Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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

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Between finding her in bed, and being powerfully embraced, Lance's
sense of decorum brought him down with his blanched cheeks so rosy
red, that the family were choking with suppressed mirth when the
omnibus called for the luggage, and the party set forth to walk to
the station, Lance in a grass hat, enfolded by the Captain's hands in
an ample puggery, and provided with a natty blue umbrella, presented
by the Librarian, 'as a shield against the far-darting Apollo.'

'If this had been in my day,' he said, 'some wit would have produced
a neat epigram on Phoebus playing his old tricks out of jealousy of
Will's verses, but dainty feats of scholarship are gone out of date.
Well, Patroclus, when we have you back again, I think we shall none
of us mourn over the effects of your generous action.'

Wilmet was near enough to hear, and colour. She had imagined the last
night's conversation unknown to all; but Underwood reticence was so
incapable of guessing at Harewood communicativeness, that it never
entered her brain to suspect the topic of conversation between the
three juniors as they walked up the drowsy street.

Thanks to the difficulties of getting under weigh from the Harewood
house, there was barely time for John and Lance to take their places,
while Mr. Harewood got their tickets, and they were whirled off,
leaving the others to promenade the platform, just then a complete
solitude.

Mr. Harewood, with the attention of the old school, backed by
something warmer, gave Wilmet his arm. He and his son John never
seemed to belong to so ramshackle a household as the rest, and he was
so gentle and fatherly, that when Wilmet found him aware of all, it
was a relief to tell her objections without being answered by a
lover. After all, she could only repeat that leaving home was so
impossible for her, that, as she murmured, 'He had better not get to
like me any more, it would be such a pity for him.'

'That,' said Mr. Harewood, with his air of old-fashioned gallantry,
'depends on the esteem in which wealth or merit is held.'

'And station,' said Wilmet, in an undertone.

'For that, my dear, one would be a fool not to honour you and your
brother; besides, it may make you more at ease to hear that my father
was an apparitor, and I went to Oxford as a servitor, so that in
birth you have the advantage of us. Of course, I do not mean that
every one does not in the abstract prefer prosperous matches, but
John has a fair independent competence, and can afford to do as he
pleases; and, for my part, I should be very sorry if this were not
what he pleased.'

'You are so very kind, but surely if--even if--it must be such long
waiting, and you would not like that for him.'

'Let us arrive at the _if_ before we settle about the waiting,' said
Mr. Harewood. 'In truth, I have long looked on John as so much the
most sensible person in my house, that all I feel called on to do is
to hope for his success. I know both you and he will be wise enough
not to be either selfish or unselfish in the wrong place.'

Wilmet did not quite understand, but she carried away the conviction
that she need have no scruple as to the parents' cordial approbation;
and she had had her cure from yesterday's sense of want of individual
affection. As to the future? Of course it swelled her heart to think
of such love and generous kindness, but she tried to believe that she
was as much touched by the goodness of the father as by that of the
son, and she would be on her guard against herself unless she saw
some reasonable hope that home would ever dispense with her. Dear
Wilmet; would she not at any other time have thought it an outrage to
think of such a possibility? At any rate, she thought, nobody but
Felix need ever know.

Little guessed she, as Robina sat opposite, kept silent by the
presence of two stout old females, that the child was revolving the
question whether she might tell Cherry. She knew that Wilmet would
not like her affairs to be discussed without her own permission; but
it seemed unfair that when all the Harewoods were open-mouthed, her
own sister should know nothing. After all, much would depend on the
chances of a tete-a-tete.

At the station stood Clement: 'That's right! I thought you would come
by this train. What a comfort! How is Lance?'

'Almost well. How are you getting on?'

'You will soon see for yourself,' in an ominous tone.

Just then she was accosted by Mr. Ryder, who was waiting for his own
train; and after courteous and anxious inquiries, said, 'I was
thinking of writing to your eldest brother, but perhaps a word from
you would do as well.'

'About Bernard?'

'Why, yes, I don't quite see my way about him. He is a sharp little
fellow, and very well taught; in fact, he can afford to do nothing
but waste time. Somehow, a boy will now and then seem to come into
school with the wrong foot foremost.'

'Has he fallen in with idle boys?'

'So I fear. I placed him in a form high for his age, but where the
lags have got hold of him, and make him think idleness the thing. So
I gather. I conclude he is not to remain here?'

'Do you mean that you wish him to be taken away?' asked Wilmet, in
consternation.

'No, no; don't understand it in that sense,' said Mr. Ryder,
anxiously. 'I only meant that he is doing no good here, and that
possibly a change, or the stimulus of preparing for an examination,
might rouse him. Good-bye.'

And there Mr. Ryder had to rush off to secure his seat.

'Oh! good morning, Miss Underwood!' This was from Mr. Mowbray Smith,
a few steps beyond the station. 'I am glad to see you back. So your
patient is gone to join your eldest brother? But we shall have you
here on Sunday? Then there's the less occasion to name it; but some
notice should be taken of the behaviour yesterday evening.'

'It was very sad,' interposed Clement, 'but when once set off by the
christening, they could not stop themselves.'

'Scarcely a valid excuse,' said Mr. Smith, severely, as he made his
parting bow. 'You know this was not all.'

Clement shrugged his shoulders, exclaiming, 'So he made that into a
personality! You must know there was an unusually squalling baby,
whose godmother went on giving its name as Huggeny; and there was a
five minutes' exchange of "What?" on Mr. Smith's side, and Huggeny on
hers, till a whisper came all along--forwarded from the mother, I
suppose--"Same as they does their 'air"; and then Mr. Smith looked
more mystified than ever; some one suggested, "Same as the Empress of
the French."'

'Something might be excused on such provocation,' owned Wilmet,
laughing.

'If that had been all,' said Clement; 'but Angel and Bernard choose
to go and sit by themselves, and I could see, from Felix's place in
the choir, that they were tittering long after. I shook my head, but
Nares must needs make up an odious imitation; and Bernard not only
touches Angel to make her look, but grins impudently at me. I found
myself growing burning hot with shame, and whenever they looked at me
their heads went down and their shoulders worked.'

'Naughty children,' said Wilmet, but with more than usual lenience to
the combined effects of Huggeny and of Clement's severe countenance
in producing one of those paroxysms of giggle that seem invincible in
proportion to their unbecomingness. The door was reached and
instantly opened, Stella springing into her arms in ecstasy.
'Sister's come!--O Sister, Sister, Sister, don't ever go away any
more.'

There was a great deal of confused kissing and embracing as she made
her way upstairs. 'But oh, my Tedo, what has happened?' for she
beheld a fine sample of Bill Harewood's violet eye.

'It was Bernard's stick went into his eye when we were playing at
hockey,' said Stella. 'He did cry terribly, but Sister Constance put
such nice stuff--'

'Sister Constance! oh, thank you! but hockey in the garden?'

'I thought it rather a remarkable proceeding,' quietly observed the
Sister.

'I must hear more about it,' said Wilmet. 'My poor dear little man,
can't he let Sister go for one instant?--Cherry dear, how are you?'

'All right now you are come. But dear little Lance, how is he
looking?'

'Not much worse than you do, my Cherry,' said Wilmet, as she saw that
the wizened old fairy look was come back. 'You have been worse than I
knew.'

'Oh, I am all right now; and I have had such a treat of Sister
Constance.'

'I want to take her back with me,' said the Sister. 'Dr. Lee would
like to have her under his eye; and if you can spare her, I would
write to-day, and she could go with me to-morrow.'

'It is very kind; it might be better for her.'

'Of course,' interrupted Alda, 'it is good for any one to be away
from this horrid smell of baked earth, and all these riotous
children.'

'Ah!' said Wilmet; 'didn't I see the shade of the lamp in the
landing-place broken? How was that!'

'Oh! the children, of course,' said Alda.

But neither child spoke; and Wilmet perceived that only the twins
were in the room, both hanging upon her, while she swallowed her
hurried second breakfast.

'No one will tell,' said Clement. 'It was done the day I went over to
Minsterham. I did all I could to find out.'

'Yes; and made them more obstinate than before,' said Alda.

Another catastrophe here suddenly struck Wilmet, namely, a long and
very badly-mended rent in Stella's spotted pink frock, which, to say
the truth, did not look as if it were Monday morning.

'Yes,' said Stella, 'I did try to mend it as well as I could, Sister,
but there wasn't another work-a-day frock clean.'

'Your mending!' exclaimed Wilmet; 'but how did you tear it?'

'When I tumbled into the brambles, and was lost.'

'Lost, my dear? What does she mean?'

'It is quite true,' said Cherry. 'Angela and Bernard took her out
fishing to Ball's hatch on Saturday, and lost her, only luckily we
did not know anything about it till she was safe at home again, dear
little darling!'

'But, Stella, how was it?' cried the horrified Wilmet, clasping her
the closer.

'I could not bear to see the poor worms,' said Stella. 'Bear would
cut them up to stick on his hook, so I got away out of sight of them,
and gathered the dear little wild roses and honeysuckles; and when I
wanted to find them again I couldn't, and nobody heard me when I
called, and a robin looked at me, and I thought he wanted to bury me,
and I ran away, and a great bush caught hold of me and scratched my
legs, and tore out a great piece of the rim of my hat; and just then
a good lady came by, and helped me up and to look for them, but we
could not see them anywhere; so she took me to her house--such a dear
little house all over roses--and she mended my hat, and I mended my
frock, and she gave me some tea and plum-cake, and two dear little
ponies came to the door, and a carriage, and she brought me home.'

'Who was she?'

'Miss Crabbe; she is new to the place,' said Cherry. 'Mr. Froggatt
said she had only been once in the shop before. Tell Sister how you
told her about yourself, Stella.'

'She asked my name,' said the child, 'and she said it was a very
funny one, and she could not understand it; and then she wanted to
know whose little girl I was, and I said, "Brother Felix's;" and then
she said, "Have you no papa or mamma?" So I told her I hadn't a papa
or mamma, but a father and mother up in heaven, and she said, "I
should think so, poor little dear, if there is no one to take more
care of you." I really did think she wanted to take me and keep me
for an adopted child, so I told her that I had lots of dear good
brothers and sisters that wanted me very much indeed, and I must go
home to H. Froggatt and F. C. Underwood, High Street, Bexley.'

'I fancy,' said Cherry, 'that she thought Mr. Froggatt was Stella's
grandfather, for she made him quite a speech about the neglect of the
child--"such a nice-mannered little girl," she said; but she would
not come in, nor let Alda be called.'

'Nor should I have gone down if Mr. Froggatt had thought proper to
call me,' said Alda. 'Imagine me in his office!'

'I can't imagine not going anywhere to thank the person that brought
home my little Star,' said Wilmet, holding her arm close round the
child, and kissing her repeatedly. 'But what became of the other
two?'

'I went out after them,' said Clement, 'and found them rushing wildly
about after her, afraid to come home. To do them justice, I believe
they were almost out of their minds, thinking she must have tumbled
into the river.'

'Oh, indeed,' said Alda. 'That's your account of it.'

'Yes,' said Cherry eagerly, 'all that pretending not to care, and
that it was a trick of Stella's, was nothing but reaction. And then,
you know, Clem, you _did_ improve the occasion.'

'There!' exclaimed Alda,' you see how it is, Wilmet; nothing but
vindication of those two intolerable children! Now, just come,
Wilmet, and see if they are to be backed up in this.'

But as Wilmet, perfectly bewildered, and feeling no hope of
comprehension among so many, followed Alda from the room and up the
stairs, Stella came plunging after, with a cry, 'Alda, Alda, don't
hurt them!' just as from a housemaid's closet half way up, Alda was
bringing to light a basin containing a dozen tadpoles twirling their
shadowy tails.

'Now, Wilmet,' she solemnly said, 'do you approve of all those horrid
brutes swimming in my bath?'

'They aren't in the well, I hope,' said Wilmet.

'How can you be so absurd, Wilmet? That's the way those children
showed their sorrow that Clement talks about. I'll never believe but
he helped them.'

'To weep them,' said a voice above; and Angela's face was seen
looking out of her bush of hair over the balusters of the top storey.
'They _are_ just like black heraldic tears.'

'You don't mean that they put them in?' asked Wilmet.

'What else should I mean?'

'And didn't she squall?' shouted Bernard; and then came a duet--

'Dame, dame, what makes your ducks to squall,
Duck to squall, duck to squall, duck to squall?
Meeting o' pollywogs! Meeting wi' pollywogs?'

'Hush, children, this is shocking,' said Wilmet, in the low
impressive voice by which she could always still a tumult. 'How could
you take advantage of my absence to do this?'

'Because Alda deserved it,' cried Angela, bouncing downstairs.
'There, Alda! I said I should tell of you if you told of us.'

'Angela, that is not the way to speak to your elder sister.'

'She isn't like an elder sister!' exclaimed Angel. 'Stella would be
ashamed to do like her, eating up the strawberries Mr. Froggatt
brought for poor Cherry when she was ill.'

'I'm sure you had your share!' retorted Alda.

'You would have them in for dessert, and you helped us, only Sister
Constance and Clem left all theirs for Cherry, and then you went by
yourself and ate them all up.'

The very fact of shouting out such a charge showed a state of
insubordination such as might make Wilmet's hair stand on end, and
she simply disbelieved so childish an accusation against her own
equal in age. 'You should not say such things, Angela,' she answered,
in her low tone of reproof; 'there must be a mistake.'

'I am afraid it is quite true,' said Clement's quiet voice, as he
stood arrested on his way by the block upon the landing-place.

'The children make such an uproar,' said the exasperated Alda. 'I'm
sure I thought Geraldine's had been taken long before, and in this
parching weather fruit is quite a necessity to me.'

Wilmet was too much aghast at the admission to speak. It was a
strange tangle: Clement standing straight and still on the landing-
place; Wilmet, with Theodore humming to himself, as innocent of the
fray as the tadpoles that Stella was cherishing in the cupboard
doorway; Alda, flushed and angry; and on the upper flight, Angela and
Bernard dancing and roaming in vehement excitement between anger and
alarm. 'Well that Lance was not in this hubbub! thought deafened and
amazed Wilmet.

'What has this to do with the tadpoles?' she asked, in an endeavour
to comprehend.

'We said she should be served out,' sung Bernard, 'with a polly--
polly--pollywog bath.'

'But, Bernard, hush!--Angel! don't you see it was no business of
yours if Alda did forget?'

She was unprepared for the outbreak this brought on her. 'You, too,
Wilmet! Every one backs up those children in their behaviour to me!
Lady Herbert Somerville, and Clement, and all! If only Ferdinand saw
it!'

'Just step up, Wilmet,' said Clement gently, 'and see whether the
children are in league with me.'

He followed Wilmet up to the door of the barrack, an attic that he
shared with Lance and Bernard, and showed the long beam that crossed
it pasted with a series of little figures cut out in paper,
representing a procession in elaborate vestments; and at the end a
long-backed individual kneeling before the chair of a confessor, who
bore a painful resemblance to the Vicar of St. Matthew's.

'We only wanted to make Tina feel at home,' giggled Angela.

'It would be no matter,' pursued Clement, 'if it were merely quizzing
myself. I am used to that; but this is trenching on sacred ground.'

'Bless me, your old white beam!' exclaimed Angela, with an affected
start.

'It is exceedingly improper and irreverent,' said Wilmet. 'I am
ashamed that such a thing should have been done in this house.'

'Really,' said Alda, 'it seems to me very droll and clever, with no
harm in it at all; only people like Clement never can take a joke.'

'You can't mean to justify such a one as this,' said Wilmet; but, to
her still greater astonishment, Alda broke out,

'There! You are turning against me! You are taking Clement's part,
though you didn't care what they did to me--not if it had been snakes
and adders!'

This, decidedly in Mrs. Thomas Underwood's style, elicited a peal of
laughter from the two naughty children, and the corners of Clements
mouth relaxed, bringing Alda to a gush of tears. 'You never used to
be like this to me, Wilmet.'

'I never saw you like this, dear Alda,' said Wilmet, low and gently,
but in decided repression. 'Come into our room, and let me try to
understand.'

So began a morning of mutual complaints, as if everybody were against
everybody, agreeing in nothing but in appealing to the elder sister.
First, there was Alda's story. Never had there been such a miserable
time--with Geraldine interfering, fussy, fretful, fault-finding;
Clement intolerable in primness and conceit, only making the children
worse when he pretended to keep them in order, and making such a fuss
about Geraldine, when nothing ailed her but change of weather,
incurring the expense of the Dearport doctor, and bringing down the
Sister upon them, so awkward to have her in the drawing-room in that
dress, but Sisters always thrust themselves into families. She hoped
she had shown my Lady that she was not to be overawed by a title--
such affectation, not using it! No consideration for her; the
servants regularly spoilt, both of them; Martha a vulgar insolent
creature, and Sibby disgustingly familiar and slovenly, no good at
all, not even to keep Theodore out of the way. At which Theodore,
knowing no more than his own name and Alda's displeasure, set up a
dismal howl; and as Wilmet chose to coax and fondle him into silence
instead of scolding and turning him out, Alda went off in a huff,
muttering about asylums and proper places; and Wilmet descended to
the kitchen, the little weak hand clasped tight into hers.

A sore sight awaited her below; the bills of this month for luxuries
of sinful extravagance in her economical eyes! Chicken and asparagus,
ducks and peas, even in the height of their season, were enormities
to such housekeeping as hers, and had raised the sum total to four
times the amount that her foreboding soul had dreaded. It exceeded
her present supplies, and was a grave addition to the expenses of the
two illnesses, that were serious enough already.

Martha was eloquent, not to say defiant, in self-defence. 'You see,
Miss Underwood, if I'd been let alone, or Miss Cherry had been the
one to take my orders from, which we could have made it out to your
satisfaction; but with Miss Halder, which expects everything to be
just like what it was in the fammerly up in London, which it stands
to reason as it can't; which she hasn't got no more notion than a
baby of prices, nor seasons, nor nothink; which is very determined,
too, which won't suffer a word from nobody; which if you hadn't been
coming home, Miss Underwood, I'd have given warning, which have
always given you satisfaction.'

Wilmet's satisfaction was not increased when she encountered Sibby.
'Ah, my darling Missie dear, ye're the jewel that's been longed for!
The whole house has been mad entirely, and lost widout you; the
children rampaging and playing pranks, and Miss Cherry dwining and
pining to a skeleton, so that but for Master Clem and that holy
woman, the Sisther, 'tis scarce alive ye'd have found her. Miss Alda,
she's the very wonder of the worruld for jealousy and unfeelingness.
I up and told her at last there was well-nigh as much differ between
you and she, as between Stella and this blessed lamb that she spites;
for if you have not carried off all the wit and understanding, sure
'tis you that has got all the heart, and the head, and the hands.'

'And the partial old nursey, Sibby! You see I had no time nor thought
but for poor Lance, and Alda was so new to it.'

'Ah, Missie dear, you were always the one to vindicate her, but 'tis
no use! Newness! 'Twasn't newness that makes her turn the back of her
hand to this darling innocent, till he cries if he's left a moment
with her.--Ay, my precious, what would have become of you and me but
for Masther Clem?--I tell you, Miss Wilmet, I never thought that long
boy the aquil of his brothers till I saw him in time of need. Yer
father himself--Heaven be his bed!--couldn't have been tenderer with
Theodore nor Miss Cherry, by night or by day, an' never a cross word
when he was bothered past his life with Miss Alda's ugliness an' the
children's boldness.

'Oh, those children! What is come to them, Sibby?'

'Only funning and merriment, Missie dear. They'd never have had to be
faulted if Miss Alda had let Miss Cherry deal with them; but she
could neither rule them herself, nor bear to see them ruled; and
though she was like a mad cow if they played their pranks on her, she
backs them up if Miss Cherry, or Master Clem, or even the Sisther, do
but say a word to them, so 'tis no wonder if the poor dears have been
a bit off their heads, but they'll be as quiet as doves now ye're
back again. Oh, Missie dear, my own child, but it's you that are the
light of my eyes, looking the blooming beauty that you are.'

The foster-mother's genuine compliment could not lighten the load
that had grown every moment heavier, and more compunctious for the
deaf ear she had turned to Clement. Wilmet said a word or two of
apology to him when she met him on the stairs, loaded with books to
study in the garden.

'Never mind,' he magnanimously answered, 'it is all right now you are
come, and it was impossible before. Only, please do say something
warm to Sister Constance, for Alda is barely civil to her.'

'I am very sorry; I did not think Alda had that sort of prejudice,'
said Wilmet, whose instinct of defence of Alda had wonderfully
diminished.

'The chief prejudice came of my sending for her,' said Clement.

'Besides, Sister Constance spoke out very sharply about the
strawberries and when we had a couple of chickens, and Alda scolded
me for helping her to a leg instead of a wing, Sister Constance said,
"Oh, I supposed you had them on Geraldine's account;" and she gives
the children leave to do anything Sister Constance objects to. These
things are hardly their fault. But, I say, Mettie, now you are come,
and it is all right, do you think I might go to St. Matthew's? The
Vicar and Mr. Sterling are alone, while the other curates are
holiday-making, and they say I could really be of some use to them,
and they would give me some help with this reading for my
examination. Somers is there too, and I have not seen him since
Christmas.'

'Indeed,' said Wilmet, 'no one has deserved a holiday more than you,
Clement! You have done your best.'

This--almost the first home praise or thanks that had fallen to his
lot--elicited that real grace of humility for which poor self-
conscious Clement really strove. 'I have tried, Mettie,' he said,
with tears in his eyes; 'but it was not as if it had been one of the
others. There must be something very wrong about me, to make me so
disagreeable.'

'You have gained two hearts,' said Wilmet, 'Sibby's and this little
fellow's.'

For Theodore had attached himself limpet fashion to Clement, who with
difficulty piled his books so as to leave a hand free for him.

'He had better come with me,' said Wilmet; 'your reading must have
been dreadfully interrupted.'

'It has, rather,' said Clement, whose examination was in alarming
proximity; 'but I don't mind him, I can work to his tunes as well as
Felix can; and all is right now you are come.'