Books: The Long Vacation
C >>
Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Long Vacation
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21
"Easily; but you'll have to conquer the horror of the elders."
"I know. They think one must learn atheism and all sorts of things
there."
"You might go in for physical science at Oxford or Cambridge."
"I expect that is all my father would allow. In spite of the
colonies, he has all the old notions about women, and would do
nothing Aunt Lily really protested against."
"You are lucky to have a definite plan and notion to work for. Now
fate was so unkind as to make me a country squire, and not only that,
but one bound down, like Gulliver among the Liliputians, with all
manner of cords by all the dear good excellent folks, who look on
that old mediaeval den with a kind of fetish-worship, sprung of their
having been kept out of it so long, and it would be an utter smash of
all their hearts if I uttered a profane word against it. I would as
soon be an ancient Egyptian drowning a cat as move a stone of it. It
is a lovely sort of ancient Pompeii, good to look at now and then,
but not to be bound down to."
"Like Beechcroft Court, a fossil. It is very well there are such
places."
"Yes, but not to be the hope of them. It is my luck. If my eldest
uncle, who had toiled in a bookseller's shop all his youth and
reigned like a little king, had not gone and got killed in a boating
accident, there he would be the ruling Sir Roger de Coverley of the
county, a pillar of Church and State, and I should be a free man."
"Won't they let you go about, and see everything?"
"Oh yes, I am welcome to do a little globe-trotting. They are no
fools; if they were I should not care half so much; but wherever I
went, there would be a series of jerks from my string, and not having
an integument of rhinoceros hide, I could not disregard them without
a sore more raw than I care to carry about. After all, it is only a
globe, and one gets back to the same place again."
"Men have so many openings."
"I'm not rich enough for Parliament, and if I were, maybe it would be
worse for their hearts," he said, with a sigh.
"There's journalism, a great power."
"Yes, but to put my name to all I could—-and long to say-—would be an
equal horror to the dear folks."
"Yet you are helping on this concern."
"True, but partly pour passer le temps, partly because I really want
to hear 'The Outlaws Isle' performed, and all under protest that the
windmill will soon be swept away by the stream."
"Indeed, yes," cried Dolores. "They hope to regulate the stream.
They might as well hope to regulate Mississippi."
"Well-chosen simile! The current is slow and sluggish, but
irresistible."
"Better than stagnating or sticking fast in the mud."
"Though the mud may be full of fair blossoms and sweet survivals,"
said Gerald sadly.
"Oh yes, people in the old grooves are delightful," said Dolores,
"but one can't live, like them, with a heart in G. F. S., like my
Aunt Jane, really the cleverest of any of us! Or like Mysie, not
stupid, but wrapped up in her classes, just scratching the surface.
Now, if I went in for good works I would go to the bottom-—down to
the slums."
"Slums are one's chief interest," said Gerald; "but no doubt it will
soon be the same story over and over, and only make one wish—-"
"What?"
"That there could be a revolution before I am of age."
"What's that?" cried Primrose, coming up as he spoke. "A
revolution?"
"Yes, guillotines and all, to cut off your head in Rotherwood Park,"
said Gerald lightly.
"Oh! you don't really mean it."
"Not that sort," said Dolores. "Only the coming of the
coquecigrues."
"They are in 'The Water Babies'," said Primrose, mystified.
Each of those two liked to talk to the other as a sort of fellow-
captive, solacing themselves with discussions over the 'Censor' and
its fellows. Love is not often the first thought, even where it
lurks in modern intellectual intercourse between man and maid; and
though Kitty Varley might giggle, the others thought the idea only
worthy of her. Aunt Jane, however, smelt out the notion, and could
not but communicate it to her sister, though adding—-
"I don't believe in it: Dolores is in love with Physiology, and the
boy with what Jasper calls Socialist maggots, but not with each
other, unless they work round in some queer fashion."
However, Lady Merrifield, feeling herself accountable for Dolores,
was anxious to gather ideas about Gerald from his aunt, with whom she
was becoming more and more intimate. She was more than twenty years
the senior, and the thread of connection was very slender, but they
suited one another so well that they had become Lilias and Geraldine
to one another. Lady Merrifield had preserved her youthfulness
chiefly from having had a happy home, unbroken by family sorrows or
carking cares, and with a husband who had always taken his full share
of responsibility.
"Your nephew's production has made a stir," said she, when they found
themselves alone together.
"Yes, poor boy." Then answering the tone rather than the words, "I
suppose it is the lot of one generation to be startled by the next.
There is a good deal of change in the outlook."
"Yes," said Lady Merrifield. "The young ones, especially the
youngest, seem to have a set of notions of their own that I cannot
always follow."
"Exactly," said Geraldine eagerly.
"You feel the same? To begin with, the laws of young ladyhood-—
maidenliness-—are a good deal relaxed-—"
"There I am not much of a judge. I never had any young ladyhood, but
I own that the few times I went out with Anna I have been surprised,
and more surprised at what I heard from her sister Emily."
"What we should have thought simply shocking being tolerated now."
"Just so; and we are viewed as old duennas for not liking it. I
should say, however, that it is not, or has not, been a personal
trouble with me. Anna's passion is for her Uncle Clement, and she
has given up the season on his account, though Lady Travis Underwood
was most anxious to have her; and as to Emily, though she is obliged
to go out sometimes, she hates it, and has a soul set on slums and
nursing."
"You mean that the style of gaieties revolts a nice-minded girl?"
"Partly. Perhaps such as the Travis Underwoods used to take part in,
rather against their own likings, poor things, are much less
restrained for the young people than what would come in your
daughters' way."
"Perhaps; though Lady Rotherwood has once or twice in country-houses
had to protect her daughter, to the great disgust of the other young
people. That is one development that it is hard to meet, for it is
difficult to know where old-fashioned distaste is the motive, and
where the real principle of modesty. Though to me the question is
made easy, for Sir Jasper would never hear of cricket for his
daughters, scarcely of hunting, and we have taken away Valetta and
Primrose from the dancing-classes since skirt-dancing has come in;
but I fear Val thinks it hard."
"Such things puzzle my sisters at Vale Leston. They are part of the
same spirit of independence that sends girls to hospitals or medical
schools."
"Or colleges, or lecturing. Dolores is wild to lecture, and I see no
harm in her trying her wings at the High School on some safe subject,
if her father in New Zealand does not object, though I am glad it has
not occurred to any of my own girls."
"Sir Jasper would not like it?"
"Certainly not; but if my brother consents he will not mind it for
Dolores. She is a good girl in the main, but even mine have very
different ideals from what we had."
"Please tell me. I see it a little, and I have been thinking about
it."
"Well, perhaps you will laugh, but my ideal work was Sunday-schools."
"Are not they Miss Mohun's ideal still?"
"Oh yes, infinitely developed, and so they are my cousin Florence's-—
Lady Florence Devereux; but the young ones think them behind the
times. I remember when every girl believed her children the
prettiest and cleverest in nature, showed off her Sunday-school as
her pride and treasure, and composed small pink books about them,
where the catastrophe was either being killed by accident, or going
to live in the clergyman's nursery. Now, those that teach do so
simply as a duty and not a romance."
"And the difficulty is to find those who will teach," said Geraldine.
"One thing is, that the children really require better teaching."
"That is quite true. My girls show me their preparation work, and I
see much that I should not have thought of teaching the Beechcroft
children. But all the excitement of the matter has gone off."
"I know. The Vale Leston girls do it as their needful work, not with
their hearts and enthusiasm. I expect an enthusiasm cannot be
expected to last above a generation and perhaps a half."
"Very likely. A more indifferent thing; you will laugh, but my
enthusiasm was for chivalry, Christian chivalry, half symbolic.
History was delightful to me for the search for true knights. I had
lists of them, drawings if possible, but I never could indoctrinate
anybody with my affection. Either history is only a lesson, or they
know a great deal too much, and will prove to you that the Cid was a
ruffian, and the Black Prince not much better."
"And are you allowed the 'Idylls of the King'?"
"Under protest, now that the Mouse-trap has adopted Browning for
weekly reading and discussion. Tennyson is almost put on the same
shelf with Scott, whom I love better than ever. Is it progress?"
"Well, I suppose it is, in a way."
"But is it the right way?"
"That's what I want to see."
"Now listen. When our young men, my brothers-—especially my very
dear brother Claude and his contemporaries, Rotherwood is the only
one left—-were at Oxford, they got raised into a higher atmosphere,
and came home with beautiful plans and hopes for the Church, and drew
us up with them; but now the University seems just an ordeal for
faith to go through."
"I should think there was less of outward temptation, but more of
subtle trial. And then the whole system has altered since the times
you are speaking of, when the old rules prevailed, and the great
giants of Church renewal were there!" said Geraldine.
"You belong to the generation whom they trained, and who are now
passing away. My father was one who grew up then."
"We live on their spirit still."
"I hope so. I never knew much about Cambridge till Clement went
there, but it had the same influence on him. Indeed, all our home
had that one thought ever since I can remember. Clement and Lance
grew up in it."
"But you will forgive me. These younger men either go very, very
much further than we older ones dreamt of, or they have flaws in
their faith, and sometimes-—which is the strangest difficulty—-the
vehement observance and ritual with flaws beneath in their faith
perhaps, or their loyalty—-Socialist fancies."
"There is impatience," said Geraldine. "The Church progress has not
conquered all the guilt and misery in the world."
"Who said it would?"
"None of us; but these younger ones fancy it is the Church's fault,
instead of that of her members' failures, and so they try to walk in
the light of the sparks that they have kindled."
"Altruism as they call it—-love of the neighbour without love of
God."
"It may lead that way."
"Does it?"
"Perhaps we are the impatient ones now," said Geraldine, "in
disliking the young ones' experiments, and wanting to bind them to
our own views."
"Then you look on with toleration but with distrust."
"Distrust of myself as well as of the young ones, and trying not to
forget that 'one good custom may corrupt the world,' so it may be as
well that the pendulum should swing."
"The pendulum, but not its axis-—faith!"
"No; and of my boy's mainspring of faith I _do_ feel sure, and of his
real upright steadiness."
Lady Merrifield asked no more, but could wait.
But is not each generation a terra incognita to the last? A question
which those feel most decidedly who stand on the border-land of both,
with love and sympathy divided between the old and the new, clinging
to the one, and fearing to alienate the other.
CHAPTER XIV. BUTTERFLY'S NECTAR
If you heed my warning
It will save you much.-—A. A. PROCTOR.
Clement Underwood was so much better as to be arrived at taking
solitary rides and walks, these suiting him better than having
companions, as he liked to go his own pace, and preferred silence.
His sister had become much engrossed with her painting, and saw
likewise that in this matter of exercise it was better to let him go
his own way, and he declared that this time of thought and reading
was an immense help to him, restoring that balance of life which he
seemed to himself to have lost in the whirl of duties at St.
Matthew's after Felix's death.
The shore, with the fresh, monotonous plash of the waves, when the
tide served, was his favourite resort. He could stand still and look
out over the expanse of ripples, or wander on, as he pleased,
watching the sea-gulls float along—-
"As though life's only call and care
Were graceful motion."
There had been a somewhat noisy luncheon, for Edward Harewood, a
midshipman in the Channel Fleet, which was hovering in the offing,
had come over on a day's leave with Horner, a messmate whose parents
lived in the town. He was a big lad, a year older than Gerald, and
as soon as a little awe of Uncle Clement and Aunt Cherry had worn
off, he showed himself of the original Harewood type, directing
himself chiefly to what he meant to be teasing Gerald about Vale
Leston and Penbeacon.
"All the grouse there were on the bit of moor are snapped up."
"Very likely," said Gerald coolly.
"Those precious surveyors and engineers that Walsh brings down can
give an account of them! As soon as you come of age, you'll have to
double your staff of keepers, I can tell you."
"Guardians of ferae naturae," said Gerald.
"I thought your father did all that was required in that line," said
Clement.
"Not since duffers and land-lubbers have been marauding over
Penbeacon-—aye, and elsewhere. What would you say to an engineer
poaching away one of the august house of Vanderkist?"
"The awful cad! I'd soon show him what I thought of his cheek,"
cried Adrian, with a flourish of his knife.
"Ha, ha! I bet that he will be shooting over Ironbeam Park long
before you are of age."
"I shall shoot him, then," cried Adrian.
"Not improbably there will be nothing else to shoot by that time,"
quietly said Gerald.
"I shall have a keeper in every lodge, and bring up four or five
hundred pheasants every year," boasted the little baronet, quite
alive to the pride of possession, though he had never seen Ironbeam
in his life.
Edward laughed a "Don't you wish you may get it," and the others, who
knew very well the futility of the poor boy's expectations, even if
Gerald's augury were not fulfilled, hastened to turn away the
conversation to plans for the afternoon. Anna asked the visitor if
he would ride out with her and Gerald to Clipstone or to the moor,
and was relieved when he declined, saying he had promised to meet
Horner.
"You will come in to tea at five?" said his aunt, "and bring him if
you like."
"Thanks awfully, but we hardly can. We have to start from the quay
at six sharp."
All had gone their several ways, and Clement, after the heat of the
day, was pacing towards a secluded cove out of an inner bay which lay
nearer than Anscombe Cove, but was not much frequented. However, he
smelt tobacco, and heard sounds of boyish glee, and presently saw
Adrian and Fergus Merrifield, bare-legged, digging in the mud.
"Ha! youngsters! Do you know the tide has turned? I thought you had
had enough of that."
"I thought I might find my aralia!" sighed Fergus. "The tide was
almost as low."
Just then there resounded from behind a projecting rock a peal of
undesirable singing, a shout of laughter, and an oath, with—-
"Holloa, those little beasts of teetotallers have hooked it."
There were confused cries-—"Haul 'em back! Drench 'em. Give 'em a
roll in the mud!" and Adrian shrank behind his uncle, taking hold of
his coat, as there burst from behind the rock a party of boys, headed
by the two cadets, all shouting loudly, till brought to a sudden
standstill by the sight of "Parson! By Jove!" as the Horner mid
muttered, taking out his pipe, while Edward Harewood mumbled
something about "Horner's brother's tuck-out." One or two other boys
were picking up the remains of the feast, which had been on lobsters,
jam tarts, clotted cream, and the like delicacies dear to the
juvenile mind. The two biggest school-boys came forward, one voluble
and thick of speech about Horner's tuck-out, and "I assure you, sir,
it is nothing—-not a taste. Never thought of such-—" Just then the
other lad, staggering about, had almost lurched over into the
deepening channel; but Clement caught him by the collar and held him
fast, demanding in a low voice, very terrible to his hearers—-
"Where does this poor boy live?"
It was Adrian who answered.
"Devereux Buildings."
"You two, Adrian and Fergus, run to the quay and fetch a cab as near
this place as it can come," said Clement. "You little fellows, you
had better run home at once. I hope you will take warning by the
shame and disgrace of this spectacle."
The boys were glad enough to disperse, being terrified by the
condition of the prisoner, as well as by the detection; but the two
who were encumbered with the baskets containing the bottles, jam-
pots, and tin of cream remained, and so did the two young sailors,
Horner saying civilly—-
"You'll not be hard on the kids, sir, for just a spree carried a
little too far."
"I certainly shall not be hard on the children, whom you seem to have
tempted," was the answer as they moved along; and as the younger
Horner turned towards a little shop near the end of the steps to
restore the goods, he asked-—"Were you supplied from hence?"
"Yes," said Horner, who was perhaps hardly sober enough for caution.
"Mother Butterfly is a jolly old soul."
Looking up. Clement saw no licence to sell spirituous liquors under
the name of Sarah Schnetterling, tobacconist. The window had the
placard 'Ici on parle Francais', and was adorned in a tasteful manner
with ornamental pipes, fishing-rods and flies, jars of sweets, sheets
of foreign stamps, pictorial advertisements of innocuous beverages.
A woman with black grizzling hair, fashionably dressed, flashing dark
eyes, long gold ear-rings, gold beads and gaudy attire, came out to
reclaim her property. A word or two passed about payment, during
which Clement had a strange thrill of puzzled recollection. The
bottles bore the labels of raspberry vinegar and lemonade, but he had
seen too much not to say—-
"You drive a dangerous trade."
"Ah, sir, young people will be gourmands," she said, with a foreign
accent. "Ah, that poor young gentleman is very ill. Will he not
come in and lie down to recover?"
"No, thank you," said Clement. "A carriage is coming to take him
home."
Something about the fat in the fire was passing between the cadets,
and the younger of them began to repeat that he had come for his
brother's birthday, and that he feared they had brought the
youngsters into a scrape by carrying the joke too far.
"I have nothing to say to you, sir," said the Vicar of St. Matthew's,
looking very majestic, "except that it is time you were returning to
your ship. As to you," turning to Edward Harewood, "I can only say
that if you are aware of the peculiar circumstances of Adrian
Vanderkist, your conduct can only be called fiendish."
Fergus and Adrian came running up with tidings that the cab was
waiting. Edward Harewood stood sullen, but the other lad said—-
"Unlucky. We are sorry to have got the little fellows into trouble."
He held out his hand, and Clement did not refuse it, as he did that
of his own nephew. Still, there was a certain satisfaction at his
heart as he beheld the clear, honest young faces of the other two
boys, and he bade Adrian run home and wait for him, saying to Fergus—
-
"You seem to have been a good friend to my little nephew. Thank
you."
Fergus coloured up, speechless between pleasure at the warm tone of
commendation and the obligations of school-boy honour, nor, with
young Campbell on their hands, was there space for questions. That
youth subsided into a heavy doze in the cab, and so continued till
the arrival at No. 7, Devereux Buildings, where a capable-looking
maid-servant opened the door, and he was deposited into her hands,
the Vicar leaving his card with his present address, but feeling
equal to nothing more, and hardly able to speak.
He drove home, finding his nephew in the doorway. Signing to the
maid to pay the driver, and to the boy to follow him, he reached his
study, and sank into his easy-chair, Adrian opening frightened eyes
and saying—-
"I'll call Sibby."
"No-—that bottle-—drop to there," signing to the mark on the glass
with his nail.
After a pause, while he held fast the boy, so to speak, with his
eyes, he said—-
"Thank you, dear lad."
"Uncle Clement," said Adrian then, "we weren't doing anything.
Merrifield thought his old bit of auralia, or whatever he calls it,
was there."
"I saw—-I saw, my boy. To find you-—as you were, made me most
thankful. You must have resisted. Tell me, were you of this party,
or did you come on them by accident?"
"Horner asked me," said Adrian, twisting from one leg to another.
Clement saw the crisis was come which he had long expected, and
rejoiced at the form it had taken, though he knew he should suffer
from pursuing the subject.
"Adrian," he said, "I am much pleased with you. I don't want to get
you into a row, but I should be much obliged if you would tell me how
all this happened."
"It wouldn't," returned Adrian, "but for that Ted and the other
chap."
"Do you mean that there would have been none of this-—drinking-—but
for them? Don't be afraid to tell me all. Was the stuff all got
from that Mrs. Schnetter—-?"
"Mother Butterfly's? Oh yes. She keeps bottles of grog with those
labels, and it is such a lark for her to be even with the gangers
that our fellows generally get some after cricket, or for a tuck-
out."
"Not Fergus Merrifield?"
"Oh no; he's captain, you know, but he is two years younger than
Campbell and Horner, and they can't bear him, and when he made a jaw
about it—-he can jaw awfully, you know-—and he is stuck up, and
Horner major swore he would make him know his bearings-—"
"I wonder he was there at all."
"Well, Horner asked him, and he can't get those fossils that were
lost out of his head, and he thought they might be washed up. He
said too, he knew they would be up to something if he wasn't there."
"Oh!" said Clement, with an odd recollection, "but I suppose he did
not know about these cadets?"
"No, the big Horner sent up to Mother Butterfly's for some more
stuff, not so mild, and then Ted set upon me, and said it was all
because of me that Vale Leston had to live like a boiling of teetotal
frogs and toads, just to please the little baronet's lady mamma, but
I was a Dutchman all the same, and should sell them yet-—I sucked it
in so well, and they talked of seeing how much I could stand.
Something about my governor, and here—-that word in the Catechism."
"Ah!" gasped Clement, fairly clutching his arm, "and what spared
you?"
"Horner came down, and Sweetie Bob, that's the errand-boy, and there
was a bother about the money, for Bob wasn't to leave anything
without being paid, and while they were jawing about that, Merry laid
hold of me and said, 'Come and look for the aralia.' They got to
shouting and singing, and I don't think they saw what was doing.
They were nasty songs, and Merry touched me and said, 'Let us go
after the aralia.' We got away without their missing us at first,
but they ran after us when they found it out, and if you had not been
there, Uncle Clem—-"
"Thank God I was! Now, Adrian, first tell me, did you taste this
stuff? You said you sucked it in."
"Well, I did, a little. You know, uncle, one cannot always be made a
baby. Women don't understand, you know, and don't know what a fool
it makes a man to have them always after him, and have everything put
out of his way like a precious infant, and people drinking it on the
sly like Gerald, or—-"
"Or me, eh, Adrian? I can tell you that I never tasted it for thirty
years, and now only as a medicine. Lance, never."
"But they did not treat you like a baby, and never let you see so
much as a glass of beer."
"Well, I am going to treat you like a man, but it is a sorrowful
history that I have to tell you. You know that your mother and Aunt
Wilmet are twin sisters ?"
"Oh yes, though Aunt Wilmet is stout and jolly, and mother ever so
much prettier and more delicate and nice."
"Yes, from ill-health. She is never free from suffering."
"I know. Old Dr. May said there was no help for it."
"Do you know what caused that ill-health? My boy, they spoke of your
father to-day-—brutes that they were," he could not help muttering.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21