Kitabı oku: «The Long Vacation», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VII. – THE HOPE OF VANDERKIST
A breath of air,
A bullock’s low,
A bunch of flowers,
Hath power to call from everywhere
The spirit of forgotten hours—
Hours when the heart was fresh and young,
When every string in freedom sung,
Ere life had shed one leaf of green.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
There had been some curiosity as to who would be thought worthy to bring the precious little baronet to Rockquay, and there was some diversion, as well as joy, when it proved that no one was to be entrusted with him but his eldest aunt, Mrs. Harewood, who was to bring him in Whitsun week, so that he might begin with a half-term.
The arrival was a pretty sight, as the aunt rejoiced at seeing both her hosts at the front door to greet her, and as Anna held out her glad arms to the little brother who was the pride of the family.
“Ha, Adrian, boy!” said the Vicar, only greeting with the hand, at sight of the impatient wriggle out of the embrace.
It was an open, sunburnt, ruddy face, and wide, fearless grey eyes that looked up to him, the bullet head in stiff, curly flaxen hair held aloft with an air of “I am monarch of all I survey,” and there was a tone of equality in the “Holloa, Uncle Clement,” to the tall clergyman who towered so far above the sturdy little figure.
Presently on the family inquiries there broke—
“I say, Annie, where’s the school?”
“At the foot of this hill.”
“I want to see it” (imperiously).
“You must have some tea first.”
“Then you are glad to come, Adrian?” said Mrs. Grinstead.
“Yes, Aunt Cherry. It is high time I was away from such a lot of women-folk,” he replied, with his hands in his pockets, and his legs set like a little colossus.
Anna had no peace till, after the boy had swallowed a tolerable amount of bread-and-butter and cake, she took him out, and then Mrs. Harewood had to explain his mother’s urgent entreaties that the regime at Vale Leston should be followed up, and the boy see only such habits as would be those of total abstainers.
Poor woman! as her brother and sisters knew, there was reason to believe that the vice which had been fatal to her happiness and her husband’s life, had descended to him from Dutch forefathers, and there was the less cause for wonder at the passionate desire to guard her son from it. Almost all her family had been water-drinkers from infancy, and though Major Harewood called teetotalism a superstitious contempt of Heaven’s good gifts, and disapproved of supplementing the baptismal vow, his brother the Rector had found it expedient, for the sake of the parish, to embrace formally the temperance movement, and thus there had been little difficulty in giving way to Alda’s desire that, at the luncheon-table, Adrian should never see wine or beer, and she insisted that the same rule should prevail at Rockquay.
Clement had taken the pledge when a lad of sixteen, and there were those who thought that, save for his persistence under warnings of failing strength, much of his present illness might have been averted, with all the consequent treatment. He believed in total abstinence as safer for his ward, but he thought that the time had come for training, in seeing without partaking. Wilmet agreed, and said she had tried to persuade her sister; but she had only caused an hysterical agitation, so that weakness as usual gained the victory, and she had all but promised to bring the boy home again unless she could exact an engagement.
“To follow the Vale Leston practice at his early dinner,” said Geraldine.
“That may be,” said Clement; “but I do not engage not to have the matter out with him if I see that it is expedient.”
“I am only doubtful how Gerald will take it,” said his sister.
“Gerald has always been used to it at Vale Leston,” said Wilmet.
“True, but there he is your guest. Here he will regard himself as at home. However, he is a good boy, and will only grumble a little for appearance sake.”
“I should hope so,” said Wilmet severely.
“How is the Penbeacon affair going on?” asked Clement.
“Oh, Clem, I did not think you had heard of it.”
“I had a letter in the middle of the mission, but I could not answer it then, and it seems to have been lost.”
Geraldine pronounced it the straw that broke the camel’s back, when she heard of the company that only waited to dig china clay out of Penbeacon and wash it in the Ewe till they could purchase a slice of the hill pertaining to the Vale Leston estate. Major Harewood had replied that his fellow-trustee was too ill to attend to business, and that the matter had better be let alone till the heir attained his majority.
“Shelved for the present,” said Mrs. Grinstead. “Fancy Ewe and Leston contaminated!”
“John talks to the young engineer, Mr. Bramshaw, and thinks that may be prevented; but that is not the worst,” said Wilmet; “it would change the whole face of the parish, and bring an influx of new people.”
“Break up Penbeacon and cover it with horrible little new houses. Men like Walsh never see a beautiful place but they begin to think how to destroy it.”
“Well, Cherry, you have the most influence with Gerald, but he talks to the girls of our having no right to keep the treasures of the hills for our exclusive pleasure.”
“It is not exclusive. Half the country disports itself there. It is the great place for excursions.”
“Then he declares that it is a grave matter to hinder an industry that would put bread into so many mouths, and that fresh outlets would be good for the place; something too about being an obstruction, and the rights of labour.”
“Oh, I know what that means. It is only teasing the cousinhood when they fall on him open-mouthed,” said Geraldine, with a laugh, though with a qualm of misgiving at her heart, while Clement sat listening and thinking.
Mrs. Harewood farther explained, that she hoped either that Gerald would marry, or that her sister would make a home for him at the Priory. It then appeared that Major Harewood thought it would be wise to leave the young man to manage the property for himself without interference; and that the uncle to whom the Major had become heir was anxious to have the family at hand, even offering to arrange a house for Lady Vanderkist.
“A year of changes,” sighed Geraldine; “but this waiting time seems intended to let one gather one’s breath.”
But Wilmet looked careworn, partly, no doubt, with the harass of continual attention to her sister Alda, who, though subdued and improved in many important ways, was unavoidably fretful from ill-health, and disposed to be very miserable over her straitened means, and the future lot of her eight daughters, especially as the two of the most favourable age seemed to resign their immediate chances of marrying. Moreover, though all began life as pretty little girls, they had a propensity to turn into Dutchwomen as they grew up, and Franceska, the fifth in age, was the only one who renewed the beauty of the twin sisters.
Alda was not, however, Wilmet’s chief care, though of that she did not speak. She was not happy at heart about her two boys. Kester was a soldier in India, not actually unsteady, but not what her own brothers had been, and Edward was a midshipman, too much of the careless, wild sailor. Easy-going John Harewood’s lax discipline had not been successful with them in early youth, and still less had later severity and indignation been effectual.
“I am glad you kept Anna,” said Mrs. Harewood, “though Alda is very much disappointed that she is not having a season in London.”
“She will not take it,” said Geraldine. “She insists that she prefers Uncle Clem to all the fine folk she might meet; and after all, poor Marilda’s acquaintance are not exactly the upper ten thousand.”
“Poor Marilda! You know that she is greatly vexed that Emilia is bent on being a hospital nurse, or something like it, and only half yields to go out with her this summer in very unwilling obedience.”
“Yes, I know. She wants to come here, and I mean to have her before the long vacation for a little while. We heard various outpourings, and I cannot quite think Miss Emilia a grateful person, though I can believe that she does not find it lively at home.”
“She seems to be allowed plenty of slum work, as it is the fashion to call it, and no one can be more good and useful than Fernan and Marilda, so that I call it sheer discontent and ingratitude not to put up with them!”
“Only modernishness, my dear Wilmet. It is the spirit of the times, and the young things can’t help it.”
“You don’t seem to suffer in that way—at least with Anna.”
“No; Anna is a dear good girl, and Uncle Clem is her hero, but I am very glad she has nice young companions in the Merrifields, and an excitement in prospect in this bazaar.”
“I thought a bazaar quite out of your line.”
“There seems to be no other chance of saving this place from board schools. Two thousand pounds have to be raised, and though Lord Rotherwood and Mr. White, the chief owners of property, have done, and will do, much, there still remains greater need than a fleeting population like this can be expected to supply, and Clement thinks that a bazaar is quite justifiable in such a case.”
“If there is nothing undesirable,” said Mrs. Harewood, in her original “what it may lead to” voice.
“Trust Lady Merrifield and Jane Mohun for that! I am going to take you to call upon Lilias Merrifield.”
“Yea; I shall wish to see the mother of Bernard’s wife.”
Clement, who went with them, explained to his somewhat wondering elder sister that he thought safeguards to Christian education so needful, that he was quite willing that, even in this brief stay, all the aid in their power should be given to the cause at Rockquay. Nay, as he afterwards added to Wilmet, he was very glad to see how much it interested Geraldine, and that the work for the Church and the congenial friends were rousing her from her listless state of dejection.
Lady Merrifield and Mrs. Harewood were mutually charmed, perhaps all the more because the former was not impassioned about the bazaar. She said she had been importuned on such subjects wherever she had gone, and had learnt to be passive; but her sister Jane was all eagerness, and her younger young people, as she called the present half of her family, were in the greatest excitement over their first experience of the kind.
“Well is it for all undertakings that there should always be somebody to whom all is new, and who can be zealous and full of delight.”
“By no means surtout point de zele,” returned Geraldine.
“As well say no fermentation,” said Lady Merrifield.
“A dangerous thing,” said Clement.
“But sourness comes without it, or at least deadness,” returned his sister.
Wherewith they returned to talk of their common relations.
It was like a joke to the brother and sisters, that their Bernard should be a responsible husband and father, whereas Lady Merrifield’s notion of him was as a grave, grand-looking man with a splendid beard.
Fergus Merrifield was asked to become the protector of Adrian, whereat he looked sheepish; but after the round of pets had been made he informed his two youngest sisters, Valetta and Primrose, that it was the cheekiest little fellow he had ever seen, who would never know if he was bullied within an inch of his life; not that he (Fergus) should let the fellows do it.
So though until Monday morning Anna was the slave of her brother, doing her best to supply the place of the six devoted sisters at home, the young gentleman ungratefully announced at breakfast—
“I don’t want gy-arls after me,” with a peculiarly contemptuous twirl at the beginning of the word; “Merrifield is to call for me.”
Anna, who had brought down her hat, looked mortified.
“Never mind, Annie,” said her uncle, “he will know better one of these days.”
“No, I shan’t,” said Adrian, turning round defiantly. “If she comes bothering after me at dinner-time I shall throw my books at her—that’s all! There’s Merrifield,” and he banged out of the room.
“Never mind,” again said his uncle, “he has had a large dose of the feminine element, and this is his swing out of it.”
Hopes, which Anna thought cruel, were entertained by her elders that the varlet would return somewhat crestfallen, but there were no such symptoms; the boy re-appeared in high spirits, having been placed well for his years, but not too well for popularity, and in the playground he had found himself in his natural element. The boys were mostly of his own size, or a little bigger, and bullying was not the fashion. He had heard enough school stories to be wary of boasting of his title, and as long as he did not flaunt it before their eyes, it was regarded as rather a credit to the school.
Merrifield was elated at the success of his protege, and patronized him more than he knew, accepting his devotion in a droll, contemptuous manner, so that the pair were never willingly apart. As Fergus slept at his aunt’s during the week, the long summer evenings afforded splendid opportunities for what Fergus called scientific researches in the quarries and cliffs. It was as well for Lady Vanderkist’s peace of mind that she did not realize them, though Fergus was certified by his family to be cautious and experienced enough to be a safe guide. Perhaps people were less nervous about sixth sons than only ones.
There was, indeed, a certain undeveloped idea held out that some of the duplicates of Fergus’s precious collection might be arranged as a sample of the specimens of minerals and fossils of Rockquay at the long-talked-of sale of work.
CHAPTER VIII. – THE MOUSE-TRAP
If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
The young ladies were truly in an intense state of excitement about the sale of work, especially about the authorship; and Uncle Lancelot having promised to send an estimate, a meeting of the Mouse-trap was convened to consider of the materials, and certainly the mass of manuscript contributed at different times to the Mouse-trap magazine was appalling to all but Anna, who knew what was the shrinkage in the press.
She, however, held herself bound not to inflict on her busy uncle the reading of anything entirely impracticable, so she sat with a stern and critical eye as the party mustered in Miss Mohun’s drawing-room, and Gillian took the chair.
“The great design,” said she impressively, “is that the Mouse-trap should collect and print and publish a selection for the benefit of the school.”
The Mice vehemently applauded, only Miss Norton, the oldest of the party, asked humbly—
“Would any one think it worth buying?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Valetta. “Lots of translations!”
“The Erl King, for instance,” put in Dolores Mohun.
“If Anna would append the parody,” suggested Gillian.
“Oh, parodies are—are horrid,” said Mysie.
“Many people feel them so,” said Gillian, “but to others I think they are almost a proof of love, that they can make sport with what they admire so much.”
“Then,” said Mysie, “there’s Dolores’ Eruption!”
“What a nice subject,” laughed Gillian. “However, it will do beautifully, being the description of the pink terraces of that place with the tremendous name in New Zealand.”
“Were you there?” cried Anna.
“Yes. I always wonder how she can look the same after such adventures,” said Mysie.
“You know it is much the same as my father’s paper in the Scientific World,” said Dolores.
“Nobody over reads that, so it won’t signify,” was the uncomplimentary verdict.
“And,” added Mysie, “Mr. Brownlow would do a history of Rockquay, and that would be worth having.”
“Oh yes, the dear ghost and all!” cried Valetta.
The acclamation was general, for the Reverend Armine Brownlow was the cynosure curate of the lady Church-helpers, and Mysie produced as a precious loan, to show what could be done, the volume containing the choicest morceaux of the family magazine of his youth, the Traveller’s Joy, in white parchment binding adorned with clematis, and emblazoned with the Evelyn arms on one side, the Brownlow on the other, and full of photographs and reproductions of drawings.
“Much too costly,” said the prudent.
“It was not for sale,” said Mysie, obviously uneasy while it was being handed round.
“Half-a-crown should be our outside price,” said Gillian.
“Or a shilling without photographs, half-a-crown with,” was added.
“Shall I ask Uncle Lance what can be done for how much?” asked Anna, and this was accepted with acclamation, but, as Gillian observed, they had yet got no further than Dolores’ Eruption and the unwritten history.
“There are lots of stories,” said Kitty Varley; “the one about Bayard and all the knights in Italy.”
“The one,” said Gillian, “where Padua got into the kingdom of Naples, and the lady of the house lighted a lucifer match, besides the horse who drained a goblet of red wine.”
“You know that was only the pronouns,” suggested the author.
“Then there’s another,” added Valetta, “called Monrepos—such a beauty, when the husband was wounded, and died at his wife’s feet just as the sun gilded the tops of the pines, and she died when the moon set, and the little daughter went in and was found dead at their feet.”
“No, no, Val,” said Gillian. “Here is a story that Bessie has sent us—really worth having.”
“Mesa! Oh, of course,” was the acclamation.
“And here’s a little thing of mine,” Gillian added modestly, “about the development of the brain.”
At this there was a shout.
“A little thing! Isn’t it on the differential calculus?”
“Really, I don’t see why Rockquay should not have a little rational study!”
“Ah! but the present question is what Rockquay will buy; to further future development it may be, but I am afraid their brains are not yet developed enough,” said Emma Norton.
“Well then, here is the comparison between Euripides and Shakespeare.”
“That’s what you read papa and everybody to sleep with,” said Valetta pertly.
“Except Aunt Lily, and she said she had read something very like it in Schlegel,” added Dolores.
“You must not be too deep for ordinary intellects, Gillian,” said Emma Norton good-naturedly. “Surely there is that pretty history you made out of Count Baldwin the Pretender.”
“That! Oh, that is a childish concern.”
“The better fitted for our understandings,” said Emma, disinterring it, and handing it over to Anna, while Mysie breathed out—
“Oh! I did like it! And, Gill, where is Phyllis’s account of the Jubilee gaieties and procession last year?”
“That would make the fortune of any paper,” said Anna.
“Yes, if Lady Rotherwood will let it be used,” said Gillian. “It is really delightful and full of fun, but I am quite sure that her name could not appear, and I do not expect leave to use it.”
“Shall I write and ask?” said Mysie.
“Oh yes, do; if Cousin Rotherwood is always gracious, it is specially to you.”
“I wrote to my cousin, Gerald Underwood,” said Anna, “to ask if he had anything to spare us, though I knew he would laugh at the whole concern, and he has sent down this. I don’t quite know whether he was in earnest or in mischief.”
And she read aloud—
“Dreaming of her laurels green,
The learned Girton girl is seen,
Or under the trapeze neat
Figuring as an athlete.
Never at the kitchen door
Will she scrub or polish more;
No metaphoric dirt she eats,
Literal dirt may form her treats.
Mary never idle sits,
Home lessons can’t be learnt by fits;
Hard she studies all the week,
Answers with undaunted cheek.
When to exam Mary goes,
Smartly dressed in stunning clothes,
Expert in algebraic rule,
Best pupil-teacher of her school.
Oh, how clever we are found
Who live on England’s happy ground,
Where rich and poor and wretched may
Be drilled in Whitehall’s favoured way.”
There was a good deal of laughter at this parody of Jane Taylor’s Village Girl, though Mysie was inclined to be shocked as at something profane.
“Then what will you think of this?” said Anna, beginning gravely to read aloud The Inspector’s Tour.
It was very clever, so clever that Valetta and Kitty Varley both listened as in sober earnest, never discovering, or only in flashes like Mysie, that it was really a satire on all the social state of the different European nations, under the denomination of schools. One being depicted as highly orthodox, but much given to sentence insubordination to dark cold closets; another as given to severe drill, but neglecting manners; a third as repudiating religious teaching, and now and then preparing explosions for the masters—no, teachers. The various conversations were exceedingly bright and comical; and there were brilliant hits at existing circumstances, all a little in a socialistic spirit, which made Anna pause as she read. She really had not perceived till she heard it in her own voice and with other ears how audacious it was, especially for a school bazaar.
Dolores applauded with her whole heart, but owned that it might be too good for the Mouse-trap, it would be too like catching a monkey! Gillian, more doubtfully, questioned whether it would “quite do”; and Mysie, when she understood the allusions, thought it would not. Emma Norton was more decided, and it ended by deciding that the paper should be read to the elders at Clipstone, and their decision taken before sending it to Uncle Lance.
The spirits of the Muscipula party rose as they discussed the remaining MSS., but these were not of the highest order of merit; and Anna thought that the really good would be sufficient; and all the Underwood kith and kin had sufficient knowledge of the Press through their connection with the ‘Pursuivant’ to be authorities on the subject.
“Fergus has some splendid duplicate ammonites for me and bits of crystal,” said Mysie.
“Oh, do let Fergus alone,” entreated Gillian. “He is almost a petrifaction already, and you know what depends on it.”
“My sister is coming next week for a few days,” said Anna. “She is very clever, and may help us.”
Emilia was accordingly introduced to the Mice, but she was not very tolerant of them. Essay societies, she said, were out of date, and she thought the Rockquay young ladies a very country-town set.
“You don’t know them, Emmie,” said Anna. “Gillian and Dolores are very remarkable girls, only—”
“Only they are kept down by their mothers, I suppose. Is that the reason they don’t do anything but potter after essay societies and Sunday-schools like our little girls at Vale Leston? Why, I asked Gillian, as you call her, what they were doing about the Penitents’ Home, and she said her mother and Aunt Jane went to look after it, but never talked about it.”
“You know they are all very young.”
“Young indeed! How is one ever to be of any use if mothers and people are always fussing about one’s being young?”
“One won’t always be so—”
“They would think so, like the woman of a hundred years old, who said on her daughter’s death at eighty, ‘Ah, poor girl, I knew I never should rear her!’ How shall I get to see the Infirmary here?”
“Miss Mohun would take you.”
“Can’t I go without a fidgety old maid after me?”
“I’ll tell you what I wish you would do, Emmie. Write an account of one of your hospital visits, or of the match-girls, for the Mouse-trap. Do! You know Gerald has written something for it.”
“He! Why he has too much sense to write for your voluntary schools. Or it would be too clever and incisive for you. Ah! I see it was so by your face! What did he send you? Have you got it still?”
“We have really a parody of his which is going in—The Girton Girl. Now, Emmie, won’t you? You have told me such funny things about your match-girls.”
“I do not mean to let them be turned into ridicule by your prim, decorous swells. Why, I unfortunately told Fernan Brown one story—about their mocking old Miss Bruce with putting on imitation spectacles—and it has served him for a cheval de bataille ever since! Oh, my dear Anna, he gets more hateful than ever. I wish you would come back and divert his attention.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t you think we could change? You could go and let Marilda fuss with you, now that Uncle Clem and Aunt Cherry are so well, and I could look after Adrian, and go to the Infirmary, and the penitents, and all that these people neglect; maybe I would write for the Mouse-trap, if Gerald does when he comes home.”
Anna did not like the proposal, but she pitied Emilia, and cared for her enough to carry the scheme to her aunt. But Geraldine shook her head. The one thing she did not wish was to have Emmie riding, walking, singing, and expanding into philanthropy with Gerald, and besides, she knew that Emilia would never have patience to read to her uncle, or help Adrian in his preparation.
“Do you really wish this, my dear?” she asked.
“N—no, not at all; but Emmie does. Could you not try her?”
“Annie dear, if you wish to have a fortnight or more in town—”
“Oh no, no, auntie, indeed!”
“We could get on now without you. Or we would keep Emmie till the room is wanted; but I had far rather be alone than have the responsibility of Emmie.”
“No, no, indeed; I don’t think Adrian would be good long with her. I had much rather stay—only Emmie did wish, and she hates the—”
“Oh, my dear, you need not tell me; I only know that I cannot have her after next week; the room will be wanted for Gerald.”
“She could sleep with me.”
“No, Annie, I must disappoint you. There is not room for her, and her flights when Gerald comes would never do for your uncle. You know it yourself.”
Anna could not but own the wisdom of the decision, and Emmie, after grumbling at Aunt Cherry, took herself off. She had visited the Infirmary and the Convalescent Home, and even persuaded Mrs. Hablot to show her the Union Workhouse, but she never sent her contribution to the Mouse-trap.
