Kitabı oku: «Beechcroft at Rockstone», sayfa 23

The sister, Lady Henry Grey, in her dowager seclusion at Brighton, contented herself with a general moan on the decadence of society, and the levelling up that made such an affair possible. She had been meditating a visit to Rockquay, to see her dear Lilias (who, by the bye, had run down to her at Brighton for a day out of the stay in London), but now she would defer it till this matter was over. It would be too trying to have to accept this stonemason as one of the family.

As to Colonel Mohun, being one of the younger division of the family, there was no idea of consulting him, and he wrote a fairly civil little note to Adeline, hoping that she had decided for the best, and would be happy; while to the elder of the pair of sisters he said: ‘So Ada has found her crooked stick at last. I always thought it inevitable. Keep up heart, old Jenny, and hold on till Her Majesty turns me off, and then we will see what is to be done.’

Perhaps this cool acquiescence was less pleasing to Adeline Mohun than a contest that would have proved her value and importance, and her brother William’s observation that she was old enough to know her own mind was the cruellest cut of all. On the other hand, there was no doubt of her swain’s devotion. If he had been influenced in his decision by convenience or calculation, he was certainly by this time heartily in love. Not only was Adeline a handsome, graceful woman, whose airs and affectations seemed far more absurd to those who had made merry over them from childhood than to a stranger of an inferior grade; but there was a great charm to a man, able to appreciate refinement, in his first familiar intercourse with thorough ladies. Jane began to be touched by the sight of his devotion, and convinced of his attachment, and sometimes wondered with Lady Merrifield whether Adeline would rise to her opportunities and responsibilities, or be satisfied to be a petted idol.

One difficulty in this time of suspense was, that the sisters had no right to take into their confidence the young folks, who were quite sharp-eyed enough to know that something was going on, and, not being put on honour, were not withheld from communicating their discoveries to one another in no measured words, though fortunately they had sense enough, especially under the awe of their father, not to let them go any further than Mysie, who was entertaining because she was shocked at their audacious jokes and speculations, all at first on the false scent of their elder aunt, who certainly was in a state of excitement and uncertainty enough to throw her off the even tenor of her way and excite some suspicion. When she actually brought down a number of the Contemporary Review instead of Friendly Work for the edification of her G.F.S., Gillian tried not to look too conscious when some of the girls actually tittered in the rear; and she absolutely blushed when Aunt Jane deliberately stated that Ascension Day would fall on a Tuesday. So Gillian averred as she walked up the hill with Jasper and Mysie. It seemed a climax to the diversion she and Jasper had extracted from it in private, both wearing Punch’s spectacles for the nonce, and holding such aberrations as proof positive. Mysie, on the other hand, was much exercised.

‘Do you think she is in love, then?’

‘Oh yes! People always do those things in love. Besides, the Sofi hasn’t got a single white hair in her, and you know what that always means!’

‘I can’t make it out! I can’t think how Aunt Jane can be in love with a great man like that. His voice isn’t nice, you know—’

‘Not even as sweet as Bully Bottom’s,’ suggested Gillian.

‘You’re a chit,’ said Jasper, ‘or you’d be superior to the notion of love being indispensable.’

‘When people are so very old,’ said Mysie in a meditative voice, ‘perhaps they can’t; but Aunt Jane is very good—and I thought it was only horrid worldly people that married without love.’

‘Trust your good woman for looking to the main chance,’ said Jasper, who was better read in Trollope and Mrs. Oliphant than his sisters.

‘’Tis not main chance,’ said Gillian. ‘Think of the lots of good she would do! What a recreation room for the girls, and what schools she would set up at Rocca Marina! Depend upon it, it’s for that!’

‘I suppose it is right if Aunt Jane does it,’ said Mysie.

‘Well done, Mysie! So, Aunt Jane is your Pope!’

‘No; she’s the King that can do no wrong,’ said Gillian, laughing.

‘Wrong—I didn’t say wrong—but things aren’t always real wrong that aren’t somehow quite right, said Mysie, with the bewildered reasoning of perceptions that outran her powers of expression.

‘Mysie’s speeches, for instance,’ said Jasper.

‘Oh, Japs, what did I say wrong?’

‘Don’t tease her, Japs. He didn’t mean morally, but correctly.’

The three were on their way up the hill when they met Primrose, who had accompanied Mrs. Halfpenny to see Kalliope, and who was evidently in a state of such great discomposure that they all stood round to ask what was the matter; but she hung down her head and would not say.

‘Hoots! toots! I tell her she need not make such a work about it,’ said Mrs. Halfpenny. ‘The honest man did but kiss her, and no harm for her uncle that is to be.’

‘He’s a nasty man! And he snatched me up! And he is all scrubby and tobacco-ey, and I won’t have him for an uncle,’ cried Primrose.

‘I hope he is not going to proceed in that way,’ said Gillian sotto voce to Mysie.

‘People always do snatch up primroses,’ said Jasper.

‘Don’t, Japs! I don’t like marble men. I wish they would stay marble.’

‘You don’t approve of the transformation?’

‘Oh, Japs, is it true? Mysie, you know the statue at Rotherwood, where Pig-my-lion made a stone figure and it turned into a woman.’

‘Yes; but it was a woman and this is a man.’

Mysie began an exposition of classic fable to her little sister, while Mrs. Halfpenny explained that this came of Christian folk setting up heathen idols in their houses as ‘twas a shame for decent folk to look at, let alone puir bairnies; while Jasper and Gillian gasped in convulsions of laughter, and bandied queries whether their aunt were the statue ‘Pig-my-lion’ had animated, as nothing could be less statuesque than she, whether the reverse had taken place, as Primrose observed, and she had been the Pygmalion to awaken the soul in the man of marble. Here, however, Mrs. Halfpenny became scandalised at such laughter in the open street; and, perceiving some one in the distance, she carried off Primrose, and enjoined the others to walk on doucely and wiselike.

Gillian was on her way to visit Kalliope and make an appointment for her mother to take her out for a drive; but as they passed the gate at Beechcroft out burst Valetta and Fergus, quite breathless.

‘Oh, Gill, Gill! Mr. White is in the drawing-room, and he has brought Aunt Ada the most beautiful box you ever saw, with all the stoppers made of gold!’

‘And he says I may get all the specimens I like at Rocca Marina,’ shouted Fergus.

‘Ivory brushes, and such a ring—sparkling up to the ceiling!’ added Valetta.

‘But, Val, Ferg, whom did you say?’ demanded the elders, coming within the shadow of the copper beeches.

‘Aunt Ada,’ said Valetta; ‘there’s a great A engraved on all those dear, lovely bottles, and—oh, they smell!’

‘Aunt Ada! Oh, I thought—’

‘What did you think, Gill?’ said Aunt Jane, coming from the grass-plat suddenly on them.

‘Oh, Aunt Jane, I am so glad!’ cried Gillian. ‘I thought’—and she blushed furiously.

‘They made asses of themselves,’ said Jasper.

‘They said it was you,’ added Mysie. ‘Miss Mellon told Miss Elbury,’ she added in excuse.

‘Me? No, I thank you! So you are glad, Gillian?’

‘Oh yes, aunt! I couldn’t have borne for you to do anything—queer’—and there was a look in Gillian’s face that went to Jane’s heart, and under other circumstances would have produced a kiss, but she rallied to her line of defence.

‘My dear, you must not call this queer. Mr. White is very much attached to your aunt Ada, and I think he will make her very happy, and give her great opportunities of doing good.’

‘That’s just what Gillian said when she was afraid it was you,’ said Mysie. ‘I suppose that’s it? And that makes it real right.’

‘And the golden stoppers!’ said Valetta innocently, but almost choking Jasper with laughter, which must be suppressed before his aunt.

‘May one know it now?’ asked Gillian, sensible of the perilous ground.

‘Yes, my dears; you must have been on tenter-hooks all this time, for, of course, you saw there was a crisis, and you behaved much better than I should have done at your age; but it was only a fait accompli this very day, and we couldn’t tell you before.’

‘When he brought down the golden stoppers,’ Jasper could not help saying.

‘No, no, you naughty boy! He would not have dared to bring it in before; he came before luncheon—all that came after. Oh, my dear, that dressing-case is perfectly awful! I wouldn’t have such a burthen on my mind—for—for all the orphans in London! I hope there are no banditti at Rocca Marina.’

‘Only accepted to-day! How did he get all his great A’s engraved?’ said Jasper practically.

‘He could not have had many doubts,’ said Gillian. ‘Does Kalliope know?’

‘I cannot tell; I think he has probably told her.’

‘He must have met Primrose there,’ said Jasper. ‘Poor Prim!’ And the offence and the Pig-my-lion story were duly related, much to Aunt Jane’s amusement.

‘But,’ she said, ‘I think that the soul in the marble man is very real, and very warm; and, dear children, don’t get into the habit of contemning him. Laugh, I suppose you must; I am afraid it must look ridiculous at our age; but please don’t despise. I am going down to your mother.

‘May I come with you! said Gillian. ‘I don’t think I can go to Kally till I have digested this a little; and, if you are going to mamma, she won’t drive her out.’

Jane was much gratified by this volunteer, though Jasper did suggest that Gill was afraid of Primrose’s treatment. He went on with the other three to Clipston, while Gillian exclaimed—

‘Oh, Aunt Jane, shall not you be very lonely?’

‘Not nearly so much so as if you were not all here,’ said her aunt cheerfully. ‘When you bemoaned your sisters last year we did not think the same thing was coming on me.’

‘Phyllis and Alethea! It was a very different thing,’ said Gillian. ‘Besides, though I hated it so much, I had got used to being without them.’

‘And to tell you the truth, Gill, nothing in that way ever was so bad to me as your own mother going and marrying; and now, you see, I have got her back again—and more too.’

Aunt Jane’s smile and softened eyes told that the young niece was included in the ‘more too’; and Gillian felt a thrill of pleasure and affection in this proof that after all she was something to the aunt, towards whom her feelings had so entirely changed. She proceeded, however, to ask with considerable anxiety what would be done about the Whites, Kalliope especially; and in return she was told about the present plan of Kalliope’s being taken to Italy to recover first, and then to pursue her studies at Florence, so as to return to her work more capable, and in a higher position.

‘Oh, how exquisite!’ cried Gillian. ‘But how about all the others?’

‘The very thing I want to see about, and talk over with your mother. I am sure she ought to go; and it will not even be wasting time, for she cannot earn anything.’

Talking over things with Lady Merrifield was, however, impeded, for, behold, there was a visitor in the drawing-room. Aunt and niece exchanged glances of consternation as they detected a stranger’s voice through the open window, and Gillian uttered a vituperative whisper.

‘I do believe it is that dreadful Fangs;’ then, hoping her aunt had not heard—‘Captain Henderson, I mean. He threatened to come down after us, and now he will always be in and out; and we shall have no peace. He has got nothing on earth to do.’

Gillian’s guess was right. The neat, trim, soldierly figure, with a long fair moustache and pleasant gray eyes, was introduced to Miss Mohun as ‘Captain Henderson, one of my brother officers,’ by Sir Jasper, who stood on the rug talking to him. Looks and signs among the ladies were token enough that the crisis had come; and Lady Merrifield soon secured freedom of speech by proposing to drive her sister to Clipston, while Sir Jasper asked his visitor to walk with him.

‘You will be in haste to sketch the place,’ he said, ‘before the workmen have done their best to demolish its beauty.’

As for Gillian, she saw her aunt hesitating on account of a parochial engagement for that afternoon; and, as it was happily not beyond her powers, she offered herself as a substitute, and was thankfully accepted. She felt quite glad to do anything obliging towards her aunt Jane, and in a mood very unlike last year’s grudging service; it was only reading to the ‘mothers’ meeting,’ since among the good ladies there prevailed such a strange incapacity of reading aloud, that this part of the business was left to so few that for one to fail, either in presence or in voice, was very inconvenient. All were settled down to their needlework, with their babies disposed of as best they might be. Mr. Hablot had finished his little lecture, and the one lady with a voice had nearly exhausted it, and there was a slight sensation at the absence of the unfailing Miss Mohun, when Gillian came in with the apologies about going to drive with her mother.

‘And,’ as she described it afterwards ‘didn’t those wretched beings all grin and titter, even the ladies, who ought to have had more manners, and that old Miss Mellon, who is a real growth of the hotbed of gossip, simpered and supposed we must look for such things now; and, though I pretended not to hear, my cheeks would go and flame up as red as—that tasconia, just with longing to tell them Aunt Jane was not so ridiculous; and so I took hold of For Half a Crown, and began to read it as if I could bite them all!’

She read herself into a state of pacification, but did not attempt to see Kalliope that day, being rather shy of all that might be encountered in that house, especially after working hours. The next day, however, Lady Merrifield’s services were required to chaperon the coy betrothed in an inspection of Cliff House and furniture, which was to be renovated according to her taste, and Gillian was to take that time for a visit to Kalliope, whom she expected to find in the garden. The usual corner was, however, vacant; and Mr. White was heard making a growl of ‘Foolish girl! Doesn’t know which way her bread is buttered.’

Maura, however, came running up, and said to Gillian, ‘Please come this way. She is here.’

‘What has she hidden herself for?’ demanded Mr. White. ‘I thought she might have been here to welcome this—Miss Adeline.’

‘She is not very well to-day,’ faltered Maura.

‘Oh! ay, fretting. Well, I thought she had more sense.’

Gillian followed Maura, who was no sooner out of hearing than she began: ‘It is too bad of him to be so cross. Kally really is so upset! She did not sleep all night, and I thought she would have fainted quite away this morning!’

‘Oh dear! has he been worrying her?’

‘She is very glad and happy, of course, about Miss Ada! and he won’t believe it, because he wants her to go out to Italy with them for all next winter.’

‘And won’t she? Oh, what a pity!’

‘She said she really could not because of us; she could not leave us, Petros and all, without a home. She thought it her duty to stay and look after us. And then he got cross, and said that she was presuming on the hope of living in idleness here, and making him keep us all, but she would find herself mistaken, and went off very angry.’

‘Oh, horrid! how could he?’

‘I believe, if Kally could have walked so far, she would have gone down straight to Mr. Lee’s. She wanted to, but she was all in a tremble, and I persuaded her not, though she did send me down to ask Mrs. Lee when she can be ready. Then when Alexis came home, Mr. White told him that he didn’t in the least mean all that, and would not hear of her going away, though he was angry at her being so foolish, but he would give her another chance of not throwing away such advantages. And Alexis says she ought not. He wants her to go, and declares that he and I can very well manage with Mrs. Lee, and look after Petros, and that she must not think of rushing off in a huff for a few words said in a passion. So, between the two, she was quite upset and couldn’t sleep, and, oh, if she were to be ill again!’

By this time they were in sight of Kalliope lying back in a basket-chair, shaded by the fence of the kitchen-garden, and her weary face and trembling hand showed how much this had shaken her in her weakness. She sent Maura away, and spoke out her troubles freely to Gillian. ‘I thought at first my duty was quite clear, and that I ought not to go away and enjoy myself and leave the others to get on without me. Alec would find it so dreary; and though Mr. and Mrs. Lee are very good and kind, they are not quite companions to him. Then Maura has come to think so much about people being ladies that I don’t feel sure that she would attend to Mrs. Lee; and the same with Petros in the holidays. If I can’t work at first, still I can make a home and look after them.’

‘But it is only one winter, and Alexis thinks you ought; and, oh, what it would be, and how you would get on!’

‘That is what puzzles me. Alexis thinks Mr. White has a right to expect me to improve myself, and not go on for ever making white jessamines with malachite leaves, and that he can look after Maura and Petros. I see, too, that I ought to try to recover, or I might be a burthen on Alexis for ever, and hinder all his better hopes. Then, there’s the not liking to accept a favour after Mr. White said such things, though I ought not to think about it since he made that apology; but it is a horrid feeling that I ought not to affront him for the sake of the others. Altogether I do feel so tossed. I can’t get back the feeling I had when I was ill that I need not worry, for that God will decide.’

And there were tears in her eyes.

‘Can’t you ask some one’s advice?’ said Gillian.

‘If I were sure they quite understood! My head is quite tired with thinking about it.’

Not many moments had passed before there were steps that made Kalliope start painfully, and Maura appeared, piloting another visitor. It was Miss Mohun, who had escaped from the survey of the rooms,—so far uneasy at what she had gathered from Mr. White, that she was the more anxious to make the offer previously agreed to.

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I am afraid you look tired.’

‘They have worried her and knocked her up,’ said Gillian indignantly.

‘I see! Kally, my dear, we are connections now, you know, and I have heard of Mr. White’s plan. It made me think whether you would find the matter easier if you let me have Maura while you are away to cheer my solitude. Then I could see that she did her lessons, and, between all Gillian’s brothers, we could see that Petros was happy in the holidays.’

‘Oh, Miss Mohun! how can I be grateful enough? There is an end of all difficulties.’

And when the inspecting party came round, and Adeline bent to kiss the white, weary, but no longer distressed face, and kindly said, ‘We shall see a great deal of each other, I hope,’ she replied, with an earnest ‘thank you,’ and added to Mr. White, ‘Miss Mohun has made it all easy to me, sir, and I am very grateful!’

‘Ay, ay! You’re a good girl at the bottom, and have some sense!’

CHAPTER XXIII. – FANGS

Events came on rapidly that spring. Mr. White was anxious that his marriage should take place quickly—afraid, perhaps, that his prize would escape him, and be daunted by the passive disapproval of her family, though this was only manifested to him in a want of cordiality. This, being sincere people, they could not help; and that outbreak to Kalliope had made the sisters so uneasy, that they would have willingly endured the ridicule of a broken engagement to secure Adeline from the risks of a rough temper where gentlemanly instincts were not inbred.

Adeline, however, knew she had gone too far to recede, though she would willingly have delayed, in enjoyment of the present homage and shrinking from the future plunge away from all her protectors. Though the strong, manly will overpowered hers, and made her submit to the necessities of the case and fix a day early in July, she clung the more closely to her sisters, and insisted on being accompanied by Jane on going to London to purchase the outfit that she had often seen in visions before. So Miss Mohun’s affairs were put in commission, Gillian taking care of them, and the two sisters were to go to Mrs. Craydon, once, as Marianne Weston, their first friend out of their own family, and now a widow with a house in London, well pleased at any recall of old times, though inclined, like all the rest, to speak of ‘poor Ada.’

Lord Rotherwood was, as his cousins had predicted, less disgusted than the rest, as in matters of business he had been able to test the true worth that lay beneath the blemishes of tone and of temper; and his wife thought the Italian residence and foreign tincture made the affair much more endurable than could have been expected. She chose an exquisite tea-service for their joint wedding present; but she would not consent to let Lady Phyllis be a bridesmaid; though the Marquis, discovering that her eldest brother hated the idea of giving her away to the stonemason, offered ‘not to put too fine a point on it, but to act the part of Cousin Phoenix.’

Bridesmaids would have been rather a difficulty; but then the deep mourning of Kalliope and Maura made a decided reason for excluding them; and Miss Adeline, who knew that a quiet wedding would be in much the best taste, resolved to content herself with two tiny maidens, Primrose and the contemporary Hablot, her own goddaughter, who, being commonly known as Belle, made a reason for equipping each in the colour and with the flowers of her name, and the idea was carried out with great taste.

Valetta thought it hard that an outsider should be chosen. The young Merrifields had the failing of large families in clannish exclusiveness up to the point of hating and despising more or less all who interfered with their enjoyment of one another, and of their own ways. The absence of society at Silverfold had intensified this farouche tone, and the dispersion, instead of curing it, had rendered them more bent on being alone together. Worst of all was Wilfred, who had been kept at home very inconveniently by some recurring delicacy of brain and eyes, and who, at twelve years old, was enough of an imp to be no small torment to his sisters. Valetta was unmercifully teased about her affection for Kitty Varley and Maura White, and, whenever he durst, there were attempts at stings about Alexis, until new game offered itself on whom no one had any mercy.

Captain Henderson was as much in the way as a man could be who knew but one family in the place, and had no resource but sketching. His yellow moustache was to be seen at all manner of unexpected and unwelcome times. If that great honour, a walk with papa, was granted, out he popped from Marine Hotel, or a seat in the public gardens, evidently lying in ambush to spoil their walk. Or he was found tete-a-tete with mamma before the five-o’clock tea, talking, no doubt, ‘Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,’ as in the Royal Wardour days. Even at Clipston, or in the coves on the beach, he was only too apt to start up from some convenient post for sketching. He really did draw beautifully, and Mysie would have been thankful for his counsels if public opinion had not been so strong.

Moreover, Kitty Varley conveyed to Valetta the speculations of Rockstone whether Gillian was the attraction.

‘Now, Val,’ said Mysie, ‘how can you listen to such nonsense!’

‘You said so before, and it wasn’t nonsense.’

‘It wasn’t Aunt Jane.’

‘No, but it was somebody.’

‘Everybody does marry somebody; but it is no use for us to think about it, for it always turns out just the contrary to all the books one ever read; so there’s no going by anything, and I don’t believe it right to talk about it.’

‘Why not? Every one does.’

‘All the good teachings say one should not talk of what one does not want one’s grown-ups to hear.’

‘Oh, but then one would never talk of anything!’

‘Oh, Val! I won’t be sure, but I don’t believe I should mind mamma’s hearing all I say.’

‘Yes; but you’ve never been to school, and I heard Bee Varley say she never saw anybody so childishly simple for her age.’

This brought the colour into Mysie’s face, but she said—

‘I’d rather be simple than talk as mamma does not like; and, Val, do on no account tell Gillian.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘And don’t; don’t tell Wilfred, or you know how horrid he would be.’

There was a tell-tale colour in Valetta’s cheeks, by which Mysie might have discerned that Valetta had not resisted the charm of declaring ‘that she knew something,’ even though this was sure to lead to tortures of various kinds from Wilfred until it was extracted. Still the youth as yet was afraid to do much worse than look preternaturally knowing at his sister and give hints about Fangs’ holding fast and the like, but quite enough to startle her into something between being flattered and indignant. She was scarcely civil to the Captain, and felt bound to express her dislike on every possible occasion, though only to provoke a grin from Wilfred and a giggle from Valetta.

Lady Merrifield’s basket-carriage and little rough pony had been brought from Silverfold, and she took Kalliope out for quiet drives whenever it was possible; but a day of showers having prevented this, she was concerned to find herself hindered on a second afternoon. Gillian offered to be her substitute.

‘You know I always drive you, mamma.’

‘These are worse hills than at Silverfold, and I don’t want you to come down by the sea-wall.’

‘I am sure I would not go there for something, among all the stupid people.’

‘If you keep to the turnpike you can’t come to much harm with Bruno.’

‘That is awfully—I mean horribly dusty! There’s the cliff road towards Arnscombe.’

‘That is safe enough. I don’t think you could come to much real damage; but remember that for Kally a start or an alarm would be really as hurtful as an accident to a person in health.’

‘Poor old Bruno could hardly frighten a mouse,’ said Gillian.

‘Only take care, and don’t be enterprising.’

Gillian drove up to the door of Cliff House, and Kalliope took her seat. It was an enjoyable afternoon, with the fresh clearness of June sunshine after showers, great purple shadows of clouds flitting over the sea, dimpled by white crests of wave that broke the golden path of sunshine into sparkling ripples, while on the other side of the cliff road lay the open moorland, full of furze, stunted in growth, but brilliant in colour, and relieved by the purple browns of blossoming grasses and the white stars of stitchwort.

‘This is delicious!’ murmured Kalliope, with a gesture of enjoyment.

‘Much nicer than down below!’

‘Oh yes; it seems to stretch one’s very soul!’

‘And the place is so big and wide that no one can worry with sketching.’

‘Yes, it defies that!’ said Kalliope, laughing.

‘So, Fa—Captain Henderson won’t crop up as he does at every sketchable place. Didn’t you know he was here?’

‘Yes, Alexis told me he had seen him.’

‘Everybody has seen him, I should think; he is always about with nothing to do but that everlasting sketching.’

‘He must have been very sorry to be obliged to retire.’

‘Horrid! It was weak, and he might have been in Egypt, well out of the way. No, I didn’t mean that’—as Kalliope looked shocked—‘but he might have been getting distinction and promotion.’

‘He used to be very kind,’ said Kalliope, in a tone of regretful remonstrance. ‘It was he who taught me first to draw.’

‘He! What, Fa—Captain Henderson?’

‘Yes; when I was quite a little girl, and he had only just joined. He found me out before our quarters at Gibraltar trying to draw an old Spaniard selling oranges, and he helped me, and showed me how to hold my pencil. I have got it still—the sketch. Then he used to lend me things to copy, and give me hints till—oh, till my father said I was too old for that sort of thing! Then, you know, my father got his commission, and I went to school at Belfast.’

‘And you have never seen him since?’

‘Scarcely. Sometimes he was on leave in my holidays, and you know we were at the depot afterwards, but I shall always feel that all that I have been able to do since has been owing to him.’

‘And how you will enjoy studying at Florence!’

‘Oh, think what it would be if I could ever do a reredos for a church! I keep on dreaming and fancying them, and now there really seems a hope. Is that Arnscombe Church?’

‘Yes, you know it has been nicely restored.’

‘We had the columns to do. The reredos is alabaster, I believe, and we had nobody fit to undertake that. I so longed for the power! I almost saw it.’

‘Have you seen what it is?’

‘No; I never had time.’

‘I suppose it would be too tiring for you now; but we could see the outside.’

Gillian forgot that Arnscombe, whose blunt gray spire protruded through the young green elms, lay in a little valley through which a stream rushed to the sea. The lane was not very steep, but there were loose stones. Bruno stumbled, he was down; the carriage stood still, and the two girls were out on opposite sides in a moment, Gillian crying out—

‘Don’t be frightened—no harm done!’—as she ran to the pony’s head. He lay quite still with heaving sides, and she felt utterly alone and helpless in the solitary road with an invalid companion whom she did not like to leave.

‘I am afraid I cannot run for help,’ said Kalliope quietly, though breathlessly; ‘but I could sit by the horse and hold his head while you go for help.’

‘I don’t like. Oh, here’s some one coming!’

‘Can I be of any use?’

Most welcome sound!—though it was actually Captain Henderson the ubiquitous wheeling his bicycle up the hill, knapsack of sketching materials on his back.