CHAPTER XIX.
FOUR YOUNG LADIES.

“Happen what will, I can always trust my boy to be a gentleman,” his father used to say to himself, and to his only real counsellor, old Sir Remnant Chapman. Sir Remnant always shook his head; and then (for fear of having meant too much) said, “Ah, that is the one thing after all. People begin to talk a great deal too much about Christianity.”

At any rate, the last thing they thought of was the most likely thing of all—that Hilary should fall in love with a good, and sweet, and simple girl, who, for his own sake, would love him, and grow to him with all the growth of love. “Morality”—whereby we mean now, truth, and right, and purity—was then despised in public, even more than now in private life. Sir Remnant thought it a question of shillings, how many maids his son led astray; and he pitied Sir Roland for having a son so much handsomer than his own.

Little as now he meddled with it, Sir Roland knew that the world was so; and the more he saw of it, the less he found such things go down well with him. The broad low stories, and practical jokes, and babyish finesse of oaths, invented for the ladies—many of which still survive in the hypocrisy of our good tongue—these had a great deal to do with Sir Roland’s love of his own quiet dinner-table, and shelter of his pet child, Alice. And nothing, perhaps, except old custom and the traditions of friendship, could have induced him to bear, as he did, with Sir Remnant’s far lower standard. Let a man be what he will, he must be moved one way or another by the folk he deals with. Even Sir Roland (though so different from the people around him) felt their thoughts around him rambling, and very often touching him: and he never could altogether help wanting to know what they thought about him. So must the greatest man ever “developed” have desired a million-fold, because he lived in each one of the million.

However, there were but two to whom Sir Roland Lorraine ever yielded a peep of his deeply treasured anxieties. One was Sir Remnant; and the other (in virtue of his office, and against the grain) was the Rev. Struan Hales, his own highly respected brother-in-law.

Struan Hales was a man of mark all about that neighbourhood. Everybody knew him; and almost everybody liked him. Because he was a genial, open-hearted, and sometimes noisy man; full of life—in his own form of that matter—and full of the love of life, whenever he found other people lively. He hated every kind of humbug, all revolutionary ideas, methodism, asceticism, enthusiastic humanity, and exceedingly fine language. And though, like everyone else, he respected Sir Roland Lorraine for his upright character, lofty honour, and clearness of mind; while he liked him for his generosity, kindness of heart, and gentleness; on the other hand he despised him a little, for his shyness and quietude of life. For the rector of West Lorraine loved nothing better than a good day with the hounds, and a roaring dinner-party afterwards. Nothing in the way of sport ever came amiss to him; even though it did—as no true sport does—depend for its joy upon cruelty.

Here, in his red house on the glebe, under the battlement of the hills, with trees and a garden of comfort, and snug places to smoke a pipe in, Mr. Hales was well content to live and do his duty. He liked to hunt twice in a week, and he liked to preach twice every Sunday. Still he could not do either always; and no good people blamed him.

Mrs. Hales was the sweetest creature ever seen, almost anywhere. She had plenty to say for herself, and a great deal more to say for others; and if perfection were to be found, she would have been perfection to every mind except her own, and perhaps her husband’s. The rector used to say that his wife was an angel, if ever one there were: and in his heart he felt that truth. Still he did not speak to her always, as if he were fully aware of being in colloquy with an angel. He had lived with her “ever so long,” and he knew that she was a great deal better than himself; but he had the wisdom not to let her know it; and she often thought that he preached at her. Such a thing he never did. No honest parson would ever do it; of all mean acts it would be the meanest. Yet there are very few parsons’ wives who are not prepared for the chance of it; and Mrs. Hales knew that she “had her faults,” and that Mr. Hales was quite up to them. At any rate, here these good folk were, and here they meant to live their lives out, having a pretty old place to see to, and kind old neighbours to see to them. Also they had a much better thing—three good children of their own; enough to make work and pleasure for them, but not to be a perpetual worry, inasmuch as they all were girls—three very good girls, of their sort—thinking as they were told to think, and sure to make excellent women.

Alice Lorraine liked all these girls. They were so kind, and sweet, and simple; and when they had nothing whatever to say, they always said it so prettily. And they never pretended to interfere with any of her opinions, or to come into competition with her, or to talk to her father, when she was present, more than she well could put up with. For she was a very jealous child; and they were well aware of it; and they might let their father be her mother’s brother ten times over, before she would hear of any “Halesy element”—as she once had called it—coming into her family more than it had already entered: and they knew right well, while they thought it too bad, that this young Alice had sadly quenched any hopes any one of them might have cherished of being a Lady Lorraine some day. She had made her poor brother laugh over their tricks, when they were sure that they had no tricks; and she always seemed to throw such a light upon any little harmless thing they did. Still they could afford to forget all that; and they did forget it; especially now, when Hilary would soon be at home again.

It was now July; and no one had heard for weeks from that same Hilary. But this made no one anxious, because it was the well-known manner of the youth. Sometimes they would hear from him by every post, although the post now came thrice in a week; and then again for weeks together, not a line would he vouchsafe. And as a general rule he was getting on better, when he kept strict silence.

Therefore Alice had no load on her mind, at all worth speaking of, while she worked in her sloping flower-garden, early of a summer afternoon. It was now getting on for St. Swithin’s day; and the sun was beginning to curtail those brief attentions which he paid to Coombe Lorraine. He still looked fairly at it, as often as clouds allowed in the morning, almost up to eight o’clock; and after that he could still see down it over the shoulder of the hill. But he felt that his rays made no impression (the land so fell away from him), they seemed to do nothing but dance away downward, like a lasher of glittering water.

Therefore, in this garden grew soft and gentle-natured plants, and flowers of delicate tint, that sink in the exhaustion of the sunglare. The sun, in almost every garden, sucks the beauty out of all the flowers; he stains the sweet violet even in March; he spots the primrose and the periwinkle; he takes the down off the heartsease blossom; he browns the pure lily-of-the-valley in May; and, after that, he dims the tint of every rose that he opens: and yet, in spite of all his mischief, which of them does not rejoice in him?

The bold chase, cut in the body of the hill, has rugged sides, and a steep descent for a quarter of a mile below the house—the cleft of the chalk on either side growing deeper towards the mouth of the coombe. The main road to the house goes up the coombe, passing under the eastern scarp, but winding away from it, here and there, to obtain a better footing. The old house, facing down the hill, stands so close to the head of the coombe, that there is not more than an acre or so of land behind and between it and the crest; and this is partly laid out as a courtyard, partly occupied by out-buildings, stables, and so on, and the ruinous keep ingloriously used as a lime-kiln; while the rest of the space is planted, in and out, with spruce and birch-trees, and anything that will grow there. Among them winds a narrow outlet to the upper and open Downs—not much of a road for carriage-wheels, but something in appearance betwixt a bridle-path and a timber-track, such as is known in those parts by the old English name, a “borstall.”

As this led to no dwelling-house for miles and miles away, but only to the crown of the hills and the desolate tract of sheep-walks, ninety-nine visitors out of a hundred to the house came up the coombe, so that Alice from her flower-garden, commanding the course of the drive from the plains, could nearly always foresee the approach of any interruption. Here she had pretty seats under laburnums, and even a bower of jessamine, and a noble view all across the weald, even to the range of the North Downs; so that it was a pleasant place for all who love soft sward and silence, and have time to enjoy that rare romance of the seasons—a hot English summer.

Only there was one sad drawback. Lady Valeria’s windows straightly overlooked this pleasant spot, and Lady Valeria never could see why she should not overlook everything. Beyond and above all other things, she took it as her own special duty to watch her dear granddaughter Alice; and now in her eighty-second year she was proud of her eyesight, and liked to prove its power.

“Here they come again!” cried Alice, talking to herself, or her rake, and trowel; “will they never be content? I told them on Monday that I knew nothing; and they will not believe it. I have a great mind to hide myself in my hole, like that poor rag-and-bone boy. It goes beyond my patience quite, to be cross-examined and not believed.”

Those whom she saw coming up the steep road at struggling and panting intervals, were her three good cousins from the rectory—Caroline, Margaret, and Cecil Hales; rather nice-looking and active girls, resembling their father in face and frame, and their excellent mother in their spiritual parts. The Anglican period of young ladies—the time of wearing great crosses, and starving, and sticking as a thorn in the flesh of mankind, lay as yet in the happy future. A parson’s daughters were as yet content to leave the parish to their father, helping him only in the Sunday-school; and for the rest of the week, minding their own dresses, or some delicate jobs of pastry, or gossip.

Though Alice had talked so of running away, she knew quite well that she never could do it, unless it were for a childish joke; and swiftly she was leaving now the pretty and petty world of childhood, sinking into that distance whence the failing years recover it. Therefore, instead of running away, she ran down the hill to meet her cousins; for truly she liked them decently.

“Oh, you dear, how are you? How wonderfully good to come to meet us! Madge, I shall be jealous in a moment if you kiss my Alice so. Cecil—what are you thinking of? Why, you never kissed your cousin Alice.”

“Oh yes, you have all done it very nicely. What more could I wish?” said Alice; “but what could have made you come up the hill, so early in the day, dears?”

“Well, you know what dear mamma is. She really fancied that we might seem (now there is so much going on) really unkind and heartless, unless we came up to see how you were. Papa would have come; but he feels it so steep, unless he is coming up to dinner; and pony, you know—Oh, she did such a thing! The wicked little dear, she got into the garden, and devoured £10 worth of the grand new flower, just introduced by the Duchess—‘Dallia,’ or ‘Dellia,’ I can’t spell the name. And mamma was so upset that both of them have been unwell ever since.”

“Oh, Dahlias!” answered Alice, whose grapes were rather sour, because her father had refused to buy any; “flaunty things in my opinion. But Caroline, Madge, and Cecil, have you ever set eyes on my new rose?”

Of course they all ran to behold the new rose; which was no other than the “Persian yellow,” a beautiful stranger, not yet at home. The countless petals of brilliant yellow folding inward full of light, and the dimple in the centre, shy of yielding inlet to its virgin gold, and then the delicious fragrance, too refined for random sniffers,—these and other delights found entry into the careless beholder’s mind.

“It makes one think of astrologers,” cried Caroline Hales; “I declare it does! Look at all the little stars! It is quite like a celestial globe.”

“So it is, I do declare!” said Madge. But Cecil shook her head. She was the youngest, and much the prettiest, and by many degrees the most elegant of the daughters of the rectory. Cecil had her own opinion about many things; but waited till it should be valuable.

“It is much more like a cowslip-ball,” Alice answered, carelessly. “Come into my bower now. And then we can all of us go to sleep.”

The three girls were a little hot and thirsty, after their climb of the chalky road; and a bright spring ran through the bower, as they knew, ready to harmonize with sherbet, sherry-wine, or even shrub itself; as had once been proved by Hilary.

“How delicious this is! How truly sweet!” cried the eldest, and perhaps most loquacious, Miss Hales; “and how nice of you always to keep a glass! A spring is such a rarity on these hills; papa says it comes from a different stratum. What a stratum is I have no idea. It ought to be straight, one may safely say that; but it always seems to be crooked. Now, can you explain that, darling Alice? You are so highly taught, and so clever.”

“Now, we don’t want a lecture,” said Madge, the blunt one; “the hill is too steep to have that at the top. Alice knows everything, no doubt, in the way of science, and all that. But what we are dying to know is what came of that grand old astrologer’s business.”

“This is the seventh or eighth time now,” Alice answered, hard at bay, “that you will keep on about some little thing that the servants are making mountains of. My father best knows what it is. Let us go to his room and ask him.”

“Oh no, dear! oh no, dear? How could we do that? What would dear uncle say to us? But come, now tell us. You do know something. Why are you so mysterious? Mystery is a thing altogether belonging to the dark ages, now. We have heard such beautiful stories, that we cannot manage to sleep at night, without knowing what they are all about. Now, do tell us everything. You may just as well tell us every single thing. We are sure to find it all out, you know; and then we shall all be down on you. Among near relations, dear mamma says, there is nothing to compare with candour.”

“Don’t you see, Alice,” Madge broke in, “we are sure to know sooner or later; and how can it matter which it is?”

“To be sure,” answered Alice, “it cannot matter. And so you shall all know, later.”

This made the three sisters look a little at one another, quietly. And then, as a desperate resource, Madge, the rough one, laid eyes upon Alice, and, with a piercing look, exclaimed, “You don’t even understand what it means yourself.”

“Of course, I do not,” answered Alice; “how many times have I told you so; yet you always want further particulars! Dear cousins, now you must be satisfied with a conclusion of your own.”

“I cannot at all see that,” said Caroline.

“Really, you are too bad,” cried Margaret.

“Do you think that this is quite fair?” asked Cecil.

“You are too many for me, all of you,” Alice answered, steadfastly. “Suppose I came to your house and pried into some piece of gossip about you, that I had picked up in the village. Would you think that I had a right to do it?”

“No, dear, of course not. But nobody dares to gossip about us, you know. Papa would very soon stop all that.”

“Of course he would. And because my father is too high-minded to meddle with it, am I to be questioned perpetually? Come in, Caroline, come in, Margaret, come in, dear Cecil; I know where papa is, and then you can ask him all about it.”

“I have three little girls at their first sampler—such little sweets!” said Caroline; “I only left them for half an hour, because we felt sure you must want us, darling. It now seems as if you could hold your own in a cross-stitch we must not penetrate. It is nothing to us. What could it be? Only don’t come, for goodness’ sake, don’t come rushing down the hill, dear creature, to implore our confidence suddenly.”

“Dear creature!” cried Alice, for the moment borne beyond her young self-possession—“I am not quite accustomed to old women’s words. Nobody shall call me a ‘dear creature’ except my father (who knows better) and poor old Nanny Stilgoe.”

“Now, don’t be vexed with them,” Cecil stopped to say in a quiet manner, while the two other maidens tucked up their skirts, and down the hill went, rapidly; “they never meant to vex you, Alice; only you yourself must feel how dreadfully tantalizing it is to hear such sweet things as really make us afraid of our own shadows; and then to be told not to ask any questions!”

“I am sorry if I have been rude to your sisters,” the placable Alice answered; “but it is so vexatious of them that they doubt my word so. Now, tell me what you have heard. It is wonderful how any foolish story spreads.”

“We heard, on the very best authority, that the old astrologer appeared to you, descending from the comet in a fire-balloon, and warned you to prepare for the judgment-day, because the black-death would destroy in one night every soul in Coombe Lorraine; and as soon as you heard it you fainted away; and Sir Roland ran up, and found you lying, as white as wax, in a shroud made out of the ancient gentleman’s long foreign cloak.”

“Then, beg Cousin Caroline’s pardon for me. No wonder she wanted to hear more. And I must not be touchy about my veracity, after lying in my shroud so long. But truly I cannot tell you a word to surpass what you have heard already; nor even to come up to it. There was not one single wonderful thing—not enough to keep up the interest. I was bitterly disappointed; and so, of course, was every one.”

“Cousin Alice,” Cecil answered, looking at her pleasantly, “you are different from us, or, at any rate, from my sisters. You scarcely seem to know the way to tell the very smallest of small white lies. I am very sorry always; still I must tell some of them.”

“No, Cecil, no. You need tell none; if you only make up your mind not to do it. You are but a very little older than I am, and surely you might begin afresh. Suppose you say at your prayers in the morning, ‘Lord, let me tell no lie to-day!’”

“Now, Alice, you know that I never could do it. When I know that I mean to tell ever so many; how could I hope to be answered? No doubt I am a story-teller—just the same as the rest of us; and to pray against it, when I mean to do it, would be a very double-faced thing.”

“To be sure, it would. It never struck me in that particular way before. But Uncle Struan must know best what ought to be done in your case.”

“We must not make a fuss of trifles,” Cecil answered, prudently; “papa can always speak for himself; and he means to come up the hill to do it, if Mr. Gates’ pony is at home. And now I must run after them, or Madge will call me a little traitor. Oh, here papa comes, I do declare. Good-bye, darling, and don’t be vexed.”

“It does seem a little too bad,” thought Alice, as the portly form of the rector, mounted on a borrowed pony, came round the corner at the bottom of the coombe, near poor Bonny’s hermitage—“a little too bad that nothing can be done, without its being chattered about. And I know how annoyed papa will be, if Uncle Struan comes plaguing him again. We cannot even tell what it means ourselves; and whatever it means, it concerns us only. I do think curiosity is the worst, though it may be the smallest, vice. He expects to catch me, of course, and get it all out of me, as he declared he would. But sharp as his eyes are, I don’t believe he can have managed to spy me yet. I will off to my rockwork, and hide myself, till I see the heels of his pony going sedately down the hill again.”

With these words, she disappeared; and when the good rector had mounted the hill, “Alice, Alice!” resounded vainly from the drive among the shrubs and flowers, and echoed from the ramparts of the coombe.

CHAPTER XX.
A RECTOR OF THE OLDEN STYLE.

The clergyman found his brother-in-law sitting alone, as he was too fond of doing, in his little favourite book-room, walled off from the larger and less comfortable library. Sir Roland was beginning to yield more and more to the gentle allurements of solitude. Some few months back he had lost the only friend with whom he had ever cared to interchange opinions, a learned parson of the neighbourhood, an antiquary, and an elegant scholar. And ever since that he had been sinking deeper and deeper into the slough of isolation and privacy. For hours he now would sit alone, with books before him, yet seldom heeded, while he mused and meditated, or indulged in visions, mingled of the world he read of, and the world he had to deal with. As no less an authority than Dr. Johnson has it—“This invisible riot of the mind, this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless of reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartment, shuts out the cares and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy.” And again—“This captivity it is necessary for every man to break, who has any desire to be wise or useful. To regain liberty, he must find the means of flying from himself; he must, in opposition to the Stoic precept, teach his desires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of social pleasures and amicable communication.”

Sir Roland Lorraine was not quite so bad as the gentleman above depicted; still he was growing so like him, that he was truly sorry to see the jovial face of his brother-in-law. For his mind was set out upon a track of thought, which it might have pursued until dinner-time. But, of course, he was much too courteous to show any token of interruption.

“Roland, I must have you out of this. My dear fellow, what are you coming to? Books, books, books! As if you did not know twice too much already! Even I find my flesh falling away from me, the very next day after I begin to punish it with reading.”

“That very remark occurs in the book which I have just put down. Struan, let me read it to you.”

“I thank you greatly, but would rather not. It is in Latin or Greek, of course. I could not do my duty as I do, if I lost my way in those dead languages. But I have the rarest treat for you; and I borrowed a pony, to come and fetch you. Such a badger you never saw! Sir Remnant is coming to see it, and so is old General Jakes, and a dozen more. We allow an hour for that, and then we have a late dinner at six o’clock. My daughters came up the hill, to fetch your young Alice to see the sport. But they had some blaze-up about some trifle; as the chittish creatures are always doing. And so pretty Alice perhaps will lose it. Leave them to their own ways, say I: leave them to their own ways, Sir Roland. They are sure to cheat us, either way; and they may just as well cheat us pleasantly.”

“You take a sensible view of it, according to what your daughters are,” Sir Roland answered, more sharply than he either meant or could maintain; and immediately he was ashamed of himself. But Mr. Hales was not thin of skin; and he knew that his daughters were true to him. “Well, well,” he replied, “as I said before, they are full of tricks. At their age and sex it must be so. But a better and kinder team of maids is not to be found in thirteen parishes. Speak to the contrary who will.”

“I know that they are very good girls,” Sir Roland answered kindly; “Alice likes them very much: and so does everybody.”

“That is enough to show what they are. Nobody ever likes anybody, without a great deal of cause for it. They must have their faults, of course, we know; and they may not be quite butter-lipped, you know—still I should like to see a better lot, take them in and out and altogether. Now you must come and see Fox draw that badger. I have ten good guineas upon it with Jakes; Sir Remnant was too shy to stake. And I want a thoroughly impartial judge. You never would refuse me, Roland, now?”

“Yes, Struan, yes; you know well that I will. You know that I hate and despise cruel sports: and it is no compliment to invite me, when you know that I will not come.”

“I wish I had stayed at the bottom of the hill, where that young scamp of a boy lives. When will you draw that badger, Sir Roland, the pest of the Downs, and of all the county?”

“Struan, the boy is not half so bad as might be expected of him. I have thought once or twice that I ought to have him taught, and fed, and civilized.”

“Send him to me, and I’ll civilize him. A born little poacher! I have scared all the other poachers with the comet; but the little thief never comes to church. Four pair of birds, to my knowledge, nested in John Gates’ vetches, and hatched well, too, for I spoke to John—where are they? Can you tell me where they are?”

“Well, Struan, I give you the shooting, of course; but I leave it to you to look after it. But it does seem too cruel to kill the birds, before they can fly for you to shoot them.”

“Cruel! I call it much worse than cruel. Such things would never be dreamed of upon a properly managed property.”

“You are going a little too far,” said Sir Roland, with one of his very peculiar looks; and his brother-in-law drew back at once, and changed the subject clumsily.

“The shooting will do well enough, Sir Roland; I think, however, that you may be glad of my opinion upon other matters. And that had something to do with my coming.”

“Oh, I thought that you came about the badger, Struan. But what are these, even more serious matters?”

“Concerning your dealings with the devil, Roland. Of course, I never listen to anything foolish. Still, for the sake of my parish, I am bound to know what your explanation is. I have not much faith in witchcraft; though in that perhaps I am heterodox; but we are bound to have faith in the devil, I hope.”

“Your hope does you credit,” Sir Roland answered; “but for the moment I fail to see how I am concerned with this orthodoxy.”

“Now, my dear fellow, my dear fellow, you know as well as I do, what I mean. Of course there is a great deal of exaggeration; and knowing you so well, I have taken on myself to deny a great part of what people say. But you know the old proverb, ‘No smoke without fire;’ and I could defend you so much better, if I knew what really had occurred. And besides all that, you must feel, I am sure, that you are not treating me with that candour which our long friendship and close connection entitle me to expect from you.”

“Your last argument is the only one requiring any answer. Those based on religious, social, and even parochial grounds, do not apply to this case at all. But I should be sorry to vex you, Struan, or keep from you anything you claim to know in right of your dear sister. This matter, however, is so entirely confined to those of our name only; at the same time so likely to charm all the gossips who have made such wild guesses about it; and, after all, it is such a trifle except to a superstitious mind; that I may trust your good sense to be well content to hear no more about it, until it comes into action—if it ever should do so.”

“Very well, Sir Roland, of course you know best. I am the last man in the world to intrude into family mysteries. And my very worst enemy (if I have one) would never dream of charging me with the vice of curiosity.”

“Of course not. And therefore you will be well pleased that we should drop this subject. Will you take white wine, or red wine, Struan? Your kind and good wife was quite ready to scold me, for having forgotten my duty in that, the last time you came up the hill.”

“Ah, then I walked—to-day I am riding. I thank you, I thank you, Sir Roland; but the General and Sir Remnant are waiting for me.”

“And, most important of all, the badger. Good-bye, Struan; I shall see you soon.”

“I hardly know whether you will or not,” the rector answered testily; “this is the time when those cursed poachers scarcely allow me a good night’s rest. And to come up this hill; and hear nothing at the top! It is too bad at my time of life! After two services every Sunday, to have to be gamekeeper all the week!”

“At your time of life!” said Sir Roland, kindly: “why, you are the youngest man in the parish, so far as life and spirits go. To-day you are not yourself at all. Struan, you have not sworn one good round oath!”

“Well, what can you expect, Roland, with these confounded secrets held over one? I feel myself many pegs down to-day. And that pony trips so abominably. Perhaps, after all, I might take one glass of red wine, before I go down the hill.”

“It is a duty you owe to the parish. Now come, and let me try to find Alice, to wait upon you. Alice is always so glad to see you.”

“And I am always so glad to see her. How narrow your doors are in these old houses! Those Normans must have been a skewer-shouldered lot. Now, Roland, if I have said anything harsh, you will make all allowance for me, of course; because you know the reason.”

“You mean that you are a little disappointed——”

“Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. But after such weather as we’ve had, and nothing but duty, duty, to do—one is apt to get a little crotchety. What kind of sport can be got anywhere? The landrail-shooting is over, of course, and the rabbits are running in families; the fish are all sulky, and the water low, and the sea-trout not come up yet. There are no young hounds fit to handle yet; and the ground cracks the heels of a decent hack. One’s mouth only waters at oiling a gun; all the best of the cocks are beginning to mute; and if one gets up a badger-bait, to lead to a dinner-party, people will come, and look on, and make bets, and then tell the women how cruel it was! And with all the week thus, I am always expected to say something new, every Sunday morning!”

“Nay, nay, Struan. Come now; we have never expected that of you. But here comes Alice, from her gardening work! Now, she does look well; don’t you think she does?”

“Not a rose in June, but a rose in May!” the rector answered gallantly, kissing his hand to his niece, and then with his healthy bright lips saluting her: “you grow more and more like your mother, darling. Ah, when I think of the bygone days, before I had any wife, or daughters, things occur to me that never——”

“Go and bait your badger, Struan, after one more glass of wine.”

CHAPTER XXI.
A NOTABLE LADY.

According to all modern writers, whether of poetry or prose, in our admirable language, the daughter of an earl is always lovely, graceful, irresistible; almost to as great an extent as she is unattainable. This is but a natural homage on the part of nature to a power so far above her; so that this daughter of an Earl of Thanet had been, in every outward point, whatever is delightful. Neither had she shown any slackness in turning to the best account these notable gifts in her favour. In short, she had been a very beautiful woman, and had employed her beauty well, in having her own will and way. She had not married well, it is true, in the opinion of her compeers; but she had pleased herself, and none could say that she had lowered her family. The ancestors of Lord Thanet had held in villeinage of the Lorraines, some three or four hundred years after the Conquest, until, from being under so gentle a race, they managed to get over them.

Lady Valeria knew all this; and feeling as all women feel, the ownership of her husband (active or passive, whichever it be), she threw herself into the nest of Lorraine, and having no portion, waived all past obligation to parental ties. This was a noble act on her part, as her husband always said. He, Sir Roger Lorraine, lay under her thumb, as calmly as need be; yet was pleased as the birth of children gave some distribution of pressure. For the lady ruled the house, and lands, and all that was therein, as if she had brought them under her settlement.

Although Sir Roger had now been sleeping, for a good many years, with his fathers, his widow, Lady Valeria, showed no sign of any preparation for sleeping with her mothers. Now in her eighty-second year, this lady was as brisk and active, at least in mind, if not in body, as half a century ago she had been. Many good stories (and some even true) were told concerning her doings and sayings in the time of her youth and beauty. Doings were always put first, because for these she was more famous, having the wit of ready action more than of rapid words, perhaps. And yet in the latter she was not slack, when once she had taken up the quiver of the winged poison. She had seen so much of the world, and of the loftiest people that dwell therein—so far at least as they were to be found at the Court of George the Second—that she sat in an upper stratum now over all she had to deal with. And yet she was not of a narrow mind, when unfolded out of her creases.

Her set of rooms was the best in the house, of all above the ground-floor at least; and now she was waiting to receive her son, with her usual little bit of state. For the last five years she had ceased to appear at the table where once she ruled supreme; and the servants, who never had blessed her before, blessed her and themselves for that happy change. For she would have her due as firmly and fairly (if not a trifle more so), as and than she gave the same to others, if undemanded.

In her upright seat she was now beginning—not to chafe, for such a thing would have been below her—but rather to feel her sense of right and duty (as owing to herself) becoming more and more grievous to her the longer she was kept waiting. She had learned long ago that she could not govern her son as absolutely as she was wont to rule his father; and having a clearer perception of her own will than of large principles, whenever she found him immovable, she set the cause down as prejudice. Yet by feeling her way among these prejudices carefully, and working filial duty hard, and flying as a last resort to the stronghold of her many years, she pretty nearly always managed to get her own way in everything.

But few of those who pride themselves on their knowledge of the human face would have perceived in this lady’s features any shape of steadfast will. Perhaps the expression had passed away, while the substance settled inwards: but however that may have been, her face was pleasant, calm, and gentle. Her manner also to all around her was courteous, kind, and unpretending; and people believed her to have no fault, until they began to deal with her. Her eyes, not overhung with lid, but delicately set and shaped, were still bright, and of a pale-blue tint; her forehead was not remarkably large, but straight, and of beautiful outline; while the filaments of fine wrinkles took, in some lights, a cast of silver from snowy silkiness of hair. For still she had abundant hair, that crown of glory to old age; and, like a young girl, she still took pleasure in having it drawn through the hands, and done wisely, and tired to the utmost vantage.

Sir Roland came into his mother’s room with his usual care and diligence. She with ancient courtesy rose from her straight-backed chair, and offered him one little hand, and smiled at him; and from the manner of that smile he knew that she was not by any means pleased, but thought it as well to conciliate him.

“Roland, you know that I never pay heed,” she began, with a voice that shook just a little, “to rumours that reach me through servants, or even allow them to think of telling me.”

“Dear mother, of course you never do. Such a thing would be far beneath you.”

“Well, well, you might wait till I have spoken, before you begin to judge me. If I listen to nothing, I must be quite unlike all the other women in the world.”

“And so you are. How well you express it! At last you begin to perceive, my dear mother, what I perpetually urge in vain—your own superiority.”

What man’s mother can be expected to endure mild irony, even half so well as his wife would?

“Roland, this manner of speech,—I know not what to call it, but I have heard of it among foreign people years ago,—whatever it is, I beg you not to catch it from that boy Hilary.”

“Poetical justice!” Sir Roland exclaimed; for his temper was always in good control, by virtue of varied humour; “this is the self-same whip wherewith I scourged little Alice, quite lately! Only I feel that I was far more just.”

“Roland, you are always just. You may not be always wise, of course; but justice you have inherited from your dear father, and from me. And this is the reason why I wish to know what is the meaning of the strange reports, which almost any one, except myself, would have been sure to go into, or must have been told of long ago. Your thorough truthfulness I know. And you have no chance to mislead me now.”

“I will imitate, though perhaps I cannot equal, your candour, my dear mother, by assuring you that I greatly prefer to keep my own counsel in this matter.”

“Roland, is that your answer? You admit that there is something important, and you refuse to let your own mother know it!”

“Excuse me, but I do not remember saying anything about ‘importance.’ I am not superstitious enough to suppose that the thing can have any importance.”

“Then why should you make such a fuss about it? Really, Roland, you are sometimes very hard to understand.”

“I was not aware that I had made a fuss,” Sir Roland answered, gravely; “but if I have, I will make no more. Now, my dear mother, what did you think of that extraordinary bill of Bottler’s?”

“Bottler, the pigman, is a rogue,” said her ladyship, peremptorily: “his father was a rogue before him; and those things run in families. But surely you cannot suppose that this is the proper way to treat the subject.”

“To my mind a most improper way—to condemn a man’s bill on the ground that his father transmitted the right to overcharge!”

“Now, my dear son,” said Lady Valeria, who never called him her son at all, unless she was put out with him, and her “dear son” only when she was at the extremity of endurance—“my dear son, these are sad attempts to disguise the real truth from me. The truth I am entitled to know, and the truth I am resolved to know. And I think that you might have paid me the compliment of coming for my advice before.”

Finding her in this state of mind, and being unable to deny the justice of her claim, Sir Roland was fain at last to make a virtue of necessity, while he marvelled (as so many have done) at the craft of people in spying things, and espying them always wrongly.

“Is that all?” said Lady Valeria, after listening carefully; “I thought there must have been something a little better than that, to justify you in making it such a mystery. Nothing but a dusty old document, and a strange-looking package, or case like a cone! However, I do not blame you, my dear Roland, for making so small a discovery. The old astrologer appears to me to have grown a little childish. Now, as I keep to the old-fashioned hours, I will ask you to ring the bell for my tea; and while it is being prepared, you can fetch me the case itself, and the document to examine.”

“To be sure, my dear mother, if you will only promise to obey the commands of the document.”

“Roland, I have lived too long ever to promise anything. You shall read me these orders, and then I can judge.”

“I will make no fuss about such a trifle,” he answered, with a pleasant smile; “of course you will do what is honourable.”

Surely men, although they deny so ferociously this impeachment, are open at times to at least a little side-eddy of curiosity; Sir Roland, no doubt, was desirous to know what were the contents of that old case, which Alice had taken for a “dirty cushion,” as it lay at the back of the cupboard in the wall; while his honour would not allow him comfortably to disobey the testator’s wish. At the same time he felt, every now and then, that to treat such a matter in a serious light, was a proof of superstition, or even childishness, on his part. And now, if his mother should so regard it, he was not at all sure that he ought to take the unpleasant course of opposing her.