Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Pillars of the House, V1

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The click of the cloister door was heard, and Lance awoke from a
doze, saying, 'Is that Bill?--You've not been here since morning, you
vagabone.'

'See what I've got for you,' said Bill. 'What do you say for that,
now?'

For Lance, with sparkling eyes, was rising to his feet. 'Hurrah!
Robin herself! O Robin a Bobbin, isn't this jolly?' and Robina was
entangled in that wonderful embrace peculiar to their own two selves,
too ecstatic for a word between them, though as she received her
sister's kiss, she spoke rather pleadingly--'Cherry and Sister
Constance said I might, Wilmet; and Mrs. Harewood was so very kind as
to send Willie to fetch me to spend Sunday. Do you mind, Wilmet?'

'Mind! Of course she doesn't,' said Lance. 'I was hungry to see you,
Bob.'

'It was very kind in Mrs. Harewood,' said Wilmet. 'I must go and
thank her. Only, first, how is Cherry?'

'Much better. She has been out for a drive with Mr. Froggatt. It will
be all right now you are coming home, Mettie! Oh! and Dr. Lee is
delighted to hear of Lance's going to Ewmouth to make Felix stay
longer there. Oh! if ever anything was so delightful as this place!
only I must see your prize, Lancey.'

As the two children linked their arms round one another's waists to
walk along the alley, all-sufficient to one another, maybe there shot
a little pang across Wilmet's breast. No one had raptures for her.
She was Felix's housekeeper, and represented mother to all; but since
Alda had been taken from her, she had ceased to be any one's perfect
equal and delight. She might be valued, but only like air, or bread,
or any other necessary of life, but she was foremost with no one.
Lance had been everything to her, and she to Lance, for full four
weeks; but she should never awaken the look on his face she had seen
for Robin. Such thoughts as these had never troubled her before; it
had been quite enough to know herself indispensable to all, and there
was no time for sentiment; but this strange time of nursing had
inspired a new sensation of yearning, a softness and melancholy, that
she strove against vainly as weak and unnatural.

The change had not been unperceived by Lance; for as his little
sister, looking at his sunken cheeks, and feeling his thin bony hand,
poured out her pity, he answered, 'I've had rather a jolly time of it
of late; Mettie is so delicious, you can't think how her very voice
and eyes seemed to do me good. I'm sure that the bella-donna lily,
cold hard painted thing, was a mistake; she must have been something
much sweeter. What do you think of a honeysuckle? That's bright red
and white, and its leaves come out when nothing else does.'

'But it trails about, and doesn't stand alone.'

'It has got a good stout hard stem, that can make a bush of its own
when it hasn't anything to twine upon. I say, Robin, that's just what
you women-folk should be, always ready to twine, and yet able to
stick up for yourselves when you've got nothing to hang upon.'

'Well, if Wilmet was the honeysuckle, I'm sure Alda wasn't. O Lance,
it has been so horrid coming home without any one I wanted, and all
so queer and uncomfortable. I would as soon have been at school, or
sooner, for there I had home to think about.'

'The last holidays weren't first-rate,' said Lance.

'No; but then I'd got you!'

'I wish Dr. Manby would prescribe you to come with me,' said Lance.

'It's something to have this little sight! And here! I wanted to give
this back, Lance.'

'Ah!' as he took the key of the violin-case, 'We'll take a look at
her, Robin, to see if she's quite well; but I couldn't make her
speak, it would be like sticking daggers through my head.'

'Poor little key! I looked at it so often when you were so bad, and
grieved to think you had missed all that pleasure. Only it was a
comfort to know you had been so good about it.'

'I am glad you took it, Robin; I know I should have grown idle if I
had had it. Depend on it, 'twas that gave me this year of grace and
the Bishop's prize.'

'Oh! come and show me that! I hope it is not packed up.'

'No; I wanted to take it to show Felix, but Mettie says it is too
big, and would come to grief. What prizes have you, Robin?'

'Three. General good marks, catechism, and history--beautiful books.'

'Then the avenging harpies have forgiven you?'

'Pretty well; and they were very kind when you were ill, and the
girls are much nicer; I am glad we stayed on, except for Angel's
sake. Do you know, Lance, I really am afraid she is going in for
naughtiness.'

'Give a dog an ill name--' quoted Lance. 'Is that it?'

'I do believe it is that! She is such a Tom-boy! Fancy! One
afternoon, there was an awful uproar, and her class were all found
playing at races, some riding astride with handkerchiefs round the
forms, which they had named after the real horses; and the others
pretending to bet on them, with their books in their hands, shouting
out at the top of their voices.'

'Go it, Angel,' said Lance, laughing; 'that's the way Clem's sisters
improve the tone of the school.'

Robina still looked distressed, but that was soon forgotten in
visiting Lance's quarters, and admiring his books, peeping
respectfully at his silent violin, and being lionised as far as his
strength would permit. They were hand in hand the whole evening, till
be was sent to bed, and his sisters were claimed by the Harewoods.

The Cathedral was resuming its usual voices on the Sunday morning,
and when the early bell brought Wilmet from her room, she found Lance
up and dressed, his little black gown on, and his trencher cap in his
hand.

'That's nice!' he said in admiration, as she advanced in her fresh
white pique and blue ribbons. 'O Mettie, I'm so glad this isn't my
last time here!' and he added, as she bent over him and kissed him,
not quite able to speak, 'Please, Mettie, I beg your pardon for all
the times I have been tiresome or cross.'

'My dear little boy--' She broke down, and finished with another
kiss, for Robina was at hand, shy in her thankfulness, and clinging
to Lance's hand; but as Will Harewood followed, grave and subdued,
Lance went up to him, and put his arm into his. Mr. Harewood, the
Captain, and Lucy, were all likewise there; but the greetings were
silent, and then Mr. Harewood led them all through the library, and
was followed by the two boys to the sacristy; for though the
celebration was not choral, all those of the choir who were present
were always robed. Wilmet hardly liked not to keep her boy beside
her, but she could not be sorry when she saw the two friends once
more heading the little procession together; and with such happy
grave faces, though so different: one broad, ruddy, sandy; the other
fair, wasted, delicate, the hollow cheeks scarcely more coloured than
the white linen, and yet with a pure fresh air of bright hope and
recovery.

The Cathedral was nobly and calmly beautiful in the summer morning;
the sunbeams high up in the slender brilliant windows that crowned
the east, and the voice sounding low and solemn in the distance at
the Altar. To Wilmet and Robina it was a great deal more than the
joyous festival they had last shared in there, even though then they
had exulted in their brother's jubilant notes; and now he scarcely
breathed a faint response, left his book unopened, and knelt in the
dreamy passiveness of one incapable of actions of the mind, but too
simply happy and thankful to doubt of his welcome. In his place,
Clement would have distressed himself and his advisers over this
inability to perform his usual mental exercises of devotion; but
Lance never seemed to question but that he ought to lay himself
before the Altar in thankfulness as soon as he was able, as certain
of being welcomed there, as by the kind hands that shook his in the
sacristy.

He came to breakfast afterwards at the Harewoods', to put an end to
his invalid ways; but the clatter soon was too much for him; and he
spent the chief part of the day lying on his bed, able now to follow
dreamily the echoes from the minster, the full glories of which his
sisters were enjoying. There was afterwards a rush of his choir mates
to shake hands with him; and little Dick Graeme, a delicate, sallow,
black-eyed boy, in whom Wilmet believed she recognised the hero of
the swans' eggs, could not be got rid of the whole day. He lived at a
farm three miles off, and had been sent in to take his part on the
Sunday; indeed, he had often been at the door to inquire, but had
only been allowed momentary glimpses of Lance, whom he followed about
like a little dog, till at last, late in the evening, the proposal
was started of walking him down to the river, along which lay the
path leading to his home.

It was a charming summer evening when they set forth; the three
Underwoods, the two Harewood brothers, and little Graeme, slowly
moving along, Robina in ecstasies with the loose-strife and forget-
me-nots, and the boys absorbed in fish and water-rats, till Bill,
holding Robin a little back, pointed to a pollard, and told her in a
low hoarse voice, 'That was where I left those verses.'

'There!' Robina tried to measure with her eye the distance, which
looked immense for such a run. She could not speak; but little Dick
turned--

'Ay, 'twas a jolly run in the time. Spyers and I tried it, and both
got blown; but nobody runs like Underwood.'

'Well, it does look a goodish distance,' said Lance. 'And Robin, do
you know, it all came of this fellow being too good a poet. He
thought it was the Tiber, you know.'

'The subject was the Tiber, wasn't it?'

'Ay; and Bill here got to spouting about Horace Cocles till he didn't
know, nor I either, whether we were heathen Romans or not. It was a
mercy he didn't go home in Cocles' costume.'

Bill did not laugh. He seemed to forget everything, bystanders and
all, and threw his arm round his friend's neck. 'O Lancey, don't say
a word more. If you only could guess what--what this month has been
like to me! And now to see you standing here, like your dear old self
again! Oh! if I could only--' and he broke off and rushed away behind
the tree, where they heard him sobbing.

Lance shrugged his shoulders. 'Poor old Bill! he _will_ treat himself
as if he did it on purpose, but he'll be better now he's had it out.
But d'ye see, I can't go no farther now. So you, Dick, be off. Spare
the feelings of your dutiful parents, and get home in Christianable
time.'

'I say please, Underwood, may I have the bed by yours next half?'

'That's not as it pleases Underwood, but Mrs. Drake; but look here,
Graeme, there's a little brat of a new treble coming into our
dormitory. You stand his friend, and speak to Harewood if Bolt takes
to bullying him.'

'But you'll be back?' said the child, his face all consternation.

'I hope so; but for fear of accidents, you know. Good night, Dick,
and thank your mater for those stunning raspberries.'

'That's a good dodge,' said Will Harewood, emerging, 'to keep the
little ape from bullying the little one himself. But you will be able
to come back, Lance; 'tis as dull as ditch-water without you.'

'I shall be glad enough to come back,' said Lance, 'and make the most
of this year. I didn't know how I cared for this place. There's
nothing like it!' and he leant against a tree, looking back at the
Cathedral, where the sunbeams were 'weaving a parting crown' for the
tall tower, and the soft grey of the exquisite stone-work of the
chapter-house contrasted with the fresh green of the trees, rising up
from the sparkling river and emerald meadows. Presently he burst out,
'You beautiful old thing, and did you hush your grand glorious old
voice only for me? I should like to be your own, and to serve you for
ever!'

The other two felt a little awed at the outburst, and possibly Lance
a little ashamed, for he suddenly started from his tree trunk,
crying, 'I'm sure we ought to go home. However there are Jack and
Mettie on beyond ever so far.' And he elevated his voice in a coo-ee,
after what he believed to be Australian fashion; but his weakness
prevailed, and he laughed at his own want of power to shout much
above his breath. 'You do it, Bill.'

'Not I! Coo-ee indeed? 'Tis coo-coo there, river and moonlight and
all.'

At one and the same moment, Lance exclaimed, 'Jack and Mettie!
Thunder and ages!' and Robina, 'For shame, Willie!' while that
personage cut a caper, at once expressive of affirmation and
amusement at their surprise.

'After all,' sagaciously observed Lance, 'I'm not so much surprised.
I think I've made a pretty good Cupid.'

'You believe it, then?' cried Robina.

'Bless you,' affirmed Willie, 'we've been roasting Jack about it for
the last fortnight--only the pater was so awfully afraid of your
sister's hearing it, that he said any one who breathed the ghost of a
joke near her should be shipped off to old Aunt Grace that instant.'

'Well, they have my consent and blessing,' said Lance.

'Amen,' responded his friend.

'Ho!' continued Lance, 'that's the meaning of old W. W. being so
jolly. I wondered whether it was only that I thought so because I had
nothing to do but to look at her.'

'Oh, you know she is a real true beauty and no mistake,' said Bill,
beginning to feel a personal pride in her; 'there's Miles raving
about her, and every one runs about saying, "Have you seen little
Underwood's handsome sister?" Half the folks that came to ask after
you did it to get a look at her; and if she stayed a week longer, she
might have a dozen offers, only luckily Jack cut in first.'

'Well, I'm glad she is even with Alda,' was Lance's next sentiment.

'That's the one that is booked for the Red Indian you converted,
ain't it?' asked Bill. 'Fact, Robina; we heard a new fellow was
coming who had converted a Cherokee, and that the Bishop had
christened him in his war paint and feathers. Mrs. Shapcote sent out
invitations to a missionary tea in honour of him.'

'What, of the Cherokee?'

'No, no, of the little brute of a missionary chap, and we made up our
minds to tar and feather him before he converted us; but long before
we had found out which of the new trebles was the model Christian,
old Shapcote had caught us two pitching into one another, because I
said Bexley was a snobbish place full of pots and pans.'

'And that founded your friendship?'

'No, not quite, for we had a worse fight because I shut his Bible up
in his face when he tried to look over the Lessons in the Cathedral.'

'Why, you all do,' said Robina.

'Yes, now; but before Nixon came we were a horrid set of little
ruffians. Do you remember, Lance, how Roper offered you a bull's-eye
in the Cathedral, and thrashed you afterwards because you wouldn't
have it?'

'O Lance! but that was persecution!' cried Robina. 'Who would have
thought you went through things like that?'

'Ay,' said Bill, 'you believed in the little cherub chorister boys,
that sing and look out of their great violet eyes, till they die of
declines.'

'Ah!' said Lance, who was leaning on his arm rather wearily, 'Jack
will do for himself if he tells Wilmet her eyes are violet; it is
like a red rag to a bull.'

'Yes,' said Robina, 'she says nobody ever had eyes the colour of
violets, and they would be hideous if they were.'

'I have seen them,' said Willie, gravely.

'Oh! where?' cried Robina. 'Darker blue than Edgar's?'

'It's generally only one at a time.'

'After a cricket match, eh?' suggested Lance.

'But, depend upon it,' said Bill, while Robina was recovering her
laughing disgust, 'he may tell her her eyes are any colour he pleases
by this time.'

'How do you know that?' sharply protested Robin; 'as if she would
care for him more than for all of us, who can't spare her either!'

'I thought you were thick and plenty up the country?'

'Not of that sort,' said Lance.

'I don't believe it,' insisted Robina; 'why, she had never seen him a
few weeks ago; she can't have had time to get to like him.'

'That's your simplicity,' said Bill. 'Now ain't that oracular--I mean
ocular--demonstration? There they are, very moral of people making
fools of themselves in books.'

I wish they'd have done with it, then,' sighed Lance; 'my legs won't
hold out much longer.'

'Yes, you must go in,' said Robin, bringing her sturdy shoulders for
his other arm to rest on.

'But those two!' said Lance. 'Some one must stay to make it
respectable. Don't laugh, you vagabone, you shake up the marrow of my
bones; I'm her brother, and bound to see to her.'

'I'll stay out with Willie if that will make it right,' said Robina,
'only you must go to bed, and you have to be up so early too.'

So they saw him to the Bailey door, beyond which he declined further
assistance, saying he could tumble into bed alone, and leaving them
to their pleasant task of making propriety.

It was made after this sort. Bill delivered himself of a deep sigh,
and observed, 'Well! if she's done for, I suppose I must take up with
you; and after all, you're the jolliest.'

'I shall never be jolie, like Wilmet, if that's what you mean,'
said Robina, not quite understanding whether it were jest or earnest.

'Well, if you ain't a regular stunner like her, it doesn't much
matter. I never did see a face that I liked better than your round
one, and I know I shall like it more and more. Won't you have me,
Robina, one of these days?'

'O Willie! oughtn't one to wait till we are old enough to think about
it?'

'I don't see why. I shall always be thinking I'm working for you, and
I don't see why you shouldn't think the same of me. Won't you?' again
he repeated. 'At least, of course I shall do all the work for you.'

'Oh no! I should not like that. I had rather be doing something for
you, Willie. Look here, I am learning all I can now, and when I go
out--'

'Go out?'

'For a governess.'

'Murther! I'll hinder that!'

'But, Willie, you can't make a fortune in five years, and I shall go
out at eighteen. I think I shall begin the fortune soonest;' and she
laughed merrily.

'Mother didn't make a fortune.'

'I didn't mean that exactly; but I'm learning all the superior
branches, and if I got a hundred a year! Think of that, Will! If I
went on with that till you are a clergyman and have a living, how
nice it would be! There would be plenty to give away; and if we were
poor, I would take girls to teach.'

'Do you think I shall ever let you do all the work that way?' said
Will, strong in boyhood's infinite possibilities. 'I don't know how
it's to be, but I'll keep you out of slaving, though you're a dear
girl to think of it. Any way, Robin, you and I will hold together--
always.'

'I am sure I shall never like anybody half so much,' said Robin.

'Shall we break a sixpence and keep the halves? That's the thing,
ain't it? I believe I've got one--or fourpence, which is all the
same.'

'No, no,' said Robina, backing; 'I don't think Mettie would like it.
It doesn't seem right.'

'But aren't you in earnest. Robin?'

'Oh yes, indeed, indeed I am;' from the depths of a very earnest
childish heart that little knew to what it pledged itself.

'And so am I! I'll never care for any one else, Robina--never.'

'Nor I, William. Here they come!'

The other two had not got near so far, though Captain Harewood was
talking, and Wilmet listening, as would never have been the case
without the influence Willie asserted; but the special charm that
enchained Wilmet was entirely unapprehended by her, till just as the
first star brightened, and the hues faded from the landscape, she
bethought her of her patient, and perceived that he had gone in. 'How
late it must be! I must go and see after him. I hope he is equal to
the journey.'

'I will come and bring you an account of him on my way home, if I
may.'

'Oh, thank you; but it is taxing your goodness too--too much.'

'Cannot you believe how glad I am to have a good excuse?' and the
tone gave Wilmet a sudden thrill, so that she answered not; and he
continued, 'I am going to beg leave to be sometimes at Bexley.'

'When Felix is at home,' faltered Wilmet.

'I can hardly afford to wait. My time at home is so short. I shall, I
hope, make friends with him to-morrow, and perhaps you will neither
of you forbid me to come again. I am asking nothing now, only
opportunity to try to make you--'

'Oh, don't!' hurriedly broke in Wilmet, standing still in
consternation.

'Nay,' he said in a pleading voice, 'I know it would be presumption
to think so short an acquaintance could suffice, but you see I have
so little time, and all I want is leave to use it in coming to see
you.'

'Oh, don't!' she repeated. 'Indeed you had better not. It would be
only pain. I couldn't! and I can't have Felix worried,' and there was
a startled sob in her voice; but he answered with the strength and
sweetness that had upheld her in Lance's most suffering moments.

'I would not distress you or Felix for more than words can utter! I
would not have breathed a hint of this most earnest wish of my heart
till you had had some preparation, if it were not so impossible
otherwise to have any chance of being with you and striving--'

'Please,' entreated Wilmet, 'that is just what should be avoided; it
can never come to anything, and the sooner it is stopped the better.'

'Why should it never come to anything?' he asked, encouraged by
detecting tears in her voice.

'Because you know--no, you don't know, or you never could think of
such a thing--how wrong and impossible it would be for me!'

'No, I don't know. That is what I want to have the opportunity of
knowing.'

'I can tell you before,' she answered, faintly. 'Oh, if you would but
take my word for it, it would save so much--'

'No, that I cannot do,' he repeated. 'I must see for myself your
preciousness at home.'

She broke in again. 'Please, please, I'm saying what I ought not; but
it is to hinder distress. Don't want to let us get to like each other
any better, for as yet it can't be more than what could be got over,
and it is only making pain to let it grow.'

'That I deny. So far as I am concerned, the thing is done. If you
wanted to save me that pain, you should have turned me out the moment
I saw you call the boy back to life. A month like this is not so
easily got over.'

Wilmet dropped her head, and made no answer.

'So, since you see,' he continued, 'you will spare me nothing by
holding me aloof, will you not let me come and gladden myself while I
may in your presence? And then when my time is up it may be more
possible to judge--' (there was a faint 'Oh no,' but he heeded it
not) '--whether you can bear such an ugly fellow enough to let him
look to the time when home claims may be less pressing. I look for no
answer. I only want to be able to ask for one three months hence, and
I shall beg your brother to put it into my power so to do.'

'Ah! but to have Felix disturbed and worried is just what must not
be. It has made him ill already; and if he thought--'

'I promise not to harass him,' said Captain Harewood, gently. 'You
may trust me to take care that what I shall say will not cause him
any very trying perplexity.'

'If you knew--' sighed Wilmet.

'I hope to know,' he replied. 'I do know enough already to be aware
that you stand in no common relation to the rest; and if you have my
heart, Wilmet, it must follow that somehow I share in your self-
devotion. Do not fear my trying to make you less yourself. I want not
to take you away from your burthens, but to share them.'

'Yes, you--that is your goodness; but would it be right in us?' she
faltered.

'Leave your brother and me to judge of that,' he said.

They were already at the Bailey door, in the shadow of the buildings,
the flood of moonlight lying on the tower above, and one little
mysterious lamp under the deep brow of the archway of the passage. No
more passed but one 'good-night' from each, he had not even seen her
face, under her shady hat; while she hastened to her little room,
glad to ascertain that Lance was fast asleep, and with a rush of new
sensations bursting on her, against which she was strengthening all
the dykes of her resolute nature. 'He--he--that it should be he! how
good! how generous! how kind! Oh, it would be so happy! It _will_
make me happy that he only just thought of it, but it won't do, it is
no use. I'm not in love with him; I won't be, I'm not, I'm not!'

And as ardently as Wilmet had ever prayed for Lance's life and reason
by that little bed, did she beseech not to be tempted to desert her
duties; and all night she lay between sleep and waking, ever
repeating to herself. 'I'm not in love, I'm not, I'm not!'

CHAPTER XIX

THE HOUSE WITHOUT PILLARS

'And who save she could soothe the boy,
Or turn his tears to tears of joy?'
SAMUEL ROGERS.

Lance's train was at six o'clock, and that by which the sisters were
to return to Bexley so little later, that they would await it at the
station, so the household was betimes more or less afoot. There was a
frenzied scramble of maids and young ladies in hasty toilette; yet
breakfast was only forthcoming by personal exertion on the part of
the Captain, who made the coffee, boiled the eggs, and sent his
brother foraging into the kitchen. Then a message came that mother
must see the sweet girl to bid her good-bye; and Wilmet was dragged
up to find the paddy good natured face in bed, in an immense frilled
nightcap, whence two horn-like curl papers protruded. She was kissed,
cried over, and told she was the dearest girl, and Jack the best boy,
in the four kingdoms; and while her head was turning round between
dizziness at all that this cordiality implied, and a governess's
confusion whether these were the four kingdoms of Ireland, or
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, a demand followed for the
darling boy; but when she had gravely told the Captain that his
mother wanted him, the result was to send him down laughing. 'No, no,
I'm not the only darling boy in the world! 'Tis you, Lance. You know
the way.'