Books: My Young Alcides

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> My Young Alcides

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On the whole, her presence was very good for us, if only by infusing
the element of age. She liked to potter about in the morning,
attending to her birds and bantams, and talking to the gardening men,
weeding women, and all the people in the adjacent hamlet; and,
afterwards, the fireside, with her knitting and a newspaper, sufficed
her. Not the daily papers--they were far too much for her; but the
weekly paper from her own town, which lasted her till a new one came,
as she spelled it through, and communicated the facts and facetiae as
she thought them suited to our capacity. She was a better walker
than I, and would seldom come out in the carriage, for she always
caught cold when she did so. A long nap after dinner ended in her
resuming her knitting quite contentedly in silence. She wanted no
more, though she was pleased if any one said a few kindly words to
her. Nothing could be more inoffensive, and she gave us a centre and
something needing consideration. I feared Dora might be saucy to
her, but perhaps motherliness was what the wild child needed, for she
drew towards her, and was softened, and even submitted to learn to
knit, for the sake of the mighty labour of making a pair of socks for
Harold.

The respectability her presence gave in our pew, and by our hearth,
was a great comfort to our friends of all degrees. She was a very
pretty old lady, with dark eyes, cheeks still rosy, lovely loose
waves of short snowy curls, and a neat, active little figure, which
looked well in the good black silks in which I contrived to invest
her.

Good old woman, she thought us all shockingly full of worldliness,
little guessing how much gaiety was due to her meek presence among
us. We even gave dinner-parties in state, and what Richardson and I
underwent from Eustace in preparation, no tongue can tell, nor
Eustace's complacence in handing down Lady Diana!

The embargo on intercourse with Arked House was over before Viola was
taken to London to be introduced. Eustace wanted much to follow
them, be at the levee, and spend the season in town. Had he not been
presented at Government House, and was it not due to the Queen? Dora
more practically offered to follow the example of the Siberian exile,
and lay a petition for Prometesky's release at her Majesty's feet,
but Harold uttered his ponderous "No" alike to both, proving, in his
capacity as agent, that Eustace had nothing like the amount this year
which could enable him to spend two or three months even as a single
man in London society. The requisite amount, which he had
ascertained, was startling, even had Eustace been likely to be
frugal; nor could this year's income justify it, in spite of Boola
Boola. The expense of coming into the estate, together with all the
repairs and improvements, had been such that the Australian property
had been needed to supplement the new. Eustace was very angry and
disappointed, and grumbled vehemently. It was all Harry's fault for
making him spend hundreds on his own maggots, that nobody wanted and
nobody cared about, and would be the ruin of him. Poor Bullock would
have raised the sum fast enough, and thought nothing of it.

Harry never said how much of his own funds from Boola Boola had
supplemented Eustace's outlay; he did not even say how much better it
was to be a good landlord than a man about town; all he did was to
growl forth to his spoilt child, "There'll be more forthcoming next
year."

Eustace protested that he did not believe it, and Harold replied, "No
legacy duty--no stock to purchase--Hydriots' dividend--"

It did not check the murmur, and Eustace sulked all the rest of the
day; indeed, this has always seemed to me to have been the first
little rift in his adherence to his cousin, but at that time his
dependence was so absolute, and his power of separate action so
small, that he submitted to the decree even while he grumbled; and
when he found that Lord Erymanth viewed it as very undesirable for a
young man to come up to London without either home or business, or
political views, took to himself great credit for the wise decision.

Indeed, Lord Erymanth did invite us all for a fortnight to his great
old mansion in Piccadilly to see the Exhibition, and, as he solemnly
told me, "to observe enough of our institutions as may prepare my
young friends for future life." Even Dora was asked, by special
entreaty from Viola, who undertook to look after her--rather too
boldly, considering that Di--i.e. Mrs. Enderby--was mistress of
Viola's movements, and did not leave her much time to waste upon us.

In fact, Mrs. Enderby, though perfectly civil, was evidently hostile
to us, and tried to keep her sister out of our way as much as she
could, thickening engagements upon her, at which Viola made all the
comical murmurs her Irish blood could prompt, but of course in vain.
Eustace's great ambition was to follow her to her parties, and Lady
Diana favoured him when she could; but Harold would have nothing to
do with such penances. He never missed a chance of seeing Viola come
down attired for them, but, as he once said, "that was enough for
him." He did not want to see her handed about and grimaced at by a
lot of fine gentlemen who did not seem to think anything worth the
trouble; and as to the crowd and the stifling, they made him feel
ready to strike out and knock everyone down.

So much Eustace and I elicited in short sentences one day, when we
were rather foolishly urging on him to let himself be taken with us
to an evening party. No, he went his own way and took Dora with him,
and I was quite sure that they were safe together, and that after his
year's experience he was to be trusted to know where it was fitting
to take her. They saw a good deal that was more entertaining than we
could venture on; and, moreover, Harold improved his mind
considerably in the matters of pottery, porcelain, and model lodging-
houses.

Dermot was in London too, not staying with uncle or sister, for both
of whom he was much too erratic, though he generally presented
himself at such times as were fittest for ascertaining our movements
for the day, when it generally ended in his attaching himself to some
of us, for Harold seemed to have passed an act of oblivion on the
doings of that last unhappy meeting, and allowed himself to be taken
once or twice with Eustace into Dermot's own world; but not only was
he on his guard there, but he could not be roused to interest even
where horseflesh was concerned. Some one said he was too great a
barbarian, and so he was. His sports and revelries had been on a
wilder, ruder, more violent scale, such as made these seem tame. He
did not understand mere trifling for amusement's sake, still less how
money could be thrown away for it and for fashion, when it was so
cruelly wanted by real needs; and even Dermot was made uncomfortable
by his thorough earnestness. "It won't do in 'the village' in the
nineteenth century," said he to me. "It is like--who was that old
fellow it was said of--a lion stalking about in a sheepfold."

"Sheep!" said I, indignantly. "I am afraid some are wolves in
sheep's clothing."

Dermot shrugged his shoulders and said, "How is one to help oneself
if one has been born some two thousand years too late, or not in the
new half-baked hemisphere where demigods still walk the earth in
their simplicity?"

"I want you not to spoil the demigod when he has walked in among
you."

"I envy him too much to do that," said Dermot with a sigh.

"I believe you, Dermot, but don't take him among those who want to do
so."

"That's your faith in your demigod," said Dermot, not able to resist
a little teasing; but seeing I was really pained, he added: "No,
Lucy, I'll never take him again to meet Malvoisin and Nessy Horsman.
In the first place, I don't know how he might treat them; and in the
next, I would die sooner than give them another chance, even if he
would. I thought the men would have been struck with him as I was;
but no, it is not in them to be struck with anyone. All they think
of is how to make him like themselves."

"Comus' crew!" said I. "Oh! Dermot, how can you see it and be one of
them?"

"I'm not happy enough to be an outer barbarian," he said, and went
his way.

There was a loan exhibition of curious old objects in plate and
jewellery, to which Lady Diana took me, and where, among other
things, we found a long belt crusted thickly with scales of gold, and
with a sort of medal at the clasp.

"Just look here, mamma," said Viola; "I do believe this is the
archery prize."

And sure enough on the ticket was, "Belt, supposed to be of Peruvian
workmanship. Taken in the Spanish Armada, 1588. Champion belt at
the Northchester Archery Club. Lent by Miss Hippolyta Horsman."

Lady Diana came to look with some interest. She had never had an
opportunity of examining it closely before, and she now said, "I am
much inclined to believe that this is the belt that used to be an
heirloom in the Jerfield family, and which ought to be in yours,
Lucy."

My father's first wife had been the last of the Jerfields, and I
asked eager questions. Lady Diana believed that "those unhappy young
men" had made away with all their mother's jewels, but she could tell
no more, as our catastrophe had taken place while she was living at
Killy Marey. Her brother, she said, could tell us more; and so he
did, enough to set Eustace on fire.

Yes, the belt had been well known. It was not taken in the Armada,
but in a galleon of the Peruvian plunder by an old Jerfield, who had
been one of the race of Westward Ho! heroes. The Jerfields had not
been prosperous, and curious family jewels had been nearly all the
portion of the lady who had married my father. The sons had claimed
them, and they were divided between them, and given to the two wives;
and in the time of distress, when far too proud to accept aid from
the father, as well as rather pleased at mortifying him by disposing
of his family treasures, Alice and Dorothy Alison had gradually sold
them off. And, once in the hands of local jewellers, it was easy for
the belt to pass into becoming the prize held by the winner in the
Archery Club every year. Lord Erymanth would go with Eustace the
next morning to identify it; but what would be the use of that?
Eustace at first fancied he could claim it, but soon he saw that his
proposal was viewed as so foolish that he devoured it, and talked of
giving an equivalent; but, as Lord Erymanth observed, it would be
very difficult to arrange this with an article of family and
antiquarian value, in the hands of an archery club--an impersonal
body.

"The thing would be to win it," said Viola. "Could not some of us?"

"Well done, little Miss Tell," returned Dermot. "Hippo has won that
same belt these four years, to my certain knowledge, except once,
when Laurie Stympson scored two more."

"I'll practise every day; won't you, Lucy? And then, between us,
there will be two chances."

"I am sure I am very much nattered by Miss Tracy's kindness," put in
Eustace; "but is the match solely between ladies?"

No, for the last two years, after a match between ladies and between
gentlemen, there had a final one taken place between the two winners,
male and female, in which Hippo had hitherto always carried off the
glory and the belt. So Eustace intimated his full intention of
trying for himself, endeavouring to be very polite to Viola and me,
but implying that he thought himself a far surer card, boasting of
his feats as a marksman in the Bush, until Dora broke in, "Why,
Eustace, that was Harry; wasn't it, Harry?"

"Comme a l'ordinaire," muttered Dermot. Eustace made a little
stammering about the thing being so near that no one could tell, and
Dora referred again to Harold, who put her down with a muttered
"Never mind" under his beard.

What was to be done with it if it were won? "Get a fac-simile made,
and an appropriate inscription," recommended Lord Erymanth.
"Probably they would take that willingly."

"But what would you do with it?" asked Harold. "You can't wear it."

"I tell you it is an heirloom," quoth Eustace. "Have you no feeling
for an heirloom? I am sure it was your mother who sold it away from
me."

The sight of the belt, with Lord Erymanth's lecture on it, inflamed
Eustace's ardour all the more, and we made extensive purchases of
bows and arrows; that is to say, Eustace and I did, for Lady Diana
would not permit Viola to join in the contest. She did not like the
archery set, disapproved of public matches for young ladies, and did
not choose her daughter to come forward in the cause. I did not
fancy the matches either, and was certain that my mere home pastime
had no chance with Hippo and Pippa, who had studied archery
scientifically for years, and aimed at being the best lady shots in
England; but Eustace would never have forgiven me if I had not done
my best. So we subscribed to the Archery Club as soon as we went
home; and Eustace would have had me practise with him morning, noon,
and night, till I rebelled, and declared that if he knocked me up my
prowess would be in vain, and that I neither could nor would shoot
more than an hour and a half a day.

His ardour, however, soon turned into vituperations of the stupid
sport. How could mortal man endure it? If it had been pistol or
rifle-shooting now, it would have been tolerable, and he should have
been sure to excel; but a great long, senseless, useless thing like
an arrow was only fit for women or black fellows; the string hurt
one's fingers too--always slipping off the tabs.

"No wonder, as you hold it," said Harold, who had just turned aside
to watch on his way down to the potteries, and came in time to see an
arrow fly into the bank a yard from the target. "Don't you see how
Lucy takes it?"

I had already tried to show him, but he had pronounced mine to be the
ladies' way, and preferred to act by the light of nature. Harry
looked, asked a question or two, took the bow in his own hands, and
with "This way, Eustace; don't you see?" had an arrow in the outer
white.

"Yes," said Eustace, "of course, stupid thing, anybody can do it
without any trouble."

"It is pretty work," said Harry, taking up the third arrow, and
sending it into the inner white.

"Much too easy for men," was Eustace's opinion, and he continued to
despise it until, being capable of perseverance of a certain kind,
and being tutored by Harold, he began to succeed in occasionally
piercing the target, upon which his mind changed, and he was
continually singing the praises of archery in the tone (whispered
Viola) of the sparrow who killed Cock Robin with his bow and arrow!

We used to practise for an hour every afternoon, and the fascination
of the sport gained upon Harold so much that he sent for a bow and
arrows, and shot with us whenever he was not too busy, as, between
the agency and the potteries, he often was. He did not join the
club, nor come to the weekly meetings at Northchester with Eustace
and me, until, after having seen a little of the shooting there, I
privately hinted to him that there was not the smallest chance of the
champion belt changing hands unless he took up the family cause.
Whereupon, rather than that Eustace should be disappointed, he did
ask to be admitted, and came once with us to the meeting, when, to
tell the truth, he did not shoot as well as usual, for--as afterwards
appeared--in riding into Northchester he had stopped to help to lift
up a great tree that was insecure on its timber waggon, and even his
hands shook a little from the exertion. Besides, Eustace had
discovered that Harold's new bow shot better than his, and had
insisted on changing, and Harold had not so proved the powers of
Eustace's as to cure it of its inferiority.

Eustace really came to shooting so tolerably as to make him look on
the sport with complacency, and like the people he met there. All
this hardly seems worth telling, but events we little thought of
sprang from those archery practices. For the present we found them a
great means of getting acquainted with the neighbours. I bowed now
to many more people than ever I had done before, and we had come into
great favour since the Hydriots had astonished the county by
announcing a dividend. It was only three per cent., but that was an
immense advance upon nothing, and the promise of the future was
great; the shares had gone up nearly to their original value in the
most sanguine days; and the workmen--between prosperity, good
management, the lecture-room at the "Dragon's Head," and the work
among them done by the clerical, as well as the secular, Yolland--
were, not models by any means, but far from the disorderly set they
had been. They did take some pride in decent houses and well-dressed
children, and Harold's plans for the improvement of their condition
were accepted as they never would have been from one whose kindly
sympathy and strength of will did not take them, as it were, captive.
"Among those workmen you feel that he is a born king of men," said
Ben Yolland.

And as Bullock had been bailiff as well as agent, Harry had all the
home-farming matters on his hands, and attended to them like any
farmer, so that it was no wonder that he gave little time to the
meetings for archery practice, which involved the five miles
expedition, and even to our own domestic practice, answering
carelessly, when Eustace scolded him about letting a chance go by,
and his heedlessness of the honour of the family, "Oh, I take a shot
or two every morning as I go out, to keep my hand in."

"You'll get your arrows spoilt in the dew," said Eustace.

"They don't go into the dew," said Harold. And as he was always out
with the lark, even Dora seldom saw this practice; but there were
always new holes very near the centre of the target, which Eustace
said proved how true was his own aim.

Harvest came, and in the middle of it the great archery match of the
year, which was held in the beautiful grounds of Mr. Vernon, the
member for Northchester, a little way from the town.

"I suppose Harry may as well go," said Eustace; "but he has not
practised at all, so it will be of little avail. Now if I had not
grazed my hand, I should have scored quite as much as Miss Horsman
last week. It all lies in caring about it."

And severe was his lecture to Harold against foolishly walking in and
making his hand unsteady. Yet, after all, when the carriage came to
the door, Harold was not to be found, though his bow and arrows were
laid ready with ours to be taken. He endured no other apparatus.
The inside of his fingers was like leather, and he declared that tabs
and guard only hampered him. Lady Diana had yielded to her
daughter's entreaties, and brought her to see the contest, though
only as a spectator. As I stood shy and far from sanguine among the
lady archers, I felt out of my natural place, and glad she was under
her mother's wing, she looked so fair and innocent in her delicate
blue and white, and was free for such sweet ardour in our cause, all
the prettier and more arch because its demonstrations were kept down
with the strong hand of her mother.

Hippolyta and Philippa Horsman were in tightly-made short-skirted
dresses, pork-pie hats, and strong boots, all black picked out with
scarlet, like Hippo's own complexion. She was tall, with a good
active figure, and handsome, but she had reached the age when the
colouring loses its pure incarnadine and becomes hard and fixed, and
she had a certain likeness to all those creatures whose names are
compounded of tiger. But she was a good-natured being, and of late
I had begun to understand better her aspirations towards doing and
becoming something more than the mere domestic furniture kind of
young lady.

Her aberrations against good taste and reticence were, I began to
understand, misdirected outbreaks of the desire to be up and doing.
Even now, as we ladies drew for our turn, she was saying, half sadly,
"I'm tired of it all. What good comes of getting this belt over and
over again? If it were rifle or pistol shooting it might be of use,
but one could hardly organise a regiment of volunteers with the long
bows when the invasion comes off."

Wit about the Amazonian regiment with the long bow was current all
the time we ladies were shooting, and Eustace was worrying me to such
a degree, that nervousness made me perform ten degrees worse than
usual, but that mattered little, for Hippolyta, with another of her
cui bono sighs, carried off the Roman mosaic that was the ladies'
prize, telling Pippa that it should be hers when the belt was won.

"Don't be too sure."

"Bosh! There's no one here who can handle a bow but Charlie
Stympson. One Alison is a spoon, and the other is a giant made to
be conquered. When he shot before, his arrows went right over the
grounds, and stuck into a jackdaw's nest on the church tower! I
can't think why he came."

"To make a feather in your cap."

"What a substantial one!"

There I escaped to a seat by Lady Diana, where Viola could expend her
enthusiasm in clutches and squeezes of my hand. Eustace was by this
time wrought up to such a state that he hardly knew what he was
doing, and his first arrow wavered and went feebly aside. Two or
three more shot, and then the tall figure came to the front; one
moment, and the cry was "Gold," while Viola's clap of the hands
brought on her a frown from her mother, who thought demonstrativeness
improper. She had to content herself with pinching my fingers every
time one of those shafts went home to the heart of the target, and
Harold stood, only too facile princeps, while Eustace sauntered up to
us with the old story about the sun or the damp, I forget which, only
it was something that had spoilt his archery.

Hippolyta was undaunted. The small target and longer range had
thrown out many a competitor before now, and her not very low-pitched
tone was heard observing that no dumb giant should beat her at her
own tools.

Whatever had been her weariness of her successes before, it was gone
now, and she shot splendidly. Never had such shooting been known in
the annals of the club, and scarcely a word passed as the two went
pacing between the two little targets, Harold with his calm, easy
movement, business-like but without effort, and Hippolyta with
excitement beginning to tell on her. Each time she passed us we saw
her step more impetuous, the glow on her cheeks deeper, and at last
that her eyes were full of tears; and after that, one arrow went into
the outer white, and the last even into the green; while Harry's
final shot was into that one great confluent hole that the centre of
the target had become.

"Heard ye the arrow hurtle through the sky?
Heard ye the dragon monster's deathful cry?"

whispered Viola. "Mamma won't let me cheer, and I must have it out
somehow."

And as I sprang up and hurried to Harold, she came with me, taking
care to cast no look behind, for fear of detaining glances; and she
put out both hands to shake his, as he stood with the smile lighting
up his face as he saw the pleasure he had given; though Eustace never
came forward, unable to rejoice where he had been so palpably and
publicly excelled.

Hippolyta behaved well. She came up holding out her hand, and
saying, "Well, Mr. Alison, if one is to fall, it is a pleasure to
have so mighty a victor. But why did you never let me see before
what a Palnatoke (if I must not say Tell) I had to deal with?"

"I had no time for the practices," said Harold, puzzled as to who
Palnatoke was.

"Worse and worse! You don't mean that you shoot like this without
practice?"

"Lucy taught me a little."

"Well, if heaven-born archers come down on one, there's nothing for
it but submitting. Robin Hood must prevail," said Hippolyta, as the
belt was handed over to Harold, with a sigh that made him say in
excuse, "I would not have done it, but that Eustace wanted to have it
in his hands, for family reasons."

"Then let him look to it; I mean to get it again next year. And, I
say, Mr. Alison, I have a right to some compensation. All you
archers are coming to lunch at Therford on Thursday, if the sun
shines, to be photographed, you know. Now you must come to
breakfast, and bring your lion's skin and your bow--to be done alone.
It is all the consolation I ask. Make him, Lucy. Bring him."

There was no refusing; and that was the way the photograph came to be
taken. We were reminded by a note after we went home, including in
the invitation Eustace, who, after being a little sulky, had made up
his mind that a long range was easier to shoot at than a short one,
and so that he should have won the prize if he had had the chance;
and the notion of being photographed was, of course, delightful to
him.

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