Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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

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'No, that you can't be, Alda, while he is so good and true.'

'But he says he must sell out! Think of that! Never was anybody so
taken in as I have been!'

'Don't talk so, Alda. It is just as if you had engaged yourself to a
Life-guardsman and nothing else.'

'I wonder how you would like to be buried in some horrid wild place
in America, where you would never see anybody!'

'One would not want to see anybody but him.'

'That's your nonsense! How tired of it one would be!'

'There would be no time. It would be so nice to do everything for him
oneself!'

'In some horrid uncivilised place, with no servants! I'm not going to
be a drudge. It is all very well for you, who like it, and have no
notion of society, but for me--! And there he is furious to take me
out. Men grow so wild and rough too in such places. You never saw
anything blaze like his eyes!'

'I don't understand you. Could not you trust yourself anywhere with
him?'

'You have no right to say such things,' pouted Alda, 'only because I
have a little common prudence. Some one must have it!'

There was no denying that life in the far west would be a foolish
thing either for or with Alda; and Felix thought so when Ferdinand
came to him for consultation over the letters that made it finally
clear that Alfred Travis had appropriated everything available but
half a block of unreclaimed land on the wrong side of America, and a
few thousands invested in Peter Brown's firm; and what was worse, the
sudden failure of the supplies had occasioned serious debts.
Ferdinand's own plan was to clear these off with the price of his
commission, and take Alda out with him to rule in American luxury
over the unbounded resources of the magnificent land, the very name
and scent of which had awakened in him his old prairie-land
instincts, and her absolute refusal and even alarm at his enjoyment
had greatly mortified him. 'She should not even have to rough it,' he
said. 'I could make her like a queen out there, if she would only
believe it.'

Felix could not but think Alda might be wise, though it was not
pretty wisdom. Go out alone and make the fortune! Ferdinand did not
seem to think the separation possible. He said he would rather go to
work in Peter Brown's office, where he had already a hold; and his
familiarity with Spanish would secure him usefulness and promotion,
and five or six years would bring them into a position to marry. He
did not look fit for desk-work in London, but his mind was made up to
any privation, so that he could be in reach of Alda, and hope to give
her what he had once thought easily within his grasp.

Hearing this, Felix propounded an old longing of his--namely, to make
the Pursuivant a daily paper, and use means for promptitude of
intelligence, such as might neutralise the unpopularity it was
incurring on behalf of Mr. Smith. Rumours of a rival paper were
afloat; but if Ferdinand would throw in his capital, and undertake
the joint editorship and proprietorship, the hold that the Pursuivant
already had warranted quite success enough to permit an immediate
marriage. There would be no need to be concerned with the shop; they
might take a cottage in the country, and he need not ride in so often
as every day. In fact, it was his capital rather than his personal
assistance that was wanted. He caught at the notion. He was too
Transatlantic to have any dignities to stand upon, and he said almost
with tears in his eyes that he could never be so happy as in working
with Felix; and he went off to the Fortinbras Arms, only lamenting
that it was too late to tell Alda; while Felix, on his side, could
not help knocking at Geraldine's door. Within he found another
auditor, Wilmet, who still always helped Cherry to bed. 'It will be
the making of the Pursuivant,' he said. How often I have sighed,
"If I had but capital, or Mr. Froggatt enterprise!"'

'Ah, Felicissimo mio, that Pursuivant is as dear to you as any
brother or sister of us all!'

'So it ought to be, for it has been the making of us.--Come Cherry,
confess that you had rather see Pur triumph, than--'

'Than you at Vale Leston,' said Cherry, not knowing what a bolt she
shot. 'It would be grand to steal a march on the enemy!'

'And safe?' asked Wilmet.

Felix demonstrated to the comprehending ears of his sisters the
circulation that he could securely reckon upon.

'There would be an immense deal more to do,' said Cherry; but at that
he smiled, full of vigour.

'True; but we should have a larger staff. There would be Fernan--'

'For the racing articles,' said Cherry dryly.

'And a good deal besides, which only needs application; and that he
has.'

'He has great resolution,' said Cherry, 'but he always seems to me a
sort of Christian panther of the wilderness; and you seem to be
getting him into a cage.'

'Not such a cage as Peter Brown's office; and besides it is only when
he is lashed up that the panther leaps about his den. Generally he is
a quiet determined animal, with the practical Yankee element strong
in him. It may be true, as Edgar says, that he does not see an inch
on either side of his nose, but that only makes him go right away in
the line he does see. I know he will work well.'

'If Alda--' said Cherry.

'Oh, she will be willing. A cottage in the country! Besides, it is
the only reasonable possibility.'

'I should think it would satisfy her,' said Wilmet.

'And then--'

Everybody understood that 'And then.' It was Alda's pretension to be
at the head of the family that was the chief obstacle to Wilmet's
abdicating that post. Without her, Geraldine, stronger and less lame,
might undertake the charge of the comparatively few permanently at
home. Might indeed hardly expressed the amount of uncertainty as to
her capability; and yet but for that 'And then,' Wilmet would hardly
have yielded as she did the next day.

Stella had a blackberry fever. Possibly Wilmet's frugal regimen
engendered a hankering for fruit, or it might have been the mere love
of enterprise that rendered her eagerly desirous of an expedition to
a lane where splendid blackberries were reported to grow. Since the
day she bad been lost, she had never been allowed to go out with
Bernard; but in Lance she had acquired a much more complaisant
playfellow, who not only promised his escort to the lane, but the
purchase of the sugar, and aid in the concoction of the jam; but he
durst not venture till late in the day, and thereupon John Harewood
suggested, 'Would not your sister be at liberty by that time?'

'Lance can take care of me,' said Stella; but in her eyes the whole
romance of the expedition was destroyed by his acquiescence. 'We'll
catch her as she comes out, and make her go with us.'

'Among all the girls?' laughed Cherry; and Captain Harewood coloured,
shook his head, and shuddered.

'The girls won't hurt me,' said Lance, 'not if there were twenty
hundred. I'll bring her from the very teeth of them. Jack may wait
round the corner if he likes.'

The party waited till their patience was worn to a thread for the
opening of the tall olive door, until Lance valiantly resolved on a
single-handed assault, and had just mounted the steps when it
suddenly opened, and he found himself obstructing the path of a swarm
of little girls and big, who all stared, most giggled, and some
greeted him. To the least of these he confided that he wanted his
sister, when she innocently piloted him to the school-room, where
Wilmet, with her hat on, was keeping guard over three victims
detained by unfinished tasks. Every one gazed at him as if he had
been a sort of Actaeon; but nothing daunted, he answered his sister's
anxious exclamation. 'Nothing is the matter; but we are going for a
walk, and want you.--Miss Maria,' he cried, as the sound of the
unfeminine step and voice brought in one of the heads, 'please do let
off these impositions, we do so want her!'

'What, you here! This is an invasion!' she added good-humouredly. 'Am
I to take it as a convalescent's privilege?'

'Thank you, Ma'am,' said Lance, bowing with his audacious sweetness;
'and please let me have Wilmet. I'd do the impositions myself, only I
don't know French.'

The victims tittered uncontrollably, and Miss Maria laughed, as one
who, like her neighbours, descried why Wilmet was in request. 'I will
attend to these exercises, Miss Underwood,' she said. 'You must not
lose this fine evening for the idleness of these young ladies.'

'Indeed, Ma'am!' began Wilmet, in a blaze of colour. 'I never thought
of such a thing.'

'I daresay not, my dear,' said Miss Maria; 'but now you had better do
it. I wish you a pleasant walk.'

'Lance, how could you?' broke out Wilmet, as they descended the
steps. 'I never was so ashamed in my life.'

'Never mind. We are going to get blackberries at Mile End Lane, and I
shall lose Stella to a dead certainty if you don't come and look
after her.'

'My dear Lance, I can't go all that way without their knowing it at
home.'

'Oh! that's all settled with Cherry.'

'And where's Alda?'

'Off somewhere with her Don. Come, W. W., or who knows whether Stel
and I shall ever come home?'

By this time they had reached the corner where Captain Harewood and
Stella were lying perdu, and Wilmet made no more resistance, only
keeping the little girl's not altogether willing hand till they came
to the stile leading to the field and woodland, and then Stella's
durance ended, and her adventures with Lance became as free as though
no grave 'sister' had been near.

Perhaps, since Wilmet had perceived that surrender was her fate, she
was willing that the summons should be over and a mutual
understanding reached, so as to waste no more of the time already so
short. However that might be, though the talk began with Lance's
health and Cherry's talents, there was a tendency towards topics
closer still; nor did she start aside, but rather listened pensively
as to a strain that touched her quiet soul more deeply than she
showed in word or gesture.

The blackberry lane was deep and hollow, the brambles outstretching
their arching wreaths, laden with heavy clusters of shining fruit,
glossy black, scarlet, or green, sometimes with a lingering pearly
flower. A step-ladder stile led down into it from the field, and on
the topmost step, her back against the rail, sat Wilmet. On the
lowest, turned at right angles to the first, was John Harewood,
looking up to her; while scrambling on the bank, contending with the
brambles, were the younger ones; Lance, unable to help now and then
sending a furtive glance through the tangle.

It was a pretty sight. Sitting aloft, Wilmet was framed by an archway
of meeting branches, with nothing but the pale opal of the evening
sky behind the beautifully-shaped head and shoulders, and the clear-
cut features, drooping just enough to enhance her own peculiar modest
dignity, and give it a soft graciousness that had once been wanting.
Her dress was the same in which Captain Harewood had first seen her--
a plain black hat, a pale fawn-coloured skirt, and a loose open
jacket over a white cambric vest and sleeves, only that now there had
been a budding forth of dainty fresh knots of rose-coloured ribbon at
the throat and down the front, as though a slight sensibility to the
vanities as well as the cares of life had begun to dawn on the grave
young house-mother.

Leaning back against the rough rail to assist the hand of the
climber, John Harewood looked up with as much worship in his
countenance as ever good man feels for the being he loves in
all her maiden glory. Thus they had been for some moments, only
broken by the children's distant calls, till the fervent words broke
from him, 'May I not speak now?'

No word of reply sounded, but the delicate lips quivered and parted;
the eyes were cast down, and seemed to swim in a soft mist of
brightness; the queenly head bent, and the roseate tint on the cheek
deepened and spread, while something came over the face that caused
the low glad exclamation, 'You sweetest, I do believe you can love
me!'

A tremulous smile, a glitter of tears on the eye-lashes--a whisper,
'You won't let me be able to help it!'

Then the hands were clasped, and no words but 'Thank you' would come
to the young man's lips ; and then, and the sound reminded him, he
bowed his head, adding, 'Thank God!'

'Thank God!' echoed Wilmet softly. 'For indeed,' she added, as she
let her eyes fully meet his ardent gaze, 'I know you will help me to
do whatever may be His Will.

'He helping me,' said John Harewood; and there was a reverent silence
of untold peace and bliss, first interrupted by his long sigh of
infinite relief and joy, and then, as he looked and looked with all
his soul in his eyes, an exclamation, almost in spite of himself,
'You beautiful creature, you are mine indeed!'

Her colour deepened, but her lips moved into an odd little smile, out
of which came the words, 'Isn't that rather foolish?'

'I couldn't help it--I beg your pardon,' said he, reddening. 'You do
look so lovely! but indeed it is not the externals only, but what
looks through.'

'And that is what makes me afraid,' said Wilmet, as the dew gathered
on her eye-lashes. 'I don't think I'm so nice as you take me for.'

'Probably you don't,' he said, smiling.

'But just hear me,' she said, laying her hand on his, as if to
silence him. 'You ought to know what all the others would tell you if
they were not too kind. I know they all feel me strict, and managing
and domineering! Yes, it makes you laugh, but I really am. I don't
think you would have liked me at all if you had not seen me out of my
usual life, with only Lance--' and as all she said only made him
press her hand the closer-- 'You see, I've always had to do things.
Ever since I was a little girl I have had to keep order, great boys
and all, and I know it has made me disagreeable;' then in answer to
some sound more incredulously negative than words, 'Yes indeed! Felix
and all go to Cherry with whatever comes very near them. She hasn't
been hardened and sharpened and dried like me, and wasn't stupid to
begin with.'

'Cherry is very clever, but she is--not--'

'Now don't. I know how it is. I know I'm horribly pretty, and I've
been a wonder always for keeping the house going, and doing for them
all, and so you fancy me everything charming, but I do so wish you
could really know, as my brothers do, how it takes out of one all
that is nice and sweet, and that people like.'

'People?' said John, smiling; but seeing that a mirthful even though
a loving answer was not what she wanted, he gravely said, 'I do
understand, dearest, that you have had to be too much of an authority
to be altogether the companion and confidante that Geraldine is free
to be, but perhaps I feel that this renders you more wholly and
altogether my own.'

'Oh?'--a strange half sob--'do you know, I had just begun to know how
solitary I was when Lance was so happy to get Robina, when you--'

'And if I told you all, you would know that I was feeling a certain
loneliness at home, and that if you had asked my sisters they would
have said that Jack was not the harmonious element he appeared.
There--there's a pleasing prospect!'

'But you'll not let me be masterful?' said Wilmet earnestly.

'Just as much as is good for me--for us,' he said smiling.

Then after a moment's silence, he took out of his pocket a little
box, and making a table of her lap, took out a ring of twined ruby
and diamonds, such as could not but startle the instincts of Wilmet's
soul.

'Oh, it is a great deal too beautiful! Please, I couldn't--'

'You must. It was my mother's.'

'Then she cannot like to part with it.'

'Did you not know that she died when I was five years old? Look!' and
he showed where within the lid of the box was written, 'For my Little
Johnny's Wife. August 1839. L. H.'

'Ought you not to keep it till--' faltered Wilmet, growing crimson as
she found what she was saying.

'No,' he said decidedly, 'not after this. When I spoke to my father
that Sunday evening, he unlocked his desk and gave me this, which I
had not seen since I remember playing with it on my mother's bed. You
will wear it, dearest. You will let me have the pleasure of knowing
you have it on.'

The answer was the drawing off of her glove, and he fitted it on, but
it was rather loose. 'I am afraid it will want a guard,' he said.

'I'll ask Felix whether I may take one of Mamma's,' she said.

For the shapely notable fingers had never worn a ring before this
almost sacred pledge; and the few jewels either too valuable or not
valuable enough for the parents to have parted with in times of need
had never been touched.

'Do,' he said; 'I shall like that. The year 1839. Was not that the
year a certain little girl was born?'

'The month. Our birthday is on the 19th.' And the coincidence gave
all the foolish delight such facts do under the circumstances.

'Was this long before she died?' asked Wilmet.

'The last day of that August. You never saw her brass in the
cloister?'

'No; I never guessed that you were not Mrs. Harewood's son, though I
wondered at your being so unlike the rest.'

'She has been kindness itself,' he warmly said. 'My father did well
both for himself and me in marrying.'

'Tell me of your own mother,' said Wilmet, looking from the sparkling
stones to the initials. 'L.-- What was her name?'

'Lucy. Lucy Oglandby. My father was tutor at Oglandby Hall. There was
a long attachment, through much opposition; and even when he was made
priest-vicar after waiting six years, her father could not consent.
After six years more, when her health was failing, he gave a sort of
sanction on his death-bed. The rest of the family contrived to get
her fortune so tied up that after her death it was of no use to any
one till I came of age. She only lived seven years after her
marriage, and then the Oglandbys wanted to take possession of me, and
I fancy that drove my father into marrying.'

'Was it with them you went to stay?'

'Yes, my father makes a point of it; and they have a turn for
patronising me, if I would turn my back on home.'

'Now I understand better,' said Wilmet.

You understand how much you were wanting to me,' he said, rightly
interpreting the words. 'After five years' absence, while my sisters
were growing up, you can perceive that dear, fond, and hearty as our
house is, it did not fulfil all that perhaps I had been rather
unreasonable in expecting. O Wilmet, this time of leave would have
been very different if you had not come to the precincts!'

And so they fell back on the exquisite time present, which neither
wished to disturb by looking beyond; and perhaps John felt as though
his bird had scarcely perched, and any endeavours to hold it might
make it flutter loose, while she was too glad of the calm and repose
to renew the struggle between conflicting claims.

At last, with basket laden with dark fruit, and lips vying with the
babes in the wood, Stella was launched on them by Lance, when his
sense of time overpowered his half shy, half diverted respect for
their bliss. He was very curious, but had to be satisfied with
Captain Harewood's manner of tossing Stella over the style, and
bright look at himself.

They did not get into the town till the chimes of half-past seven
were pealing. Captain Harewood hurried into the hotel, to prepare for
the evening; and Wilmet was mounting the stairs, still under the
spell of her newly-found joy, when she was startled by Alda's voice
in a key of querulous anger.

'Exactly like you, always laying out for attention.'

'What's this?' said Wilmet, as she saw Alda in her habit, standing
with her back to the open door, and Geraldine leaning on the table,
trembling and tearful, crimson and burning even to passion in her
panting reply, 'I don't know--except that he helped me in from the
garden.'

'That's what I say,' retorted Alda. 'She is always putting herself
forward to be interesting and get waited on. All affectation. I don't
know such a flirt anywhere.'

'Hush, Alda! you are insulting Cherry,' said Wilmet, in her tone of
command.

'Take care of yourself, Wilmet,' cried Alda; 'it is the way she goes
on all day with Captain Harewood--reading poetry, and drawing, and
all.'

'Captain Harewood knows,' said Wilmet, coming to the support of the
quivering Geraldine, 'that the kinder he is to Cherry the better I
like it.'

'Oh, if you do, it is your own concern. I only spoke for your sake.
And Alda marched off, while Wilmet's strong tender arms helped Cherry
into her own room, and tended her through one of those gusts, part
repentant, part hysterical, which had belonged to her earlier
girlhood, though the present was now enhanced by the tumult of
insulted maidenliness. Formerly, Wilmet had not treated these attacks
on the soft system, but now all her bracing severity was gone.
Greatly incensed with Alda, she gave her whole self to sympathy with
the victim, showing herself so ineffably sweet and loving, that
Cherry felt a thrill of delicious surprise; and as her eye lit on the
glittering ring, a little ecstatic cry, still slightly hysterical,
welcomed the token.

'O Wilmet, oh! You have! You have--'

'To be sure I have,' answered Wilmet, not in the lest heeding what
she said in her anxiety to calm her sister. 'It is all right, if only
you will not go and be silly about it.'

The woman was so much more than her words, that their odd simplicity,
coming from the grand-looking figure bending over her in tender
solicitude, touched Cherry the more, and she threw her arms round her
sister's neck, whispering, 'Oh! I am so glad!'

Poor Wilmet! At that moment all her gladness had gone into a weight
like lead on her heart, though it only made her more gentle. 'Dear
Cherry,' she softly said, 'don't talk of anything to upset you. Will
you be good and lie quite still while I take off my things, and then
I'll come and dress you? You must not be knocked up to-night.'

'Oh! I had much rather stay here!'

'No indeed! John would be so disappointed. He does like you so much,
and I always depend on you to make it pleasant for him. You can't
send word that Alda has been scolding you.'

'Oh dear! why can't I behave decently to her the moment we are alone
together?'

'Don't begin on that, for pity's sake, or you'll get crying again,'
broke out Wilmet, in her natural voice. ''Tis she can't behave
properly to anybody--that's all; so don't think any more about
anything, like a good child, but lie still till I come back.'

So up went Wilmet, not rejoicing in her room-mate, whom she found, as
usual, all injured innocence and self-justification.

'You have been petting Cherry all this time! She is quite spoilt
among you! It is quite true what I said, though she didn't like it.
In society, I never saw a more arrant flirt, with her pathetic ill-
used airs. Why, Ferdinand actually found fault to-day with my manner
to her!'

Save for the effects, Wilmet was glad to hear it. 'Well, Alda, it is
not always kind.'

'I only don't fuss and coax her; I see through her better than you
do. She is the sharp one. As I told Ferdinand, it is I who have
reason to complain of his manner to her, only I know it is not his
fault. If there were no other objection to this preposterous scheme
of Felix's, she would be a reason against it.'

'For shame, Alda! You don't consider what you are saying of your
sister.'

'I do!' said Alda. 'I have been more in the world than you, Wilmet,
and I know what comes of sticking oneself down close to one's family,
especially when there is that sort of spoilt invalid, backed up in
all kinds of unreasonable expectations. I advise you to take care,
Wilmet; you don't know what goes on in your absence. I should not
wonder if it never came to an engagement after all.'

At that moment Felix's step and knock were at the door. Wilmet went
to it, and both her hands were clasped in her brother's. 'My Wilmet,
my dear, this is well!'

Then Alda turned from her glass and understood. 'What? He has spoken?
O Wilmet, and you never told me!'

'I had not time.'

'And what a splendid ring! but it is not a proper engaged-ring. You
can't wear it.'

'I must! He wishes it. It was his mother's--Felix, may I have one of
Mamma's for a guard?'

'May you!' said Felix, smiling.

'I should like you to give it to me. Come in.'

He came to inspect the unlocking of the ponderous old inlaid
dressing-case, with velvet-lined compartments mostly empty, or only
with little labelled papers of first curls, down as far as 'Edward
Clement, 1842,' after which stern reality had absorbed sentiment--a
sad declension from the blue enamel shrine with a pearl cypher, where
Felix's downy flax reposed.

To do Alda justice, there was no greed in her nature, and she even
offered Wilmet a turquoise hoop of her own, instead of a little
battered ring of three plaited strands of gold, which their mother
had worn till her widowhood, and they believed to be the ring of her
betrothal. And when Wilmet suggested that the locket would delight
Cherry, Alda's ready assent inspired the hope that she felt some
compunction for her jealous unkindness.