Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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

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That was the burthen of every one's song. It came next from Cherry,
whom she found in her own room; 'There was so much bustle in the
sitting-room,' she said.

'My dear, you have gone through a great deal!'

'"There's nae luck about the house when our gude man's awa',"' said
Cherry. 'Clem played and whistled that so often, that Alda begged
never to hear it again; but unluckily Tedo had caught it, and I don't
think she quite believes he doesn't hum it on purpose! But now, how
delicious it is to have got at least our gude woman! And, oh dear!
Wilmet, I beg your pardon; but you do look so lovely, I can't help
telling you so! or is it the pleasure of seeing you?'

'My poor Cherry! I did not think half enough about you.'

'That would have done no good. Most of this rose out of my own
crossness and horridness. If I could only be anxious without being
peevish!'

'Now, Cherry, don't waste time in telling me it was your own fault; I
know all about that! I really want to understand how it has all been
with Alda and Clement. I am afraid Alda has not been behaving
nicely.'

To hear Wilmet allow Alda to be other than impeccable so amazed
Cherry, that she could scarcely answer. 'O Mettle, I never knew what
you and Felix must be. I have so often thought of a house divided
against itself, one against two, and two against three. We have been
all _to wrongs_, and Clem and I have said we would not be a party;
and yet we could not help it, for we always had to stand up together!
Then Angel and Bear were against every one, and Alda set them against
Clem, and fancied he did against her, which was not true. I should
have minded nothing if Alda had not been so angry at Clement's
sending for Sister Constance. You did give him leave, though?'

'Yes, and I should have done so much more decidedly if I had known.'

At that moment Sister Constance knocked at the door, with her work in
her hand, and Wilmet inferred that this was the refuge from Alda and
the drawing-room. To Cherry's surprise, Wilmet, instead of ignoring
everything unsatisfactory, began at once, 'Please come in, Sister
Constance; I wanted to thank you, and tell you how sorry and ashamed
I am! I am afraid you have not been treated as--'

'Don't say any more, my dear,' as the tears were in her eyes; 'don't
think about it.'

'I ought to think!' said Wilmet. 'I have been trying to understand
things ever since I came home; but everybody except Cherry and Clem
blames everybody, and they only blame themselves! I can't understand
the rights of anything!'

'My dear,' said Sister Constance, 'I think it would be impossible to
go into the details of all that has happened. Shall I tell you how it
seemed to me?'

'Pray do!'

'I thought that the authority of an elder reared in so different a
school necessarily was producing a few collisions. There was some
ignorance, and a good deal of dislike of interference, and the
younger ones would not have been human not to take advantage of it;
but it is over now you are come home, and I strongly recommend an act
of oblivion.'

'Oh! I don't want to punish the poor children,' said Wilmet.

'Oblivion, I said, not only amnesty;' and as she did not see perfect
comprehension in Wilmet's face, she added, 'I mean, not only that the
children should be forgiven, but that their elders should not go
hunting for causes, and thinking how this or that could have been
prevented.'

'I suppose not,' said Wilmet. 'It is all plain enough;' and the sigh
that followed quite amazed Cherry, who smiled up in her face, saying,
'Plain enough that we can't do without you.'

'No,' said Wilmet, kissing Cherry's uplifted face ere leaving the
room; but it was with such an effort at a responding smile, that
Cherry exclaimed, 'Oh dear! how dreadfully we have vexed her!' And
Sister Constance thought the more.

Yet again Wilmet had to hear another testimony to the anarchy in her
absence. Those formidable bills had obliged her to apply to Alda for
an advance of the sum she had offered for Lance's journey; and this,
after some petulance and faltering, elicited that some old forgotten
London bills had come down and swamped this Midsummer quarter's
allowance, so that the promise must stand over till--till Michaelmas;
or it might be that Ferdinand's matters were arranged, and then what
would such a paltry sum be? Wilmet turned away in shame and disgust
at having trusted for a moment to such offers. She could only do what
she had never done before--apply to Mr. Froggatt for an advance on
Felix's account: and she detained him after dinner for the purpose.

He was as kind as possible, assuring her that he should have been
hurt if she had not come to him. And then, in his blandest way, he
thought it right to hint that 'Young people were sometimes a little
unguarded.' She was prepared for the story of the loss of Stella, but
she was not prepared to hear of a gossipping intercourse over the
newly arrived Punches, etc., carried on in the early morning with
Redstone, not only by Bernard but Angela. She was but eleven years
old, so it was no worse than the taste of childish underhand coquetry
and giggling; there was no fear of its continuance after Felix's
return, and, indeed, good old Mr Froggatt had kept guard by coming in
two hours earlier ever since the discovery; but the propensity
dismayed Wilmet more than all that had yet happened, and on this head
she thought it right to reprove Angela seriously.

'Dear me, Wilmet, you are always telling us not to think ourselves
above our station. Mr. Redstone is just as fit to speak to as Felix
was before he was a partner.'

'Should you like Felix to have found you gossipping in the reading-
room?'

'Well,' said audacious Angela, 'half the fun in things is the chance
of being caught.'

'My dear, you don't know what you are saying,' replied Wilmet
dejectedly, as if exhausted beyond the power of working out her
reproof! and Angela had to fight hard against any softening, telling
Bernard that W. W. was a tremendous old maid, who had no notion of a
lark.

Robina, who stood in the peculiar position of neither accusing nor
being accused, would not add her voice to the chorus of welcome, and
did not wonder that every hour wore off something from the radiance
of the beautiful bloom brought from the Bailey. Indeed, the unusual
gravity and reserve of the younger sister struck Cherry's observant
eyes, and made her think at first that she had been much pained by
having to part with Lance in his weak half-recovered state; but when
at tea-time the whole history of the illness was inquired into in
detail by the assembled family, the downcast eyes and cheeks with
which Robin encountered every mention of Captain Harewood's good
offices led to the inference that she had in her excitement forgotten
the bounds where the brook and river meet, and was in an anguish of
shame; Wilmet meantime looking flushed with the fag of her vexatious
day, and speaking plentifully of this same Captain, proving to
herself all the while that she was doing so with ordinary gratitude
and composure.

Robina was quartered upon Geraldine in the holiday crowding of the
house; and somewhere about four o'clock on the summer morning,
Cherry, wakening as usual, and reaching for her book, heard a voice
from the corner asking if she wanted anything. 'No, thank you,
Bobbie. Go to sleep again.'

'I can't; I've been thinking about it all night. I think he's coming
to-day.'

'Who?'

'Captain Harewood. He promised to come and tell us how Lance and
Felix are.'

'I am very glad; but Wilmet never said so.'

'No, but-- O Cherry, I wish we could contrive some nice quiet place,
but nothing is ever quiet in this house.'

'No,' said Geraldine, who was but too well aware of the fact, 'though
I can't imagine that any Harewood can be distressed on that score.'

'Oh, but--' said Robina, to whom the communication began to feel so
momentous, that she could not help toying round it before coming to
the point--'I know; at least, I am sure he will want to see her
particularly.'

'You Robin, what have you got into your head?' said Cherry, trying to
misunderstand, but feeling a foreboding throb of consternation.

'It is not my head. Willie told me.' And as she detected a sigh of
relief, 'And it is no nonsense of his either. He did it on Sunday
evening by the river-side.'

'He did it?' repeated Geraldine, willing to take a moment's refuge in
the confusion of antecedents, though too well aware what must be
coming.

'You know what I mean. He--Jack--John--Captain Harewood, had it out
with her when we were all walking together.'

'My dear, impossible!'

'I mean, we were out of hearing, but we saw them at it, and walked up
and down till Lance got tired out, and Willie and I stayed to make it
proper.'

Geraldine relieved herself by a little laugh, and said, in a superior
tone of elderly wisdom, 'But, my dear, there might be a walk even
without what you call doing it.'

'Yes,' reiterated Robina; 'but I know, for the Captain shut himself
up with Mr. Harewood when we came in, and Bill heard his father
telling his mother about it at night through the wall.'

'For shame, Robin!'

'Oh! he told them long ago that he could hear, and they don't care;
besides, Mrs. Harewood told him _himself_ when he went in to wish her
good morning, and she kissed me and Lance too about it, and said they
hadn't their equals. And poor Mettie thinks no one knows of it but
their two selves, and maybe Mr. Harewood!'

'But, Robin, I don't know how to understand it. I think she would
have told Alda, at least.'

'Perhaps she has to-night,' said Robina; 'but, you see, she didn't
accept him.'

'Oh! then it doesn't signify.'

'Not out and out, I mean; and it is only because of us. At least, we
are sure she likes him.'

'We! You and Willie!'

'And Lance. He saw it all the time he was getting well. Besides, the
Captain told his father that she wouldn't listen to him, and would
have hindered his going to Felix if Lance had been fit to travel
alone.'

'Then it is not an engagement now?'

'No, she won't let it be.'

'And he is coming to-day?'

'Yes, after he has seen Felix. O Cherry! he is so nice, kind and
bright, like all the Harewoods, and not ridiculous; and Lance does
like him so!'

'Does Wilmet?'

'We are almost sure. As Lance says, she has never looked so bright,
or so sweet, or so pretty. Do you think it is love, Cherry?'

'We shall see,' said Cherry. 'If she tells us nothing, we can judge;
and if--if--'

Her voice died away into contemplation; and after waiting in vain for
more, Robina somewhat resentfully decided that 'she had fallen asleep
in her very face.'

No more was said till dressing-time, when there were a few
speculations whether Alda knew; and Cherry could not help auguring
that something had opened Wilmet's eyes to her twin's possible
deficiencies. Sister Constance came, and seeing her patient's
paleness, accused the sisters of untimely bedroom colloquies; and as
they pleaded guilty, Robin was struck by the air of fixed resolution
on Cherry's thin white face.

There was no sign of any confidence having been made to Alda. Wilmet
plunged into her long-deferred holiday task of inspecting the family
linen; and when she came back with a deep basket, an announcement
that every one must mend and adapt, and portions of darning and
piecing for Geraldine and Robina, they began to feel as if the
morning's conversation was a dream.

But just as dinner was near its close, there were steps on the
stairs; the drawing-room door was opened and shut, and Sibby,
unnecessarily coming through the folding leaves, announced over the
head of Clement, 'Captain Harewood.'

'Come to tell about Lance!' cried Angela, leaping up, and followed by
Bernard, Alda, and even Mr. Froggatt; indeed, in the existing
connection of chairs, tables, and doors, a clearance of that side of
the table was needful before any one else could stir. Wilmet moved
after them, and Clement was heard exclaiming, 'You are pinning me
down, Bobbie!'

'I know! Oh, shut the door! There are more than enough there
already.'

'True,' said Sister Constance, signing to Clement to obey. 'I meant
to go to my room, but Cherry wants to hear of her brothers.'

'No, she doesn't!' cried Robina. 'At least-- Oh! will nobody get the
others out, and leave them to themselves!'

'Why, Bobbie, what nonsense is this?' said Clement. 'One would think
you took them for Ferdinand and Alda.'

'It is all the same!--Stella, you run out to the garden--by that
door, you child!' And then it all came out to the two fresh auditors,
who listened with conviction. 'And now,' concluded Robina, 'there is
not a place where he can so much as speak to her! What shall we do to
get them away?'

'You do not know yet that she wishes it,' said Sister Constance, who
had been a wife before she was a Sister, and saw that it was matronly
tact and tenderness that the crisis needed; 'but I'll tell you what
you can safely and naturally do. Go in and fetch Cherry's folding
chair, and call the children to carry her appurtenances down to the
garden. That will make a break, and Wilmet can take advantage of it
if she sees fit.'

'Alda is worse than ten children,' said Clement; 'she has an
inordinate appetite for captains in the absence of her own.'

'It can't be helped. Better do too little than too much.'

And finding Robina shy and giggling, and Clement shy and irresolute,
Sister Constance herself made the diversion by opening the door, when
Wilmet's nervous look and manner was confirmation strong. 'Lady
Herbert Somerville--Captain Harewood,' was Alda's formal introduction
in her bad taste; while the Sister, after shaking hands, bade Bernard
take Geraldine's chair to the lawn.

'Oh, are we to go out?' said Alda. 'A good move. Of all things I
detest in summer, a town house is the worst. I'll just fetch a hat, I
want to show my pet view.--Our brothers are always fighting about
their churches, Captain Harewood.'

The thing was done; Mr. Froggatt was already gone, and as Alda's
trappings were never quickly adjusted, it needed very little
contrivance to leave a not unwilling pair on one side of the doors,
and cut off the rest. Robina, too much excited to stand still, flew
about the stairs till Alda appeared in a tiny hat fluttering with
velvet tails.

'Are they gone out?'

'Yes;' for quite enough to constitute a 'they' were gone; and when
Alda reached them, they sedulously set themselves to detain her, and
thereby betrayed the reason.

'Nonsense! How absurd! That horrid little fright of a red-haired man!
No doubt poor dear Wilmet only wants me to go and put an end to it.'

Strictly speaking, this was self-assertion. She had not the assurance
to intrude, and she contented herself with keeping Cherry on thorns
by threatening to go in, and declaring that the whole must be untrue,
since Wilmet had not told her.

Time went on very slowly; and at last Wilmet, about four o'clock, was
seen advancing, with Theodore in one hand and her great basket of
mending in the other. And before Alda had time to rise from her
chair, Robina darted across the grass, with flaming cheeks and low,
hurried, frightened confession--'Wilmet, please, it is honest to tell
you; Willie Harewood knows, and told me, and I couldn't help it; I
told them to keep away.'

'It always happens so,' said Wilmet, less discomposed than Robina
expected, though she had evidently been shedding tears. 'Not that
there is anything to tell.'

'Nothing!' cried Robina, looking blank.

'Of course not. He came to bring me a note from Felix. I hope no one
knows but those three.'

'And Sister Constance.'

'Then take care no one does.'

'But, O Wilmet, please! You have not put an end to it all?'

'No,' said Wilmet. 'They will not let me, though I think it would
have been wiser. I do not know how it is to be, except that it is
utterly impossible for the present.'

With this much from the fountain-head, Robina was forced to content
herself; and she had tact enough not to join the trio under the tree,
but to betake herself to Clement, who had gone off with his books.

'So,' said Alda lightly, 'you have cheated us of another view of your
conquest, Mettie.'

'He wanted to catch the 3.45 train,' said Wilmet gravely.

'You must have been very unmerciful to despatch him so soon. I
thought you must want me to come to your rescue, but those romantic
children wouldn't let me.'

'Thank you,' said Wilmet.

'My dear! You don't mean that you are smitten? Well! I can't flatter
you as to his beauty. And yet, after all, situated as you are, it is
a catch--that is, if he has anything but his pay; but of course he
hasn't.'

'Yes,' said Wilmet abstractedly, 'his father told me he had--what did
he call it?--"a fair independent competence of his own." Oh! they are
so kind!'

'Then, O Wilmet, is it really so?' asked Geraldine, with eager eyes,
clasped hands, and quivering frame, infinitely fuller of visible
emotion than either of the handsome twins.

'I--don't know.'

'My dear Wilmet,' cried Alda, excited, 'you can't surely have
anything better in view!'

'No,' said Wilmet, even now keeping herself blind to the
offensiveness of Alda's suggestion; 'but as it is utterly impossible
for me to think of--leaving home, I did think it would have been
wiser to put a stop to it while there wa--is time,' and the tears
began to gather again.

'And have you?

'They won't let me.'

'Who?'

'_He_--and his father, and Felix,' said Wilmet, speaking steadily,
but the tears rolling down her cheeks.

'Felix! Oh, what does he say?'

'You may see;' and she held out a letter, which Alda and Cherry read
together, while she rested her elbow on her knee, her brow on her
hand, and let fall the tears, which with her were always soft, free,
and healthy outlets of emotion, not disabling, but rather relieving.

Mrs. Pettigrew's Lodgings,
North Beach, East Ewmouth,
20th July, 10 P.M.

MY DEAREST WILMET--What I have heard to-day is a great satisfaction.
I had hardly hoped that you could have been brought within the reach
of any one so worthy of you. My only fear is that you are too
scrupulous and self-sacrificing to contemplate fairly, and without
prejudice, what is best for us all. You will imagine yourself blinded
by inclination, and not attend to common sense. Harewood tells me he
trusts you have no objection on personal grounds. (I hope this does
not sound as if he were presuming; if so, it is my fault. Remember, I
am more used to writing 'summaries for the week' than letters on
delicate subjects.) But at any rate, my Mettie, I see there is much
worth and weight in his affection, and that you could not manage to
snub him as entirely as you wanted to do. (Didn't you?) Now, it seems
to me, that if you two are really drawn to one another, both being
such as you are, it is the call of a Voice that you have no right to
reject or stifle. I do not mean by this that anything immediate need
take place; but granting your preference, I think it would be wrong
not to avow it, or to refuse, because you scruple to keep him waiting
while you may be necessary at home. If you imagine that by such
rejection you would be doing better for the children and me, I beg
leave to tell you it is a generous blunder. Remember that, as things
have turned out, I am quite as much the only dependence for the
others as I was seven years ago. I felt this painfully in the spring,
when I was doubtful what turn my health would take; and the comfort
of knowing you would all have such a man to look to would be
unspeakable--indeed, he has already lightened me of much care and
anxiety. Do not take this as pressing you. Between this and the end
of his leave, there will be time for consideration. Nothing need be
done in haste, least of all the crushing your liking under the
delusion of serving us. So do not forbid him the house; and unless
your objection be on any other score, do not make up your mind till
you have seen me. I should of course have been with you instead of
writing, if it were not for Lance. Till I saw the dear little fellow,
I had no notion how very ill he has been. The five hours' journey had
quite knocked him up, and he was fit for nothing but his bed when he
came; but he revived in the evening. I only hope I shall take as good
care of him as the first-rate nurses he describes so
enthusiastically. That month must have been worth years of common
acquaintance. I wish I knew what more to say to show you how glad I
am of this day's work, and to persuade you to see matters as I do.--
Ever your loving brother,
F. C. UNDERWOOD.

P.S.--Lance is quite himself this morning, and was up to watch us
bathing before six o'clock.

'Oh! what did Captain Harewood say of Felix?' was Cherry's cry,
almost with shame and pain at not having asked before.

'You know, he had never seen him,' said Wilmet; 'but he said he did
not seem to him in the least unwell--and he watched carefully, as I
had begged him. He said he struck him as naturally delicate-looking;
but that those blue veins in his temples do not show, and he has no
cough at all, nor any difficulty in swimming, or walking up a steep
cliff. He made me laugh, for he said he hardly believed his eyes when
Lance tumbled himself out of the train on something so little bigger
or older than himself. He says the way we all talk of "my eldest
brother" made him expect something taller than Clement, and more
imposing than the senior verger; but he understood it all when he saw
him and Lance together. They have two very nice rooms; and Felix has
put Lance into the bedroom, which is luckily cool, and sleeps on a
sofa bed in the parlour; and the landlady will do anything for them.'

'But how is it to be?' broke in Alda crossly. 'You and Felix seem to
be encouraging him to come dangling here, when we all agreed that
Ferdinand must keep away in Felix's absence, though matters are in
such a different state.'

'So I told him, dear Alda,' gently said Wilmet; 'but he declared he
would bring his sisters, or poor Mrs. Harewood herself, if nothing
else would satisfy me: and what could I do, after all their
kindness?'

'Umph!' muttered Alda; 'they are a queer set.'

'Now, Alda,' said Wilmet earnestly, 'you must not talk without
knowing. Till I went there, I never understood how much goodness and
principle there could be without my stiffness and particularity. I
know I have often been very unnecessarily disagreeable and
disapproving, and I hope I am shaken out of it in time.'

'Dear Mettie, no one is like you,' cried Cherry, with a little
effusion, stretching out her hand, and laying it on her sister's
shoulder. 'Oh, if we had not all been so vile while you were away!'

'It would not have made any difference, my dear! It would be
impossible to leave Felix without help. And think of Theodore!'

Alda muttered something, that no one would hear, about asylums; and
the tell-tale tears coming again, Wilmet sprang up, and bending down
to kiss Cherry, declared in her most authoritative voice that nothing
should be said to the younger children, nor to any one out of the
house; then picked up the tea-cups, and carried them in.

Excitements were, however, not yet over for the day. A telegram was
put into Alda's hands, containing the words--

'A. T. is an unmitigated brute. I sail for N. Y. to-night. All will
be right when I come back.'

The mysterious hint restored Alda at once to all the privileges of
the reigning heroine!

CHAPTER XX

VALE LESTON

'The way to make thy son rich is to fill
His mind with rest before his trunk with riches;
For wealth without contentment climbs a hill,
To feel those tempests that fly over ditches,
But if thy son can make ten pounds his measure,
Then all thou addest may be called his treasure.'
GEORGE HERBERT.

'I say, Felix, you've not told me about Vale Leston.'

The two brothers were established under the lee of an old boat,
beneath the deep shadow of the red earth cliffs, festooned with ivy,
wild clematis, everlasting pea, thrift, and samphire. Not far off,
niched beneath the same cliff, were two or three cottage lodging-
houses, two-storied, with rough grey slate roofs, glaring white
walls, and green shutters to the windows that looked out over the
shingly beach to the lazily rippling summer sea.

Ewmouth was a lazy place. Felix had felt half asleep through the
earlier days of his stay, and Lance seemed to be lulled into a
continual doze whenever he was unoccupied, and that was almost
always. It had grieved his elder brother to see this naturally
vivacious being so inert and content with inaction, only strolling
about a little in early morning and late evening, and languid and
weary, if not actually suffering, during the heat and glare of the
day. He was now, with his air-pillow and a railway rug, lying on the
beach beside Felix, who with his safety inkstand planted in the sand,
was at work condensing the parliamentary debates for the
Pursuivant, and was glad to perceive that he was so far alive as to
be leaning on his elbow, slowly shovelling the sand or smaller
pebbles with the frail tenement of a late crab, and it was another
good sign to hear his voice in a voluntary inquiry about Vale Leston.