The Three Brides

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  Then some break occurred, and Frank moved up to her. "Your last evening! How little I have seen of you!"

  "Little indeed!"

  "I called, but you were at the Strangeways'."

  "They are very kind to me. When is your holiday?"

  "Not till spring, but I may get a few days in the autumn: you will be at home?"

  "As far as I know."

  "If I thought for a moment you cared to see me; but you have shown few signs of wishing it of late."

  "Frank-if I could make you understand-"

  They were walking towards a recess, when Lady Tyrrell fastened upon Raymond. "Pray find my sister; she forgets that we have to be at Lady Granby's-Oh! are you there, Lenore! Will you see her down, Mr. Poynsett? Well, Frank, did you get as far as you intended?"

  And she went down on his arm, her last words being, "Take care of yourself till we meet at home. For this one year I call Sirenwood home-then!"

  Raymond and Lenore said no more to one another. The ladies were put into the carriage. The elder brother bade Frank take care of Cecil, and started for Westminster with the poor lad's blank and disappointed face still before his eyes, hoping at least it was well for him, but little in love with life, or what it had to offer.

  CHAPTER XXI. Awfully Jolly

  When life becomes a spasm,

  And history a whiz, If that is not sensation,

  I don't know what it is.-LEWIS CARROLL

  "Is Lady Rosamond at home?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "Nor Mrs. Charnock?"

  "No, ma'am; they are both gone down to the Rectory."

  "Would you ask whether Mrs. Poynsett would like to see me?"

  "I'll inquire, ma'am, if you will walk in," said Mr. Jenkins moved by the wearied and heated looks of Miss Vivian, who had evidently come on foot at the unseasonable visiting hour of 11.15 a.m.

  The drawing-room was empty, but, with windows open on the shady side, was most inviting to one who had just become unpleasantly aware that her walking capacity had diminished under the stress of a London season, and that a very hampering one. She was glad of the rest, but it lasted long enough to be lost in the uncomfortable consciousness that hers was too truly a morning call, and she would have risen and escaped had not that been worse.

  At last the door of communication opened, and to her amazement Mrs. Poynsett was pushed into the room by her maid in a wheeled chair. "Yes, my dear," she said, in reply to Eleonora's exclamation of surprise and congratulation, "this is my dear daughters' achievement; Rosamond planned and Anne contrived, and they both coaxed my lazy bones."

  "I am so very glad! I had no notion I should see you out of your room."

  "Such is one's self-importance! I thought the fame would have reached you at least."

  "Ah, you don't know how little I see of any one I can hear from! And now I am afraid I have disturbed you too early."

  "Oh no, my dear; it was very good and kind, and I am only grieved that you had so long to wait; but we will make the most of each other now. You will stay to luncheon?"

  "Thank you, indeed I am afraid I must not: papa would not like it, for no one knows where I am."

  "You have taken this long walk in the heat, and are going back! I don't like it, my dear; you look fagged. London has not agreed with you."

  Mrs. Poynsett rang her little hand-bell, and ordered in biscuits and wine, and would have ordered the carriage but for Lenore's urgent entreaties to the contrary, amounting to an admission that she wished her visit to be unnoticed at home. This was hardly settled before there was a knock at the door, announcing baby's daily visit; and Miss Julia was exhibited by her grandmamma with great satisfaction until another interruption came, in a call from the doctor, who only looked in occasionally, and had fallen on this unfortunate morning.

  "Most unlucky," said Mrs. Poynsett. "I am afraid you will doubt about coming again, and I have not had one word about our Frankie."

  "He is very well. I saw him at a party the night before we left town. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Poynsett."

  "You will come again?"

  "If I can; but the house is to be full of visitors. If I don't, you will know it is because I can't."

  "I shall be thankful for whatever you can give me. I wish I could save you that hot walk in the sun."

  But as Mrs. Poynsett was wheeled into her own room some compensation befell Eleonora, for she met Julius in the hall, and he offered to drive her to the gates of Sirenwood in what he called 'our new plaything, the pony carriage,' on his way to a clerical meeting.

  "You are still here?" she said.

  "Till Tuesday, when we go to the Rectory to receive the two De Lancey boys for the holidays."

  "How Mrs. Poynsett will miss you."

  "Anne is a very efficient companion," said Julius, speaking to her like one of the family; "the pity is that she will be so entirely lost to us when Miles claims her."

  "Then they still mean to settle in Africa?"

  "Her heart has always been there, and her father is in treaty for a farm for him, so I fear there is little hope of keeping them. I can't think what the parish will do without her. By the bye, how does Joe Reynolds get on with his drawings?"

  "I must show them to you. He is really very clever. We sent him to the School of Art twice a week, and he has got on wonderfully. I begin to believe in my academician."

  "So you don't repent?"

  "I think not. As far as I can judge he is a good boy still. I make him my escort to church, so that I am sure of him there. Renville would have taken him for a boy about his studio, and I think he will go there eventually; but Camilla thinks he may be an attraction at the bazaar, and is making him draw for it."

  "I was in hopes that the bazaar would have blown over, but the Bishop has been demanding of Fuller and his churchwardens how soon they mean to put the building in hand, and this seems to be their only notion of raising money."

  "I am very glad of this opportunity of asking what you think I had better do about it. Your wife takes no part in it?"

  "Certainly not; but I doubt whether that need be a precedent for you. I am answerable for her, and you could hardly keep out of it without making a divided household."

  "I see the difference, and perhaps I have made myself quite unpleasant enough already."

  "As the opposition?"

  "And Camilla has been very kind in giving me much more freedom than I expected, and pacifying papa. She let me go every Friday evening to help Lady Susan Strangeways at her mothers' meeting."

  "Lady Susan Strangeways! I have heard of her."

  "She has been my comforter and help all this time. She is all kindness and heartiness,-elbow-deep in everything good. She got up at five o'clock to finish the decorations at St. Maurice's, and to- day she is taking five hundred school-children to Windsor forest."

  "Is she the mother of the young man at Backsworth?"

  "Yes," said Eleonora, in rather a different tone. "Perhaps she goes rather far; and he has flown into the opposite extreme, though they say he is improving, and has given up the turf, and all that sort of thing."

  "Was he at home? I heard he was on leave."

  "He was said to be at home, but I hardly ever saw him. He was always out with his own friends when I was there."

  "I should not suppose Lady Susan's pursuits were much in his line. Is not one of the daughters a Sister?"

  "Yes, at St. Faith's. She was my great friend. The younger ones are nice girls, but have not much in them. Camilla is going to have them down for the bazaar."

  "What, do they patronize bazaars?"

  "Everything that is doing they patronize. I have known them be everywhere, from the Drawing-room to a Guild-meeting in a back slum, and all with equal appetite. That is one reason why I fear I shall not see much of your mother; they are never tired, and I shall never get out alone. The house is to be full of people, and we are to be very gay."

  She spoke with a tone that betrayed how little pleasure she expected, though i
t strove to be uncomplaining; and Julius, who had learnt something of poor Frank's state of jealous misery, heartily wished the Strangeways family further, regarding the intimacy as a manoeuvre of Lady Tyrrell's, and doubting how far all Eleonora's evident struggles would keep her out of the net; and though while talking to her he had not the slightest doubt of her sincerity, he had not long set her down at the lodge before he remembered that she was a Vivian.

  Meantime Rosamond, carrying some medicament to old Betty Reynolds, found the whole clan in excitement at the appearance of Joe in all his buttons, looking quite as honest and innocent, though a good deal more civilized, than when he was first discovered among the swine.

  "Only to think," said his great-grandmother, "that up in London all they could gie to he was a bad penny."

  "It is the bronze medal, my lady," said Joshua, with a blush; "the second prize for crayons in our section."

  "Indeed," cried Rosamond. "You are a genius, Joe, worthy of your namesake. There are many that would be proud to have the grandson you have, Betty."

  "Tubby sure," added an aunt-in-law, "'tis cheap come by. Such things to make a young lad draught. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, they did oughter. Shut it up, Josh; don't be showing it to the lady-'tis nothing but the bare back of a sweep."

  "My lady and Miss Vivian have seen it," said Joshua, blushing. "'Tis torso, my lady, from a cast from the museum."

  "A black-looking draught," repeated the grandmother. "I tells Joe if he drawed like King Geaarge's head up at Wil'sbro' on the sign, with cheeks like apples, and a gould crown atop, he'd arn his bread."

  "All in good time, Betty. He can't colour till he can draw. I'm glad to see him looking so well."

  "Yes, my lady, he do have his health torrablish, though he lives in a underground sort of a place; and they fine servants puts upon he shameful."

  "Granny!" muttered Joshua, in expostulation.

  "He's a brave boy, and does not mind roughing it, so he can get on," said Rosamond.

  "And the ladies are very good to me," said the boy.

  "Show Lady Rosamond the draught you did of Miss Vivian, like a hangel," suggested the aunt.

  The rising artist coloured, saying, "Please, my lady, don't name it to no one. I would not have shown it, but little Bess, she pulled down all my things on the floor when I was not looking. It is from memory, my lady, as she looks when she's doing anything for Sir Harry."

  It was a very lovely sketch-imperfect but full of genius, and wonderfully catching, the tender, wistful look which was often on Eleonora's face, as she waited on her father. Rosamond longed that Frank should see it; but the page was very shy about it, and his grandmother contrasted it with the performances of the painter 'who had draughted all the farmers' wives in gould frames for five pound a head; but satin gownds and gold chains was extry.'

  But Joe had brought her a pound of tea, and an 'image' for her mantelpiece, which quite satisfied her, though the image, being a Parian angel of Thorwaldsen's, better suited his taste than its surroundings.

  The whole scene served Rosamond for a narrative in her most lively style for Mrs. Poynsett's amusement that evening. There was the further excitement of a letter from Miles, and the assurance that he would be at home in November. Anne had become far less chary of communications from his letters than she had at first been, but of this one she kept back so large a portion in public, that the instant Mrs. Poynsett had bidden them good night and been wheeled away, Rosamond put a hand on each shoulder, and looking into her face, said, "Now, Anne, let us hear! Miles has found Archie Douglas. It is no use pretending. Fie, Mrs. Anne, why can't you tell me?"

  "I was not to tell any one but Julius."

  "Well, I'm Julius. Besides, wasn't I at the very bottom of the tracing him out? Haven't I the best right to know whether it is bad or good?"

  "Not bad, I am sure," said Julius, quickly and anxiously.

  "Oh, no, not bad," answered Anne. "He has seen him-had him on board for a night."

  "Where?"

  "Off Durban. But this whole sheet about it is marked 'Private-only for Julius,' so I could say nothing about it before your mother. I have hardly glanced at it myself as yet, but I think he says Mr. Douglas made him promise not to tell her or Joanna Bowater."

  "Not tell Jenny!" cried Rosamond. "And you said it was not bad. He must have gone and married!"

  "I do not think that is it," said Anne; "but you shall hear. Miles says:-'I have at last seen our poor Cousin Archie. I told you I was following up your brother Sandie's hint about the agents for the hunters; and at last I fell in with a merchant, who, on my inquiry, showed me an invoice that I could have sworn to as in Archie's hand, and described his white hair. It seems he has been acting as manager on an ostrich farm for the last three years, far up the country. So I lost no time in sending up a note to him, telling him, if he had not forgotten old times, to come down and see me while I was lying off Durban Bay. I heard no more for ten days, and had got in the stores and was to sail the next day, thinking he had given us all up, when a boat hailed us just come over the bar. I saw Archie's white head, and in ten minutes I had him on deck. 'For Heaven's sake-am I cleared, Miles?' was the first thing he said; and when I could not say that he was, it went to my heart to see how the eager look sank away, and he was like a worn-down man of fifty. Poor fellow, I found he had ridden two hundred miles, with the hope that I had brought him news that his innocence was proved, and the revulsion was almost more than he could bear. You see, he had no notion that we thought him dead, and so he took the entire absence of any effort to trace him as acquiescence in his guilt; and when he found out how it was, he laid me under the strongest injunctions to disclose to no one that he is living-not that he fears any results, but that he says it would only disturb every one and make them wretched-"

  "He must have gone and married. The wretch!" broke in Rosamond.

  "No, oh no!" cried Anne. "Only hear the rest. 'I told him that I could not see that at all, and that there was a very warm and tender remembrance of him among us all, and he nearly broke down and said, 'For Heaven's sake then, Miles, let them rest in that! There's more peace for them so.' I suppose I looked-I am sure I did not speak- as though I were a little staggered as to whether he were ashamed to be known; for he drew himself up in the old way I should have known anywhere, and told me there was no reason I should fear to shake hands with him; however his name might be blasted at home, he had done nothing to make himself unworthy of his mother and Jenny-and there was a sob again. So I let him know that up to my last letters from home Jenny was unmarried. I even remembered those descriptive words of yours, Nannie, 'living in patient peacefulness and cheerfulness on his memory.'"

  "I was called on deck just then, so I gave him my home photograph-book, and left him with it. I found him crying like a child over it when I came back; I was obliged to strip it of all my best for him, for I could not move him. We went through the whole of the old story, to see if there were any hope; and when he found that Tom Vivian was dead, and George Proudfoot too, without a word about him, he seemed to think it hopeless. He believes that Proudfoot at least, if not Moy, was deeply in debt to Vivian, though not to that extent, and that Vivian probably incited them to 'borrow' from my mother's letter. He was very likely to undertake to get the draft cashed for them, and not to account for the difference. It may have helped to hasten his catastrophe. Moy I never should have suspected; Archie says he should once have done so as little; but he was a plausible fellow, and would do things on the sly, while all along appearing to old Proudfoot as a mentor to George. Archie seemed to feel his prosperity the bitterest pill of all-reigning like one of the squirearchy at Proudfoot Lawn-a magistrate forsooth, with his daughter figuring as an heiress. One thing worth note-Archie says, that when it was too late, he remembered that the under-clerk, Gadley, might not have gone home, and might have heard him explain that the letter had turned up.'"

  "Gadley? Why that's the landlord of the 'Three Pigeons!'" exclaime
d Rosamond. "It is Mr. Moy's house, and he supports him through thick and thin."

  "Yes," said Julius, "the magistrates have been on the point of taking away his license, but Moy always stands up for him. There is something suspicious in that."

  "I heard Miss Moy, with my own ears, tell Mrs. Duncombe that he was the apple of her father's eye," cried Rosamond.

  "He's bribed! he's bribed! Oh, I see it all. Well, go on, Anne. If Archie isn't at home before he is a year older-"

  Anne went on. "'He allowed that he would have done more wisely in facing it out and standing his trial; but he said, poor fellow, that he felt as if the earth had given way under him. There was not a soul near who believed him; they brought his father's history against him, and moreover he had been at the races, and had been betting, though in fact he had won, and not lost, and the 201. he had become possessed of was his capital, besides the little he could draw out of the bank

  "'If he could only have seen Jenny in London she would have turned him back. Indeed, that first stage was to consult her, but he fancied he saw the face of the Wil'sbro' Superintendent in a cab, and the instinct of avoiding arrest carried him to Southampton, where he got a steerage berth in a sailing vessel, and came out to the Cape. He has lived hard enough, but his Scots blood has stood him in good stead, and he has made something as an ivory-hunter, and now has a partnership in an ostrich farm in the Amatongula country. Still he held to it that it was better he should continue dead to all here, since Mr. Bowater would never forgive him; and the knowledge of his existence would only hinder Jenny's happiness. You should have seen the struggle with which he said that! He left me no choice, indeed; forbade a word to any one, until I suggested that I had a wife, and that my said wife and Julius had put me on the scent. He was immensely struck to find that my sweet Nan came from Glen Fraser. He said the evenings he spent there had done more to renew his home-sickness, and made him half mad after the sight or sound of us, than anything else had done, and I got him to promise to come and see us when we are settled in the bush. What should you say to joining him in ostrich-hatching? or would it be ministering too much to the vanities of the world? However, I'll do something to get him cleared, if it comes to an appeal to old Moy himself, when I come home. Meantime, remember, you are not at liberty to speak a word of this to any one but Julius, and, I suppose, his wife. I hope-' There, Rose, I beg your pardon."