Books: Magnum Bonum

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Colonel Brownlow was altogether very friendly, if rather grave and
dry towards her, as soon as he was convinced that "it was only Joe,"
and that pity, not artfulness, was to blame for the undesirable
match. He was too honourable a man not to see that it could not be
given up, and he held that the best must now be made of it, and that
it would be more proper, since it was to be, for him to assume the
part of father, and let the marriage take place from his house at
Kenminster. This was a proposal for which it was hard to be as
grateful as it deserved; since it had been planned to walk quietly
into the parish church, be married "without any fuss," and then to
take the fortnight's holiday, which was all that the doctor allowed
himself.

But as Robert was allowed to be judge of the proprieties, and as the
kindness on his part was great, it was accepted; and Caroline was
carried off for three weeks to keep her residence, and make the house
feel what a blank her little figure had left.

Certainly, when the pair met again on the eve of the wedding, there
never was a more willing bride.

She said she had been very happy. The Colonel and Ellen, as she had
been told to call her future sister, had been very kind indeed; they
had taken her for long drives, shown her everything, introduced her
to quantities of people; but, oh dear! was it absolutely only three
weeks since she had been away? It seemed just like three years, and
she understood now why the girls who had homes made calendars, and
checked off the days. No school term had ever seemed so long; but at
Kenminster she had had nothing to do, and besides, now she knew what
home was!

So it was the most cheerful and joyous of weddings, though the bride
was a far less brilliant spectacle than the bride of last year, Mrs.
Robert Brownlow, who with her handsome oval face, fine figure, and
her tasteful dress, perfectly befitting a young matron, could not
help infinitely outshining the little girlish angular creature,
looking the browner for her bridal white, so that even a deep glow,
and a strange misty beaminess of expression could not make her
passable in Kenminster eyes.

How would Joe Brownlow's fancy turn out?

CHAPTER II. THE CHICKENS.

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear,
"Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years, yet we
No holiday have seen."—-Cowper.

No one could have much doubt how it had turned out, who looked, after
fifteen years, into that room where Joe Brownlow and his mother had
once sat tete-a-tete.

They occupied the two ends of the table still, neither looking much
older, in expression at least, for the fifteen years that had passed
over their heads, though the mother had-—after the wont of active old
ladies—-grown smaller and lighter, and the son somewhat more bald and
grey, but not a whit more careworn, and, if possible, even brighter.

On one side of him sat a little figure, not quite so thin, some
angles smoothed away, the black hair coiled, but still in resolute
little mutinous tendrils on the brow, not ill set off by a tuft of
carnation ribbon on one side, agreeing with the colour that touched
up her gauzy black dress; the face, not beautiful indeed—-but
developed, softened, brightened with more of sweetness and
tenderness-—as well as more of thought—-added to the fresh responsive
intelligence it had always possessed.

On the opposite side of the dinner-table were a girl of fourteen and
a boy of twelve; the former, of a much larger frame than her mother,
and in its most awkward and uncouth stage, hardly redeemed by the
keen ardour and inquiry that glowed in the dark eyes, set like two
hot coals beneath the black overhanging brows of the massive
forehead, on which the dark smooth hair was parted. The features
were large, the complexion dark but not clear, and the look of
resolution in the square-cut chin and closely shutting mouth was more
boy-like than girl-like. Janet Brownlow was assuredly a very plain
girl, but the family habit was to regard their want of beauty as
rather a mark of distinction, capable of being joked about, if not
triumphed in.

Nor was Allen, the boy, wanting in good looks. He was fairer,
clearer, better framed in every way than his sister, and had a
pleasant, lively countenance, prepossessing to all. He had a well-
grown, upright figure, his father's ready suppleness of movement, and
his mother's hazel eyes and flashing smile, and there was a look of
success about him, as well there might be, since he had come out
triumphantly from the examination for Eton College, and had been
informed that morning that there were vacancies enough for his
immediate admission.

There was a pensiveness mixed with the satisfaction in his mother's
eyes as she looked at him, for it was the first break into the home.
She had been the only teacher of her children till two years ago,
when Allen had begun to attend a day school a few streets off, and
the first boy's first flight from under her wing, for ever so short a
space, is generally a sharp wound to the mother's heart.

Not that Allen would leave an empty house behind him. Lying at full
length on the carpet, absorbed in a book, was Robert, a boy on whom
the same capacious brow as Janet's sat better than on the feminine
creature. He was reading on, undisturbed by the pranks of three
younger children, John Lucas, a lithe, wiry, restless elf of nine,
with a brown face and black curly head, and Armine and Barbara, young
persons of seven and six, on whom nature had been more beneficent in
the matter of looks, for though brown was their prevailing
complexion, both had well-moulded, childish features, and really fine
eyes. The hubbub of voices, as they tumbled and rushed about the
window and balcony, was the regular accompaniment of dinner, though
on the first plaintive tone from the little girl, the mother
interrupted a "Well, but papa," from Janet, with "Babie, Babie."

"It's Jock, Mother Carey! He _will_ come into Fairyland too soon."

"What's the last news from Fairyland, Babie?" asked the father as the
little one ran up to him.

"I want to be Queen Mab, papa, but Armine wants to be Perseus with
the Gorgon's head, and Jock is the dragon; but the dragon will come
before we've put Polly upon the rock."

"What! is Polly Andromeda—-?" as a grey parrot's stand was being
transferred from the balcony.

"Yes, papa," called out Armine. "You see she's chained, and Bobus
won't play, and Babie will be Queen Mab-—"

"I suppose," said the mother, "that it is not harder to bring Queen
Mab in with Perseus than Oberon with Theseus and Hippolyta-—"

"You would have us infer," said the Doctor with grave humour, "that
your children are at their present growth in the Elizabethan age of
culture—-"

But again began a "Well, but papa!" but, he exclaimed, "Do look at
that boy—- Well walloped, dragon!" as Jock with preternatural
contortions, rolled, kicked and tumbled himself with extended jaws to
the rock, alias stand, to which Polly was chained, she remarking in a
hoarse, low whisper, "Naughty boy—-"

"Well moaned, Andromeda!"

"But papa," persisted Janet, "when Oliver Cromwell-—"

"Oh! look at the Gorgon!" cried the mother, as the battered head of
an ancient doll was displayed over his shoulder by Perseus, decorated
with two enormous snakes, one made of stamps, and the other a spiral
of whalebone shavings out of a box.

The monster immediately tumbled over, twisted, kicked, and wriggled
so that the scandalised Perseus exclaimed: "But Jock-—monster, I
mean-—you're turned into stone-—"

"It's convulsions," replied the monster, gasping frightfully, while
redoubling his contortions, though Queen Mab observed in the most
admonitory tone, touching him at the same time with her wand, "Don't
you know, Skipjack, that's the reason you don't grow-—"

"Eh! What's the new theory! Who says so, Babie?" came from the
bottom of the table.

"Nurse says so, papa," answered Allen; "I heard her telling Jock
yesterday that he would never be any taller till he stood still and
gave himself time."

"Get out, will you!" was then heard from the prostrate Robert, the
monster having taken care to become petrified right across his legs.

"But papa," Janet's voice was heard, "if Oliver Cromwell had not
helped the Waldenses—-"

It was lost, for Bobus and Jock were rolling over together with too
much noise to be bearable; Grandmamma turned round with an
expostulatory "My dears," Mamma with "Boys, please don't when papa is
tired-—"

"Jock is such a little ape," said Bobus, picking himself up.
"Father, can you tell me why the moon draws up the tides on the wrong
side?"

"You may study the subject," said the Doctor; "I shall pack you all
off to the seaside in a day or two."

There was one outcry from mother, wife, and boys, "Not without you?"

"I can't go till Drew comes back from his outing-—"

"But why should we? It would be so much nicer all together."

"It will be horribly dull without; indeed I never can see the sense
of going at all," said Janet.

There was a confused outcry of indignation, in which waves-—crabs-—
boats and shrimps, were all mingled together,

"I'm sure that's not half so entertaining as hearing people talk in
the evening," said Janet.

"You precocious little piece of dissipation," said her mother,
laughing.

"I didn't mean fine lady nonsense," said Janet, rather hotly; "I
meant talk like-—"

"Like big guns. Oh, yes, we know," interrupted Allen; "Janet does
not think anyone worth listening to that hasn't got a whole alphabet
tacked behind his name."

"Janet had better take care, and Bobus too," said the Doctor, "or we
shall have to send them to vegetate on some farm, and see the cows
milked and the pigs fed."

"I'm afraid Bobus would apply himself to finding how much caseine
matter was in the cow's milk," said Janet in her womanly tone.

"Or by what rule the pigs curled their tails," said her father, with
a mischievous pull at the black plaited tail that hung down behind
her.

And then they all rose from the table, little Barbara starting up as
soon as grace was said. "Father, please, you _are_ the Giant Queen
Mab always rides!"

"Queen Mab, or Queen Bab, always rides me, which comes to the same
thing. Though as to the size of the Giant-—"

There was a pause to let grandmamma go up in peace, upon Mother
Carey's arm, and then a general romp and scurry all the way up the
stairs, ending by Jock's standing on one leg on the top post of the
baluster, like an acrobat, an achievement which made even his father
so giddy that he peremptorily desired it never to be attempted again,
to the great relief of both the ladies. Then, coming into the
drawing-room, Babie perched herself on his knee, and began, without
the slightest preparation, the recitation of Cowper's "Colubriad":—-

"Fast by the threshold of a door nailed fast
Three kittens sat, each kitten looked aghast."

And just as she had with great excitement--

"Taught him never to come there no more,"

Armine broke in with "Nine times one are nine."

It was an institution dating from the days when Janet made her first
acquaintance with the "Little Busy Bee," that there should be
something, of some sort, said or shown to papa, whenever he was at
home or free between dinner and bed-time, and it was considered
something between a disgrace and a misfortune to produce nothing.

So when the two little ones had been kissed and sent off to bed, with
mamma going with them to hear their prayers, Jock, on being called
for, repeated a Greek declension with two mistakes in it, Bobus
showed a long sum in decimals, Janet, brought a neat parallelism of
the present tense of the verb "to be" in five languages-—Greek,
Latin, French, German, and English.

"And Allen-—reposing on your honours? Eh, my boy?"

Allen looked rather foolish, and said, "I spoilt it, papa, and hadn't
time to begin another."

"It-—I suppose I am not to hear what till it has come to perfection.
Is it the same that was in hand last time?"

"No, papa, much better," said Janet, emphatically.

"What I want to see," said Dr. Brownlow, "is something finished. I'd
rather have that than ever so many magnificent beginnings."

Here he was seized upon by Robert, with his knitted brow and a book
in his hands, demanding aid in making out why, as he said, the tide
swelled out on the wrong side of the earth.

His father did his best to disentangle the question, but Bobus was
not satisfied till the clock chimed his doom, when he went off with
Jock, who was walking on his hands.

"That's too tough a subject for such a little fellow," said the
grandmother; "so late in the day too!"

"He would have worried his brain with it all night if he had not
worked it out," said his father.

"I'm afraid he will, any way," said the mother. "Fancy being
troubled with dreams of surging oceans rising up the wrong way!"

"Yes, he ought to be running after the tides instead of theorising
about them. Carry him off, Mother Carey, and the whole brood,
without loss of time."

"But Joe, why should we not wait for you? You never did send us away
all forlorn before!" she said, pleadingly. "We are all quite well,
and I can't bear going without you."

"I had much rather all the chickens were safe away, Carey," he said,
sitting down by her. "There's a tendency to epidemic fever in two or
three streets, which I don't like in this hot weather, and I had
rather have my mind easy about the young ones."

"And what do you think of my mind, leaving you in the midst of it?"

"Your mind, being that of a mother bird and a doctor's wife, ought to
have no objection."

"How soon does Dr. Drew come home?"

"In a fortnight, I believe. He wanted rest terribly, poor old
fellow. Don't grudge him every day."

"A fortnight!" (as if it was a century). "You can't come for a
fortnight. Well, perhaps it will take a week to fix on a place."

"Hardly, for see here, I found a letter from Acton when I came in.
They have found an unsophisticated elysium at Kyve Clements, and are
in raptures which they want us to share-—rocks and waves and all."

"And rooms?"

"Yes, very good rooms, enough for us all," was the answer, flinging
into her lap a letter from his friend, a somewhat noted artist in
water-colours, whom, after long patience, Carey's school friend, Miss
Cartwright, had married two years ago.

There was nothing to say against it, only grandmamma observed, "I am
too old to catch things; Joe will let me stay and keep house for
him."

"Please, please let me stay with granny," insisted Janet; "then I
shall finish my German classes."

Janet was granny's child. She had slept in her room ever since Allen
was born, and trotted after her in her "housewifeskep," and the sense
of being protected was passing into the sense of protection. Before
she could be answered, however, there was an announcement. Friends
were apt to drop in to coffee and talk in the evening, on the
understanding that certain days alone were free-—people chiefly
belonging to a literary, scientific, and artist set, not Bohemian,
but with a good deal of quiet ease and absence of formality.

This friend had just returned from Asia Minor, and had brought an
exquisite bit of a Greek frieze, of which he had become the happy
possessor, knowing that Mrs. Joseph Brownlow would delight to see it,
and mayhap to copy it.

For Carey's powers had been allowed to develop themselves; Mrs.
Brownlow having been always housekeeper, she had been fain to go on
with the studies that even her preparation for governess-ship had not
rendered wearisome, and thus had become a very graceful modeller in
clay-—her favourite pursuit-—when her children's lessons and other
occupations left her free to indulge in it. The history of the
travels, and the account of the discovery, were given and heard with
all zest, and in the midst others came in—-a barrister and his wife
to say good-bye before the circuit, a professor with a ticket for the
gallery at a scientific dinner, two medical students, who had been
made free of the house because they were nice lads with no available
friends in town.

It was all over by half-past ten, and the trio were alone together.
"How amusing Mr. Leslie is!" said the young Mrs. Brownlow. "He knows
how describe as few people do."

"Did you see Janet listening to him," said her grandmother, "with her
brows pulled down and her eyes sparkling out under them, wanting to
devour every word?"

"Yes," returned the Doctor, "I saw it, and I longed to souse that
black head of hers with salt water. I don't like brains to grow to
the contempt of healthful play."

"People never know when they are well off! I wonder what you would
have said if you had had a lot of stupid dolts, boys always being
plucked, &c."

"Don't plume yourself too soon, Mother Carey; only one chick has gone
through the first ordeal."

"And if Allen did, Bobus will."

"Allen is quite as clever as Bobus, granny, if—-" eagerly said the
mother.

"If-—" said the father; "there's the point. If Allen has the
stimulus, he will do well. I own I am particularly pleased with his
success, because perseverance is his weak point."

"Carey kept him up to it," said granny. "I believe his success is
quite as much her work as his own."

"And the question is, how will he get on without his mother to coach
him ?"

"Now you know you are not one bit uneasy, papa!" cried his wife,
indignantly. "But don't you think we might let Janet have her will
for just these ten days? There can't be any real danger for her with
grandmamma, and I should be happier about granny."

"You don't trust Joe to take care of me?"

"Not if Joe is to be out all day. There will be nobody to trot up
and down stairs for you. Come, it is only what she begs for
herself, and she really is perfectly well."

"As if I could have a child victimised to me," said granny.

"The little Cockney thinks the victimising would be in going to the
deserts with only the boys and me," laughed Carey; "But I think a
week later will be quite time enough to sweep the cobwebs out of her
brain."

"And you can do without her?" inquired Mrs. Brownlow. "You don't
want her to help to keep the boys in order?"

"Thank you, I can do that better without her," said Carey. "She
exasperates them sometimes."

"I believe granny is thinking whether she is not wanted to keep
Mother Carey in order as well as her chickens. Hasn't mother been
taken for your governess, Carey?"

"No, no, Joe, that's too bad. They asked Janet at the dancing-school
whether her sister was not going to join."

"Her younger sister?"

"No, I tell you, her half-sister. But Clara Acton will do discretion
for us, granny; and I promise you we won't do anything her husband
says is very desperate! Don't be afraid."

"No," said grandmamma, smiling as she kissed her daughter-in-law, and
rose to take her candle; "I am never afraid of anything a mother can
share with her boys."

"Even if she is nearly a tomboy herself," laughed the husband, with
rather a teasing air, towards his little wife. "Good night, mother.
Shall not we be snug with nobody left but Janet, who might be great-
grandmother to us both?"

"I really am glad that Janet should stay with granny," said Carey,
when he had shut the door behind the old lady; "she would be left
alone so many hours while you are out, and she does need more waiting
on than she used to do."

"You think so? I never see her grow older."

"Not in the least older in mind or spirits; but she is not so strong,
nor so willing to exert herself, and she falls asleep more in the
afternoon. One reason for which I am less sorry to go on before, is
that I shall be able to judge whether the rooms are comfortable
enough for her, and I suppose we may change if they are not."

"To another place, if you think best."

"Only you will not let her stay at home altogether. That's what I'm
afraid of."

"She will only do so on the penalty of keeping me, and you may trust
her not to do that," said Joe, laughing with the confidence of an
only son.

"I shall come back and fetch you if you don't appear under a
fortnight. Did you do any more this morning to the great experiment,
Magnum Bonum?"

She spoke the words in a proud, shy, exulting semi-whisper, somewhat

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