrapped in a haze of morning sunshine; the better houses opening up by degrees; the cottages all open to the sweet yet chill air of the spring morning. At the “Red Lion” all was already in activity, doors and windows open to carry off the heavy fumes of beer and tobacco left by last night’s customers. Simon went in and rested his big basket on the bar table. The ostler in the yard was making a great noise with his pails, the women were brushing and scrubbing upstairs, and talking to each other in harsh unmodulated rustic voices, and the mistress was busy in her bar arranging and dusting the array of bottles which was its chief decoration. “Is that you, Simon?” she said, and “It’s just me,” was the old man’s answer; no ceremonial greeting was necessary. “I’ve brought you th’ butter,” Simon said. “When it’s a fine colour and extra good, I like to get the credit of ’t mysel’.”
“You the credit,” said Mrs. Armstrong; “you’ll tell me next you’ve kirned it and washed it and printed it yoursel’.”
“I’ve milk’t it,” said Simon. “There’s a great art in milking. If you do it in wan way the cream’s spoilt; but if ye do ’t in my way you see what’s the consequence. Just look at my butter—it’s like lumps of gowd.”
“A wee too yallow for my fancy,” said the buyer. “That’s beet, and it gies a taste. I’m no saying it’s your fault. There’s nae pasture on the fells to keep the baists without feeding.”
“My baists,” said Simon, “want for naething; there’s no such sweet pasture on a’ the fells as ower by the Reedbush yonder; it’s that juicy and tasty. I think whiles it would be a good thing for me if I could eat it mysel’.”
“Well, Simon, you’re humble-minded,” said the mistress. “What will you have? If ye eat cow’s meat ye will want something to warm your stamack after ’t. Is it true they tell me that Miss Joan’s gotten a lad at long and last?”
“Miss Joan,” said the old retainer; “and wha might it be that evened Miss Joan to lads or any nonsense o’ t’ sort?”
“Eh, what’s the matter with her that she’s so different from other folk? A lad’s natural to a lass; and though she ca’s herself a lady she’s just a lass like the rest. Lady here and lady there; she’s just a stout lass like any farmer’s daughter aboot. I’m no speaking a word again the family.”
“As well no,” said Simon, darkly.
“Far better no; there’s Master Harry is a good customer—no that he takes much when he’s here; but he’s for ever aboot the house.”
“Ay, so?” said old Simon; “I thought he wasna the fine lad he used to be. So he’s for ever aboot this house?”
“Ye’re an auld ill-tongued—why shouldn’t he be aboot this house? Is there any harm in this house? The curate himself, when he has a friend with him, he’ll come to me for his dinner. The ‘Red Lion’s’ as good a house as is atween this and Carlisle. Show you me another that is mair exact in a’ the regulations, and gies less trouble. There no been so much as a fine paid in the ‘Red Lion,’ no since my fayther’s time that had it afore us. We’re kent through aw the countryside.”
“I’m saying nae harm o’ t’ ‘Red Lion.’ Ye snap a man oop that short; but a gentleman he’s best at home. I say to your face, mistress, as I wouldn’t say worst behind your back. And if he’s hanging aboot a tap day and night—”
“Never but the night,” said the mistress of the “Red Lion,” promptly. “I’ve never seen him in the day but passing the road; and a civil lad he is, no a bit proud, no like your oopish ways. And about the tap it’s an untruth, Simon, just an untruth. He’ll take his glass; but it’s not for drink he comes, it’s for company. Tak’ you your butter to t’other side o’ t’hoose. I’ll not have you down here.”
“Na, Mistress, there’s was nae harm meant. You ken what’s thought in a country place when a lad is seen aboot a public. And lads will be lads. I reckon they keepit it oop late last nicht—keeping decent folk out of their beds.”
“No a moment after the fixed time,” said Mrs. Armstrong, promptly. “No a moment! I’m till a moment myself, and my master he’s as exact as me. Na, na, oor character is mair to us than a bottle or twa extra. Out o’ this house they all go at eleven clock of night——”
“But, mistress, ye’ve beds for man and baist,” said Simon, stolidly. “You will not turn oot upon the street them that bides here?”
“Hoot,” said the woman, with more good humour “what has that to do with Mr. Harry? He never bides here; and we’ve few enough lodgers. Who would come to the fells for pleasure at this time of the year? Noo and again we’ve got a gentleman fishing. I wonder ye don’t mak’ a bit o’ money oot o’ birds t’autumn, Simon. They say it’s no that plenty at the White House.”
“They say a deal o’ things that they ken naething aboot—like that for wan, that they keepit it oop here yestreen till a’ the hours o’ t’ night.”
“And I tell ye it’s an untruth, Simon, whoever says it—it’s just a lee, that’s what it is. I shut the door upon them with my ain hand. No a living soul but them belonging to t’house at half after eleven. Ye may tell that to whoever tellt you; and if I kent who they were I would hav’ them oop afore the coart for slander. I would tak’ justice o’ them. Lies! that’s what it is. Mr. Harry stood talking afore the door with young Selby maybe talking nonsense; but was that any fault o’ mine? Every lad o’ them a’ was oot o’ this house and home to their beds by the hoor named in the regulations. Tak’ away your butter; I think we’re wanting none the day.”
“Na, na, mistress, there’s nought to be vexed aboot,” said old Simon. “You’ve got your clash aboot the White House, and I’ve got my clash o’ the ‘Red Lion.’ There’s non’ o’ them true; but we can give and take like friends—the best o’ friends must give and take.”
“Ask you that crooked body, Isaac Oliver; he was wan, and a bonnie time he would have with the misses, or I’m mistaken. He was wan; for I saw him waiting to speak to Mr. Harry when I shut the door. He was talking with young Selby, as I tell ye, in the street, till I wished them i’ th’ moon, disturbing honest folk’s rest. He might have gone home and kept it oop with young Selby. I canna tell. If there’s any wan as blames me it’s an untruth, Simon; and as for clashin’ it’s a thing I never do. Miss Joan may have twenty lads for what I care, and high time—if she’s no to be an old maid aw her days, which is what the haill town thought.”
“I wish her nae worse,” said Simon. “I’m wan mysel’—better that than fightin’ and scratchin’, or to be frightent for what the misses will say—the missises in your way o’ business must be terribly bad for trade.”
“Well, I don’t blame them,” said the mistress of the “Red Lion,” with a momentary preference of her own side in morals to her own side in trade. But this, it may be readily guessed, was a toleration which could not last. She was beginning to discuss the missis of Isaac Oliver, when Simon took up his basket and adopted her former counsel of taking it to the other side of the house. He had heard all he wanted; but he made his circuit through the village, and left his butter here and there, with a snatch of gossip wherever he went, and no particular regard to the anxiety of his mistress. Anxiety is not much understood in the fells. Why there should be a hurry for news: why you should make an expedition expressly to learn one thing or another when there is something else to do, which you could do at the same time, was not comprehensible to old Simon. They would know “soon enough,” he thought. What was wrong with the womenfolk that they should for ever be wanting news? they would hear soon enough. It was true that he began to have a notion that Mr. Harry’s escapade, whatever it was, meant more than a visit to his brother; but what could it matter whether they knew about the “Red Lion” at ten o’clock or twelve? He went tranquilly about his business and delivered his butter, and heard everywhere about Miss Joan’s “lad.” Most of the customers thought with the mistress of the “Red Lion,” that it was “high time;” but some of them were of opinion that she would be a terrible loss. “What will ye do without her? The missis isn’t of the stirring sort, she’ll never keep the house agate,” they said. Simon did not much believe in his mistress himself, as has been already said; but being a Joscelyn, although only by marriage, he felt she was at least better than anyone else. “You have to know the missis,” he said, “before you can speak. She mayn’t be a stirring one; but t’ house is one of t’ houses as goes by itself.” When he had heard their comments, and added his share to them, Simon went leisurely home. He made no particular haste, even though his basket was lightened of its load. He had accomplished his mission very carefully; but that anyone should be especially eager about the result of it was a thing that his brain could not conceive.
In the meanwhile the time was passing very heavily at the White House. Mrs. Joscelyn had got up, after enduring the torture of lying still as long as she was capable of it, and was seated in the uneasy seat in the parlour window, gazing out, though with her work by her, with which to veil her watch should anyone come in. Joscelyn had said nothing about it last night. He had been almost conciliatory at breakfast to Joan, who thought, on the whole, that it was better to let well alone, and make no allusion to what had passed. “I will speak my mind to him sooner or later,” she said to herself; “but it comes easier when you are angry and don’t mind what you say.” Thus she did from calculation what so many people do against all calculation, resolving to take advantage of the next storm to deliver her soul. She and her father got on tolerably well when the mother was out of the way. Joscelyn spoke to his daughter about his farm affairs, about the prospects of his stables, and the horses upon which he set his hopes. He was a considerable horse-dealer, and she knew as much about them as any woman was capable of knowing. She was quite willing to discuss the points of the last new filly, and quite able to do so, and an intelligent critic, which her mother had never been. “If she knows a horse from a cow it’s all she does,” he said of his wife; and perhaps she had been sometimes a little impatient of these constant discussions; but Joan had an opinion and gave it freely. Joan ate a good breakfast, notwithstanding that half her mind was with Harry, and that she kept her eye upon the window, that she might not miss old Simon coming back—and she talked with perfect good-humour notwithstanding all that had happened. She did not care, now that it was over, about her locking-out; indeed she was of opinion that it was better not to give her father the gratification of supposing that he had produced any effect upon her. But when Mrs. Joscelyn came downstairs, appealing to her with her pale face Joan’s difficulties were much increased. She could not be hard upon her mother at such a moment; indeed she was never hard upon her mother. She entreated her not to make a fuss; not to take on; brought her a footstool; put out her work for her, and so went off to her own occupations again. “But bless my heart, I would be crazy before dinner-time if I were to sit with mother, and go over it and over it, and see her wringing her poor hands—poor dear!”
The last words were added after a pause, with involuntary tenderness. Joan was anxious, too, about her brother, so that a slight gleam of understanding had aroused her mind. Poor dear! to take on like that for every trifle, to take nothing easy, was a state of mind which irritated Joan; but this time it was not so wonderful. This time she was anxious herself, and there was a cause for it. Long before Simon came back she had rejected her own suggestion, that Harry must have gone to the “Red Lion.” And if not there, where had he gone? where had he spent the night? She kept her eyes upon the window or the door all the morning, darting forth whenever she saw any stranger approach, prepared to find a message from some cottage or outlying hamlet to bring her news of Harry. He would have the sense to send, she thought; surely he would have the sense to send word. He would know the state in which his mother would be. But the long hours of the morning went on till noon, and nobody came. They had never seemed to Joan so long before. She had never known what it was before to do her work with a divided interest, and on a strain of expectation. When she saw old Simon coming along the road with his empty basket on his arm and his hat in one hand, while with the other, and a spotted blue handkerchief, he wiped his furrowed forehead, a wild sense of impatience came over her. She marched out upon him, the big wooden spoon, with which she had been taking the cream off the milk, still in her hand. He thought she was going to attack him with this inappropriate but yet dangerous weapon. “Well?” she said, with a sort of gasp; “well?” Her fervour bewildered him, for she had been quite calm when she gave him the commission, and he stared at her with a mixture of surprise and alarm.
“Oh ay, Miss Joan, a’ well,” said old Simon. He had almost forgotten the occasion of his early visit to the “Red Lion;” or was it that desire to exasperate that sometimes seizes upon an old servant? It was all she could do not to seize him by the shoulders and shake his news out of him. She cried out in spite of herself, stamping her foot upon the hard road.
“What answer have ye brought? You have been out four hours, if you’ve been a minute. I am waiting my answer,” she cried, in a strange, half-stifled voice.
“What answer?” said Simon, innocently; and then a gleam of intelligence came over his face. “I was a fool to forget. There’s been nobody lodging at the ‘Red Lion,’ Miss Joan, if that’s what you mean. The woman said nobody. He left last night at eleven o’clock; that’s all she could tell me. He’ll have gotten to Mr. Will’s many a long hour ago. It was a fine night, and he’s a fine walker. There was nothing to be ooneasy aboot, Miss Joan.”
Joan gave his arm a shake unconsciously, in spite of herself, then dropped it. “Who said I was uneasy? but you might have come back hours ago, Simon, when I told you I wanted to hear.”
“Did you tell me you wanted to hear? I had the butter on my mind,” said Simon, calmly. And then, of all people in the world, Joscelyn himself came suddenly in sight, round the corner of the house.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “Has Simon been doing errands down in the village, Joan, or what are you wanting with him out here?”
Joan’s heart swelled with a momentary impulse of wrath. It was doubtful for the moment whether she would seize the occasion and let him have her mind, as she had to do sooner or later; but Simon went on with his slow sing-song almost without a pause. “It’s the butter, master. I’ve been down the town with the butter. Maybe you’ll speak to Miss Joan no to be so particular; as if I was wan that would cheat the family. I’ve aye been exact in my accounts.”
This was a shot that went both ways, for Simon did not like Joan’s talent for accounts. He preferred to go by rule of thumb, and count out to her, so much from the “Red Lion,” so much from Dr. Selby’s, a shilling here and a shilling there, paying down each coin as he gave the list; whereas Joan liked it all in black and white. When he had said this he hobbled on quietly to the back door, leaving the father and daughter together. Joscelyn looked at her with a momentary keen scrutiny. “You’re sending that old fellow upon your errands: and I would like to know what they are,” he said.
“If I’m not to send what errands I please, it’ll be better for me to go away as well,” she replied.
“What do you mean by as well? I’ll have no go-betweens, and no mysteries here,” he said.
But Joan was not in a mood to seize the opportunity and speak out, as she had intended, on the first chance. She was exasperated, not simply angry. She gave him an indignant look, and turned round without a word. Now Joscelyn was himself uneasy at what he had done. He was not quite without human feeling, and he had reflected much since upon what might have happened. He did not know what had happened; he had not mentioned the circumstance of the previous night; but his mind had not been free. He wanted information, though he would not ask for it. When his wife had let Joan in, in the middle of the night, he had supposed that Harry, too, must have crept to bed like her, allowing himself to be vanquished. That he had not appeared at breakfast was nothing extraordinary; but even Joscelyn himself was eager to know what had happened now.
“Hey, Joan,” he cried; “hey, come back, I want to speak to you. What have you done with that young fool?”
“I’m not acquainted with any young fools,” she said, almost sharply, and, in her irritation, did not turn round, or even pause, but went straight forward into the house. Her father stood for a few moments switching his boots with the whip in his hand. He was uneasy in spite of himself. He did not intend any special brutality. He meant no harm to his son, only a severe lesson that should bring Harry “to heel,” like one of his pointers. Above all he did not mean any scandal, any storm of rural gossip. He was alarmed by the idea of all that might be said if it were known that Harry had been shut out of his father’s house, for no particular harm, only because he was late of returning home. Accordingly, after a few moments’ indecision, he followed Joan into the house and into the parlour, where he found her, as he felt certain he should, with her mother. The women were clinging together, comforting each other, when he pushed the door open; and they were greatly startled by his appearance. Joan came away from her mother’s side hastily. She did not wish it to be seen that there was moisture in her eyes, or that she had actually—she, the matter-of-fact Joan—been consoling the poor feeble woman whose tendency to make a fuss had always stood between them. “Well,” she said hastily, “what is it, father?” coming in front of Mrs. Joscelyn, and standing with her back to her mother, shielding her from all critical eyes.
Joscelyn threw himself into his chair by the fire, and turned it round towards them. He had caught them, he thought. “What are you two colleaguing about? There’s some mischief up, or two women would never be laying their heads together. Commonly you’re never such friends.”
“If we’re not friends it’s the more shame to us,” said Joan.
“That’s your look out; it isn’t mine. I don’t want you to be friends. You’re a deal better the other way. I’ll not have two of you in corners all about the place taking my character away. I know what that means. As soon as you’ve got some one to talk about, and compare notes, and conspire against——”
“Father, you had better keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Joan. “You say what you like to mother, and she cries; but I’m not one to cry. I am as good as you are, and very nearly as old. I’ll take insolence from no man. It’s just as well you should hear it now; I’ve promised myself you should hear it the first time I was in a passion. Hold your tongue, mother. Obedience is all very well; but a woman of thirty is not like a lass of thirteen, and there are some things that I will not put up with. How dare you, if you are my father, speak like that to me? I am no slave to whisper and to conspire, whoever may be. What do you do for me that you should take all that upon you? I’m a servant without wages. I work as hard as any man about the place, and I neither get credit nor pay; and you think I’ll take all your insults to the boot as if I were a frightened little lass; but you’re mistaken. It isn’t for nothing you lock the door upon your family; and if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head——”
“Joan, Joan!” came with a feeble cry from behind. Mrs. Joscelyn had risen up with her usual gesture, wringing her hands.
“Hold your tongue, mother. I’m something more than your daughter or father’s daughter. I’m myself, Joan Joscelyn, a woman worth a good day’s wage and a good character wherever I go. And to stay in this hole, and be spoken to like a dog, that’s what I’ll not put up with. If he likes to behave himself I will behave myself; but put up with his insolence I will not. Sit down and do your mending, poor dear; it’s him I’m talking to. Now look you here, father; if ever it is to happen to me again that I’m to be watched what I do, or have a door locked upon me, or be spoken to in that tone——”
Joscelyn was greatly astonished and taken aback. He was not prepared for downright rebellion; but he was glad of this side-way to make an escape for himself.
“In what tone?” he said. “What kind of way do you want to be spoken to, hey? Am I to call you Miss Joscelyn? you’re a pretty Miss Joscelyn! and beck and bow before you? This is a new kind of thing, Miss. You’re something very grand, I don’t make any doubt, but we never knew it till now. Tell us how you like to be spoken to, my lady, and we’ll do it. There have been titles in the family; perhaps it’s Countess Joan you would like, hey?”
Joan tossed her head with indignant contempt.
“I knew well enough,” she said, “that for any reason or sense it was not worth the while to speak; but there was no help for it. You just know now what I think, father; and after all that’s come and gone this last night, it will be more your part to leave mother and me to ourselves to get over it, than to come and try to torment us more. This is the women’s room in the house; you’d far better leave it quiet to her and to me.”
Here Joscelyn burst in with a big oath, dashing his fist against the table.
“The women’s room!” he cried, “and what right have the women, dash them, to any room but where I choose to let them be? Lord! if I keep my hands off ye you may be glad. Women! the plague of a man’s life. When I think what I might have been at this moment if I had kept free of that whimpering, grumbling, sickly creature! I should have been a young man now—I might have been a match for any lady in the county. And now, madam, you’re setting up your children to face me. My mother’s money last night—and who gave you a right to a penny! and the women’s room, confound you all! as if you had a right to one inch in my house. By the Lord Harry! I’m more inclined to pack you out, neck and crop, than I ever was to eat my dinner. Clear the place of you, that’s what I’d like to do.”
“Do, father,” said Joan, “it will be the best day’s work you ever did. I have a right to my parlour to sit at peace when my work’s done, or I have a right to be turned out. Come, do it! You tried last night, but I’d rather go in the day. Put me to the door; it will make me a deal easier in my mind if you take it upon yourself.”
He cursed her with foam on his lips, but not in a melodramatic way, and Joan cared as little for the curse as for any exclamation.
“You are enough to make a man take his hands to you,” he said.
Joan grew suddenly red to the very roots of her hair. She drew a step nearer to him with her eyes flaming.
“That would maybe be the best,” she said. She was a strong woman, and fearless, and for the moment the two stood facing each other, as if they were measuring their respective strength. Then Joscelyn burst into a rude laugh.
“It is a good thing for some poor fellow that you’re the toad you are,” he said, “not a woman. Now, your mother was well enough; but you’re just a toad, that’s what you are, and make men fly from ye; and well for them, as I say.”
“If mother’s lot, poor body! comes by beauty, I’m glad I’m ugly,” said Joan. “And if that’s all you’ve got to say we’ve heard it before, and you had far better go to your beasts. But just you mind, father, this is my last word; after all that’s come and gone, keep a civil tongue in your head.”
“What is it that’s come and gone?” he asked. “Where’s that boy you’re hiding up and making a mystery of? where’s Harry? What is the meaning of all this coming and going errands, and old Simon, and all the rest of it? Where is Harry? By Jove! I’ll have it all cleared up at once!” he said, once more dashing his fist against the table.
There was a momentary pause, and the sensation of having their tyrant at their mercy came over the two women. It affected them in altogether different ways. Mrs. Joscelyn, who never braved anything, saw in it a means of mending all quarrels in a common anxiety. She made a timid step towards her husband, and put out her hand.
“Oh, Ralph!” she cried, “our boy’s gone away!” She was ready, in her sympathy for him, in her sense of the shock the information must give him, to throw herself upon his neck that they might mingle their tears as if they had been the most devoted pair.
But Joan held her back. Joan looked at her father with keen eyes, in which there was some gleam of triumph.
“Lads have not the patience that women have,” she said. “When they’re insulted, if they cannot fight they turn their backs; that’s what Harry has done. He’ll never darken your doors again, be sure of that; nor would I if I had been like him, except for mother, poor dear!”
“Oh, Joan, don’t say that! he’s gone I know—but that he’ll never darken our doors again—if I thought that it would break my heart.”
“Mother, hold your tongue; my saying it will make little difference. He will never darken these doors again. You and me may see him many a day, in his own house, or with the other boys: but these doors,” said Joan, “he’ll never darken again. It’s borne in upon my mind that it will be long, long, before Harry Joscelyn is so much as heard of here.”
“Don’t say that! don’t say that!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, falling back, trembling and weeping, upon her chair. She was so pale and faint that Joan’s heart was moved; she went to her mother’s side to comfort her, as she never would have dreamt of doing in any other trouble that had ever befallen the too sensitive woman.
Joscelyn stood and stared at them for a moment in unusual silence. The sight of Joan, always so calmly observant, more cynical than sympathetic, giving herself up to the task of consoling this weak mother, so unlike herself, struck him dumb. Joan! he could not understand it. And that Harry should have gone away had more effect upon him than he would have considered possible. He stood for a moment staring, and then he went out of the room without saying a word.
CHAPTER XI.
THE WOMEN’S PART.
THERE is no doubt that the interval which ensued after this was a time of extraordinary peace and quietness at the White House. Whether it was the heart which had faintly stirred in Ralph Joscelyn’s bosom, or whether he was alarmed by what he had done, it is certain that he was wonderfully subdued and silenced. When, after a long career of violence and family domineering, and threats of all kinds, one of those who have hitherto only scolded back and kept up a war of words, is suddenly stung into action, and does something desperate instead of uttering the mere froth of passion, it is not unusual to see the domestic tyrant come to a sudden stand-still, more bewildered than anyone by the result. Times without number he had threatened to turn every son he had out of the house: but the young man who turned himself out of the house gave him such a shock as he had never got before in his life. He was very susceptible to outside criticism, for one thing, and all the county would soon find out what had happened. He would be asked on the other side of the Fells if he had any news of his son. The news would soon travel over all his haunts as far as Carlisle. People would tell each other how Harry Joscelyn had disappeared; that he had not been able to stand things any longer; that there had been a dreadful quarrel, and his father had turned him to the door, and he had gone away. It was a long time, however, before the real state of affairs was known, even in the White House. A few terrible days passed, terrible for his mother and sister, and in a way for Joscelyn also, who was moody and silent, going about the house more quietly than his wont, and not able to get over the shock of his surprise. Joan secretly despatched messengers to the houses of her brothers, neither of whom had seen Harry, and it was not till the third day that Isaac Oliver came shuffling to the door, desiring to speak with the mistress or Miss Joan. Joan found a little whispering knot at the door as she passed through the passages from the dairy.
“Who is that?” she said.
“It’s me, Miss Joan, Isaac Oliver, your uncle’s man,” said a well-known voice; and instantly there flashed upon Joan all he had come to say. Uncle Henry’s, to be sure! Had she ever thought otherwise? Of course it was the most natural place for Harry to go.
“Come in this way,” she said, hastily. Joscelyn was out, and there was little chance of visitors at the White House to interrupt such a conference. She led him in with a beating heart, dismissing with a word the gossiping women about the door. “I hope you’re bringing us no bad news, Isaac; my uncle’s an old man,” said Joan, breathless. She so little knew what she was saying, in the light that seemed to flood upon her, that she did not even feel it to be insincere.
“It’s not about t’auld maister, he’s fine and weel,” said Isaac, following her along the passage with his shuffle, talking as he went; “you would not give him more than sixty to look at him, out here and there to his dinner, and driving about the country like ony young man.”
“He’s very lively for his age,” Joan said.
“Ay, or for any age,” said Isaac, and by this time they had reached the parlour-door.
The moment they had entered that sanctuary Joan turned upon this messenger of fate and pushed him into a chair. She took no notice of Mrs. Joscelyn, who sat as usual in the distance, pretending to work, but on the watch for every wayfarer, sweeping the line of road and the grey fields and dim horizon with her anxious eyes.
“Now tell us what you have to tell us,” she cried.
“It’s just—I’ve been at Wyburgh, Miss Joan, to see t’auld maister. He’s fine and weel, as I said; and Mrs. Eadie, she’s fine and weel, and as pleased as they could be, baith the wan and the other——”
“Isaac, if you have nothing to tell us but about Uncle Henry and Mrs. Eadie say so at once.”
Mrs. Joscelyn rose from her chair. She left her eternal mending on her seat, and came forward holding her hands together as was her wont.
“What is it, Joan?” she said, with an appeal to her daughter’s understanding; she had begun not to trust to her own.
“That’s just what I’m waiting to hear. It’s about Harry; he’s been at Wyburgh, of course, on his way to ——. To be sure, mother, you know that.”
“They were terrible glad to see him,” said Isaac. “I said you would be sure to ken, but Mrs. Eadie she thought no, so she would engage me to come. Go over as soon as you get back, Isaac, she said to me, the mistress and Miss Joan will be real glad to hear.”
“So we are, Isaac. Say away like a man, anything you can tell us we’ll be glad to hear; he’s not a good letter-writer, my brother Harry; we like to hear all we can. He got there safe and well?”
“I gave him a dael of advice the night before,” said Isaac, “young lads is aye wanting something—again’ asking a penny from t’auld maister. Mr. Harry makes a fool o’ me, leddies; he’s just one o’ the lads I canno’ resist. There’s naething I would not do for him. I flew in the face o’ my missis, and even o’ my ain convictions, which are mair than ony woman’s, to follow him to the ‘Red Lion’ the night afore. No, it’s not a place that I frequent, far from that, no man can be more strong again’ it, let alone the missis; but I risked a dael of disgrace to gang after him there, to say to him—Ye’ll no’ think the worse of me, nor the mistress will no’ think the worse of me, that I spoke my mind.”
“And is he with Uncle Henry now, or has he—gone on?”
“To say to him, ‘Hev patience,’ that was all I said, ‘Hev patience, and ye’ll get every penny.’ I hev a conviction he’ll get every penny. It’s a nice little bit of money, and the land’s no’ such ill land about Burnswark if he were to build a new house. The auld wan we’re in is gude for naething, but Burnswark would be no’ bad for a sma’ property if he were to build a new house; and he’s naething to do but to hev patience—and never to bother t’auld maister in his lifetime, that was what I said.”
“You were always a sensible person, Isaac; my uncle’s much obliged to you for taking such care of him. But I hope my brother Harry did not want it. Is he still at Wyburgh, or has he—gone on? Tell us, for you see my mother’s anxious. We have got no letter.”
“To my great satisfaction,” said Isaac, “he must have taken my advice, for he went on to Liverpool the same night.”
Joan nodded her head a great many times; her face was wreathed in smiles. She took her mother’s feeble hands—straining themselves together as usual—into hers, and beamed upon the messenger.
“That is just what I thought! just what I thought!” she said; “far the best thing he could do, and shows his sense, mother. I could have told you from the first! Just see, now, how you torment yourself for nothing at all. I’ll get his things packed and send them off this very night.”
Isaac went on droning steadily.
“I’m saying nothing again’ Mr. Harry, nor yet reflecting upon ony person at home. Lads are aye wanting, and they’ll ask an auld uncle or aunt, or that, sooner than they’ll ask faither or mither. I’ve seen the like o’ that often, but what I said to Mr. Harry was, ‘Hev patience, that’s aw about it: just hev patience and ye’ll get everything you want.’”
“I am sure we are very much obliged to you,” said Joan; “you must have a glass of wine. Would you like port wine or sherry, Isaac? you shall have a glass of the best, and you can come up to the dairy next time you’re going to Wyburgh and take Mrs. Eadie a bit of our sweet butter. Yes, yes, I know you make it yourself, but you must not say it’s as good as mine. Eadie shall have a pat all for herself—I am sure she was kind to Harry—and perhaps some new-laid eggs, they’re a treat in a town.”
“I take them in aw we hev at Burnswark. Ye need not trouble, Miss Joan,” said Isaac, “wance a week I take in the best of everything, eggs and cream.”
“Or a little honey,” said Joan; “our honey off the Fells is beautiful. It’s that Uncle Henry is so fond of. You shall take them a honey-comb, Isaac; and tell your wife to come up to the house and see me. There’s some things would make up for the children. She’s a good housewife, that wife of yours, and keeps the children always nice. You should be proud of her. She would be a credit to any man.”
“Oh, ay,” said Isaac, sheepishly scratching his head, “there’s a many worse, there’s a many worse. I’m making no complaint; but the worst of a wife is that she will never let her man judge for himsel’.”
“And a great deal better for you, if your judgment was to take you to the ‘Red Lion,’” said Joan. She was gradually edging him out, suppressing Isaac’s inclination to say a great deal more. “Good day,” she cried, “good day,” conducting him to the door. “I am very much obliged to you; and next time you go to Wyburgh you’ll be sure to take the White House on your way.”
When she had closed the door Joan turned round quickly upon her mother. Mrs. Joscelyn was lying back in her chair, with those expressive hands of hers lying loosely in her lap. The relief in her mind had relaxed all the nervous tightening of her muscles. She had sunk back with that softening sense of relief which makes freedom from pain no negative but an active blessedness. The pressure upon her brain, and her heart, and her very breath, seemed withdrawn. Sitting so quietly by the window, an image of domestic tranquillity, she had been a mere collection of beating pulses, of hot throbs and concussions; but now all these agitations were stilled; her heart dropped into quietness, like a bird into its nest, her blood ran softly in her veins. She smiled faintly at Joan when she went up to her, and said in a scarcely audible voice, “Thank God!”
“That’s true,” said Joan, “but how often have I told you, mother, that things would come all right if you would not make a fuss? The fellow was in no danger after all, not in any danger at any time, just as well off as a lad could be, petted by old Eadie, and with Uncle Henry to look after him. Of course I knew he must have been there.”
“You never said it, Joan.”
“No,” said Joan, with a laugh rendered unsteady by the same sense of relief, “I knew it the moment I heard it, mother. I am not setting up for more sense than other folk; the moment I heard Isaac’s voice asking for me I knew it in a moment, but not till then. Just see what fools we are, the wisest of us,” said Joan, reflectively. “I think I’ve got a little sense; but I have no more than other folk, till it’s put into my head. Well! it’s a comfort to know his address to write to, and that he’s gone to his work, and no harm done; for he has a queer temper, has Harry. He’s not just like the rest of us; he might have done a desperate thing, being the kind of lad he is. That’s always been on my mind. I would not have said it till now, but that was always in my mind. A lad like that, there was no telling what he mightn’t have done; but don’t I aye tell you, mother, if you don’t make a fuss things will always come right at the end?”
Then Joan did what was a very strange thing for her, she sat down and had a little cry all to herself. She had never betrayed the depth of her anxiety before, but the running over of her satisfaction and relief betrayed her.
“The things have come from the wash,” she said; “I’ll put them in and lock up his boxes, and send them to-night. He must have been ill off for his clothes, poor lad! and I might have sent them after him without losing any time, if I had only had the sense! Never mind, Eadie would do the best she could for him, and it’s not a week yet. Bless me! what a week it has been! It’s been like a year! I’ve been saying to myself all these days, ‘I never knew I had so much of mother in me.’ It’s a funny thing, a very funny thing, how folks are made up, a bit of one and a bit of another; but I never thought I had so much of you in me, mother; I have just been as near as possible to making a fuss myself.”
And it is impossible to say how much this breaking down on Joan’s part, temporary as it was, comforted her mother. She had never yet, she thought, been so near to any of her children. She began, poor lady! to pour forth her own dreary private self-tormentings.
“I’ve pictured him astray on the moors; I’ve pictured him on the Fell-side, Joan, with one of those dreadful mists coming on; every night in the dark I have thought of him wandering and wandering. I’ve heard his step going away, as I heard it that dreadful night; or in the water—if some one had come and said there was one found in the water——”
“Now, mother, these are nothing but fancies,” cried Joan; “that’s what I call just giving yourself up to nonsense. Was Harry such a fool as to lose himself on the Fells? now, I ask you, just take a little common sense! or the river? he that can swim like a duck. Nay, that goes beyond me. Reason is reason, however nervous you may be. Nay, nay, I would never take leave of my wits like that. If you will but mind what I say; don’t make any more fuss than you can help, and in the end you’ll find all will come right. Now I’ll go and put up the poor lad’s things; I can’t think what he can have done for shirts.”
Joan turned back, however, when she got to the door.
“Now, mother, listen to me for a moment. Don’t take it into your head that you are just to have a letter directly and all to go well. He may take some time to come round. I would not wonder if he was offended both with you and me. What for? oh, who can tell what for? Just for nonsense, and queer temper. Don’t you be disappointed if there’s no word.”
“I will be terribly disappointed, Joan,” said the poor mother. “I am going to write to him now. Why should he be offended with me? If he does not answer it will break my heart.”
“Your heart’s been broken a many times, mother,” Joan said, shaking her head. “Well, maybe there will be an answer, but it’s always best to be prepared for the worst.”
She shook her head again as she went away.
“I wonder,” she said to herself, with a half smile on her face, “how many pieces mother’s heart’s in? it’s taken a deal of breaking. We’ve all had a good pull at it in our day;” and then her face, with its half comic look of criticism, softened, and she added gently, “Poor dear!”
Then Joan went up to Harry’s room in all her self-possessed activity, and laid the clean white shirts carefully into the half-packed portmanteau, which stood like a kind of coffin half open in the deserted room. She looked through all the drawers, and put in everything he was likely to want. She had a very soft heart to her younger brother. There were only some five or six years between them, but a boy of four-and-twenty looks very young to a woman over thirty; she felt as if he might have been her son. Will and Tom were different. She had shared their games and such training as they had, and lived her hoyden days in their close company, with a careless comradeship, but no particular sentiment. Harry, however, had been the one who was away. When he came home at holiday times he was the stranger, the little brother, less robust than the others, a boy who had to be considered and cared for; even his mending and darning, in which she early had a share, had to be more carefully done than the others, for Mrs. Joscelyn had been jealous of any imperfection in her boy’s outfit falling under Uncle Henry’s, or still more Uncle Henry’s housekeeper’s eye. And so it had happened that a very special softness of regard for Harry had come into his elder sister’s mind. Nobody knew of it, but there it was. Perhaps the fact that he had “a deal of mother in him” had added to this partiality, notwithstanding that the mother’s peculiarities had often exasperated Joan in their original manifestation. Reflected in Harry they gave him a certain charm, the charm which a nature full of sudden impulses, swift to act and lively to feel has to a more substantial and matter-of-fact nature. She packed his clothes even with a tender touch, smoothing everything with the greatest neatness, arranging layer above layer in the most perfect order. “They’ll all be tossed into his drawers pell-mell,” she said, shaking her head over the linen as she laid it in, with a smile on her face. She disliked untidiness next to wickedness, but in Harry it was venial. Even Harry’s wrong-doings would have been no more hardly judged by Joan than with a shake of the head and a smile.
When she had finished her packing, she went downstairs on a still more congenial errand, and packed a hamper of home produce for her brother.
“Mr. Harry’s not coming back; he’s gone straight on to Liverpool; we’re to send his things after him,” she explained to the maids, who were full of curiosity, and vaguely certain that something was wrong. They were already beginning to have their doubts as to that first fine hypothesis about Joan’s lover, and to make out that Harry had more to do with the locking of the door than any “lad” who could be “courting” the daughter of the house; and they were all agog for information, as was natural. The packing up of the cheese and eggs, the bottle of cream (though that was allowed to be of very doubtful expediency), the fine piece of honey-comb, the home-cured ham, all that was best in the house, threw, however, an air of stability and reality about Harry, and suppressed the first whispers against him. There could be nothing wrong about a young man for whom such a hamper was being prepared; neither a deadly quarrel with his family, nor any trouble at his office, nor roguery of any kind was compatible with that hamper. It meant a well-doing respectable youth eating good breakfasts (always a sure sign of good morals) and coming in regularly to all his meals. The hamper eased the mind generally of the house. Joscelyn himself saw it as he passed, and, though he took no notice, was comforted too. His uneasiness had been angry rather than anxious; but then the anger had been partly against himself, and a consciousness that humbled him of having laid himself open to criticism and made a foolish exhibition of temper, had given it a double sting. It was one of the finest hams he ever had seen which he saw packed into the hamper, and he grudged it to Harry, but all the same it eased his mind. The fellow he said to himself, had taken no harm; he was all right. He asked no questions, but his mind was relieved. When they were all put into the cart in the evening, to be taken down to the nearest station, even Mrs. Joscelyn herself came out to the door to watch them go off. It was a soft evening, the warmest that had been that season; the wind had changed into the west, the sun was setting in a glow of crimson, the whole valley canopied over with clouds full of rosy reflection. In the distance one of these rose-clouds caught the mirror of the river, and glowed in that, repeating its warm and smiling tone of colour in the midst of the gray fields of the surrounding landscape and the gray houses of the village. At the back door, where the cart was standing, the servants were all congregated as if it wanted half-a-dozen people to put up two portmanteaus and a hamper. Joan gave a hand herself with that last precious burden.
“That’s the most worth of a’,” said the cook. “Ye may buy shirts and waistcoats, but you’ll no buy butter like ours, nor a ham to compare with that—and my griddle-cakes, I never made better.”
“It’s to be hoped,” said the dairy-maid, “they’ll not spoil.”
Mrs. Joscelyn laid her hand upon it with a caressing touch; her poor thin white hands at which the women looked half-admiring, half-contemptuous, as good for nothing but to sew a seam and play the piano. It was a kind of link between Harry and the house that had been so unkind to him. “He’ll understand what it means,” she said to Joan, aside, as the cart lumbered off.
Joan did not make any reply, nor did she very well understand her mother, nor know what it might be supposed to mean, but it was she who had packed all that love, forgiveness, and tender thought; which were so solidly represented in that hamper from home. And it lumbered off to the railway, and was despatched by the night mail, though that was an extravagant proceeding; and the White House was solaced visibly and lightened of its care. It had not been a practice to give Harry such a hamper when he went away. He got one at Christmas, and that had hitherto been supposed to be enough; but this had more in it than met the eye.
And then there was a pause in the history of the house, a pause of suspense yet of hope and peace. Joan and her mother afterwards often looked back to these days, which did not last long, yet were sweet. The two were very good friends, not a jar between them, and Ralph Joscelyn was unusually quiet and subdued; and it happened that one or two visitors came to the house, a circumstance which did not often happen—touching one of whom, in this little lull of preparing events, we may as well take the opportunity of a word or two: for though nobody thought very much about him at that moment, he was a personage of some importance in the family life.
CHAPTER XII.
A NEW PERSONAGE.
THE visitor to whom reference has been made in the last chapter was a Mr. Selby, a relative of the doctor in the village, who had recently come down to these regions in the interests of a secondary line of railway which was then being made. He was not a very young man, nor, presumably, a very successful one, since at his mature age, he was no more than engineer to a little local railway; but he had other qualities not unattractive. He was what the village people called “a fine-made man.” He had a handsome head, with grizzled hair and beard, which, though touched by this mark of age, were otherwise very symbols of vigour and strength, so crisp were the twists and rings of curl in them, so strong and thick their growth. It was said that there was not a navvy on the line who could lift such weights as he could or perform such feats of strength: “he would put his hand to anything.” Dr. Selby was proud of his relation. “I’ll back him to run, or jump, or throw with any fellow of twenty-five in the Fell-country, though he’s forty-five if he’s a day,” the Doctor said; and he did everything else besides that a man ought to do. He was a good shot, rode well, walked well, played football even when one was wanted to make up a team, though the game is not adapted for persons of mature years. There was never much society about the White House, but Philip Selby—as he was called even by strangers, to distinguish him from the Doctor and the Doctor’s son, who was young Selby—had come up repeatedly to see the horses, of which he was supposed a judge. Indeed, he went so far as to buy a horse from Joscelyn, a colt which was not thought much of in the stables when it was born. It was this selection which established a kind of friendship between Joan and the new-comer. She was standing by when the horses were shown to him, and delivered her opinion, as she was wont to do, on the subject.
“You may say what you like against that brown colt: he’s not a beauty just now, but I like the looks of him,” Joan said, and she indicated various points in which she saw promise, which the present writer, not sharing Joan’s knowledge, is unwilling to hazard her reputation on. Philip Selby caught her up with great quickness.
“I thought the same from the moment I set eyes on him,” he said, and he took off his hat to Joan with a bow and smile which were unusual in these parts. She felt herself “colour up,” as she said, though afterwards she laughed. The men Joan was most acquainted with thought these little courtesies belonged to tailors and Frenchmen, but to no other class of reasonable beings, and there was a slight snigger even on the part of the attendant grooms to see this little incident. Mr. Selby was invited in afterwards to dinner to clench the bargain, and lingered and talked Shakespeare and the musical glasses with Mrs. Joscelyn when the meal was over, going back with her upon the elegant extracts of her youth in a way which brightened the poor lady’s eyes and recalled to her the long past superiorities of the Vicarage parlour, where it was considered right and professional to belong to the book club, and to keep up some knowledge of the new books which were supposed to be discussed in intellectual society.
“That is an educated man,” she said to her daughter, with a little air of superior knowledge which did her a great deal of good, poor lady. There was nobody else, she felt, about the White House, whose verdict would be worth much on such a subject. But she knew an educated man when she saw one: and the little talk brought some colour to her cheeks.
“Tut, mother,” said Joan, good-humouredly; but she had listened to the talk with some secret admiration, and an amused and gratified wonder that “mother” should show herself so capable. “I am sure you are the only one that can talk about these sort of things here,” she said. “Father stared, and so did I. He must have taken us for a set of ignoramuses.”
“I read a great deal in my youth,” Mrs. Joscelyn replied, with a gentle pride which was mingled with melancholy, “though I cannot say that it has been of much use to me in my married life; but I hope the gentleman will come back, for he would be a good friend for Harry.”
This was when Harry was expected, before the visit which ended so disastrously had begun.
And then after a few days Mr. Philip Selby called. Such a thing was almost unknown at the White House; the few people about who were on friendly terms with the Joscelyns, who were neither too high nor too low—and these were very few, for the county people had ignored the last generation of the fallen family, and the farmers and yeomen about were beneath their pretensions—were on very familiar terms, and would stalk straight in without any preliminaries, with perhaps a knock before they opened it at the parlour-door, but nothing more. All the other Selbys did this, marching in even in the middle of a meal without ceremony, never pausing to ask if anyone was at home. If they found nobody they walked out again, if they came into the midst of a family party they drew in a chair and sat down. But when Mary Anne, the maid who fulfilled the functions of parlour-maid, came in much flustered, with a card between her finger and thumb, both she and her young mistress felt that a very odd event had occurred, which they did not know what to think of. As for Mrs. Joscelyn it was her turn to “colour up” with pleasure. “Show the gentleman in, Mary Ann,” she said, drawing herself up and feeling as if the world, her old world, was rolling back to her.
She gave a glance round to see if the room was nice. It was a room that was too tidy, and Mrs. Joscelyn felt it. She would have been horrified with the littered rooms which are fashionable now-a-days, but her parlour she knew was too tidy; the chairs which were not being used were put back in a straight line against the wall, and everything was in its proper place. She put out her hand and drew one of these chairs out of the line, with that gentle air of knowing better which amused Joan so much.
“This is a gentleman that is accustomed to society. I told you so, Joan.”
“So you did, mother,” said Joan, rising up and putting back her chair carefully. “If he is that kind of man we may as well put our best foot foremost:” and with that she smoothed the table cover carefully and lifted Mrs. Joscelyn’s basket of work, which was the chief thing that made it home-like, out of the way. Joan even put away her knitting, and sat with her hands before her, which was sad punishment to herself, in order to look as Miss Joscelyn ought before the stranger. As for Mrs. Joscelyn, she saw this done with a kind of anguish; but she was not strong enough to resist. Then Mr. Selby was ushered in by the alarmed Mary Ann, who, instead of announcing him as she ought, said in a frightened tone, “Here’s the maan,” and vanished precipitately with such an attack of the nerves that she had to go and lie down upon her bed. Very soon, however, he put them both at their ease. He found Joan’s knitting laid away on the top of the work basket, to which Mrs. Joscelyn directed his attention by frequent wistful glances at it, and said he was sure it was this she was looking for, though Joan’s anxious desire had been to look at nothing. And then he sat and talked. Joan could scarcely contain her wonder, and amusement, and admiration at this talk. After a few minutes her fingers unconsciously sought the familiar needles which restored the balance of her mind, and made her free to listen. She was not young, nor had she any air of being young. Her figure was trim and round, but well developed, ample and matronly, though not with any superabundance of flesh. She had a pair of excellent serviceable brown eyes, with a great deal of light in them; not sparkling unduly, or employing themselves in any unauthorised way, but seeing everything, and making a remark now and then of their own, which an intelligent spectator could not but be interested by. The way in which she turned those eyes from her mother to the visitor and back again, with that surprise which made them round, and that amused gratification which came the length of a smile upon her opened lips, opened with wonder and pleasure, was quite a pleasant sight. She was more like an innocent mother listening to the unsuspected cleverness of her child’s opinions, than to a daughter admiring her mother. Now and then, when Mrs. Joscelyn said something unusually fine, a little snap of a cough came from Joan’s parted lips. She was astonished and she was delighted. “Who would have thought mother had so much in her?” she was saying all the time. She was not in the least handsome; but there was nothing in her that was unpleasant or objectionable; not a harsh line, or a sharp angle, or a twist of feature. Sometimes there is a curve at the corner of a mouth which will spoil the harmony of a face altogether; but Joan had no defect of this kind. She had a dimple in her smooth, round chin, and another in her cheek. When she laughed there were two or three other lurking pin-points which made themselves visible about her face. Her eyes were delightful in their surprise. She had a great deal of smooth, brown hair, brushed to the perfection of neatness, which was wound in a thick plait round the back of her head. Altogether, though there was no beauty about her, she was such a woman as gives comfort to a house from the very sight of her; a woman of ready hand and ready wit, and plenty of sense, but no more intellect than is necessary for comfort—which perhaps is not saying very much. Her presence in an empty house would have half furnished it at once, and she could say her say on all subjects she knew. About that brown colt she had formed an opinion of her own, which, as his chimed in with it, appeared extraordinarily sensible to Philip Selby: and she knew as much about all farming operations, and especially those which were connected with her own sphere of the dairy, as any farmer round. She was not, as the reader has perceived, a woman at all timid about her own opinions, or unwilling to express them. But when Mrs. Joscelyn and the new visitor talked about literature, and the pleasures of reading, Joan listened with open eyes and lips, and a broad smile of ignorant and admiring pleasure. “Think of mother talking away thirteen to the dozen! and who’d have thought she had all that in her,” Joan said to herself.
As for Mrs. Joscelyn, her cheeks were pink all the evening after, and her eyes quite bright. “I have not had so much conversation for years. Dear, dear! how it does one good, after never seeing anybody that has ever opened a book, to get a good talk with a well-informed person! I hope Harry will take to Mr. Selby,” Mrs. Joscelyn cried; “what a chance for him, Joan! a man that really knows; and will give him such good advice—and so good for Liddy, too, when she comes home.” Joan acquiesced in all this, with a laugh.
“It was as good as a play to hear you,” she said, “and me gaping all the time, saying to myself, ‘I never knew mother had so much in her!’” At this Mrs Joscelyn drew herself up a little; but she was not displeased with the praise.
“I read a great deal when I was young,” she said. “Papa always insisted upon it. You have not had my advantages, Joan; but you have strong sense, my dear, which, perhaps, I never had.”
“I daresay I will do, mother,” said Joan, with another laugh. She admired her mother’s cleverness with a kind of amused delight; but the idea of being less valued than her mother did not enter Joan’s head. It made her laugh, with a comfortable sense of practical superiority. “I’ll do,” she repeated, smiling broadly, all the dimples showing in her cheeks. She had a good deal of colour. Mrs. Joscelyn’s fragile looks and elegant extracts were alike out of Joan’s way.
After this Mr. Philip Selby came several times. Joan always assisted at the interviews in the same pleased spectatorship. It occurred to her after a while that the information of the talkers was not very extensive. She seemed to hear the same names over and over again—almost the same remarks—which reduced Joan’s admiration, and made her feel that perhaps after all it was only a way they had, and did not imply the profound erudition she had admired so much: but still it was finer talk than anything she had heard before. Then Harry, came interrupting these elegant conversations. Harry did not think anything of them at all; he had no literary tastes any more than the rest of the family. He was not at all given to reading, and the consequence of Mrs. Joscelyn’s recommendation to him of Mr. Philip Selby, and his society, resulted in a strong dislike on Harry’s part to Mr. Selby, and desire never to see him again. Young Selby was Harry’s friend, a young man who was not good for very much; and he also had the strongest objection to his cousin. There had not been much heard of Mr. Selby while Harry was at the White House; but just after the luggage and the hamper had been sent off, and when peace had for a little while returned, he came to pay one of his usual visits. And perhaps it was that Mrs. Joscelyn was preoccupied; perhaps that Mr. Selby had something on his mind. The conversation flagged. Joan, who now never made any attempt to put by her knitting, and permitted her mother’s basket to exhibit its store of mending freely, took notice of a long pause that occurred in the talk, and she hastened to do what she could, in her straight-forward way, to fill up the gap.
“Mother’s had a deal to think of lately,” she said. “I think she should take a nap in the afternoon. Many are a bit drowsy after dinner. I think it would do her a deal of good if she were to put up her feet upon the sofa, and take a bit of a doze.”
“Joan,” cried poor Mrs. Joscelyn, wounded in her tenderest feelings, “when did you ever see me doze?”
“There,” said Joan, promptly, “that’s just what I say. It would do you a deal of good. You were always one for keeping up; but ‘a stitch in time saves nine,’ and you’ve had more to think of than ordinary. Just you close your eyes a little bit, and I’ll talk to Mr. Selby. He’ll not mind for ten minutes. They tell me you’re getting on wonderfully with the railway; and is there enough of travellers from Wyburgh to Ormsford to make it pay?”
“I have my doubts,” Selby said.
“I have more than doubts. I hope you have not got money in it. There is no traffic, nor manufactories, nor anything like that. Just two or three farmers, and ordinary folk, and potatoes, and such like, and milk-cans; but nothing to keep up a railway. I’ve often wondered, now, a clever man like you, what made you take it in hand?”