Caroline, however, did not think that he was made quite so welcome at Kencroft as his exertion deserved. Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow were sitting in the drawing-room with the blinds down, presumably indulging in a Sunday nap in the heat of the afternoon, for the Colonel shook himself in haste, and his wife's cap was a little less straight than suited her serene dignity, and though they kissed and welcomed the mother, they were rather short and dry towards Bobus. They said the children had gone out walking, whereupon the two lads said they would try to meet them, and strolled out again.
This left the field free for Caroline to propose the taking the two girls to London with her.
"I am sure," said Ellen, "you have always been very kind to the children. But indeed, Caroline, I did not think you would have encouraged it."
"It?-I don't quite understand," said Caroline, wondering whether Ellen had suddenly taken an evangelically serious turn.
"There!" said the Colonel, "I told you she was not aware of it," and on her imploring cry of inquiry, Ellen answered, "Of this folly of Robert."
"Bobus, do you mean," she cried. "Oh!" as conviction flashed on her, "I never thought of _that_."
"I am sure you did not," said the Colonel kindly.
"But-but," she said, bewildered, "if-if you mean Esther-why did you send her over last night, and let him go out to find her now."
"She is safe, reading to Mrs. Coffinkey," said Ellen. "I did not know Robert was at home, or I should not have let her come without me."
"Esther is a very dear, sweet-looking girl," said Caroline. "If only she were any one else's daughter! Though that does not sound civil! But I know my dear husband had the strongest feeling about first cousins marrying."
"Yes, I trusted to your knowing that," said the Colonel. "And I rely on you not to be weak nor to make the task harder to us. Remembering, too," he added in a voice of sorrow and pity that made the words sound not unkind, "that even without the relationship, we should feel that there were strong objections."
"I know! My poor Bobus!" said Caroline, sadly. "That makes it such a pity she is his cousin. Otherwise she might do him so much good."
"I have not much faith in good done in that manner," said the Colonel.
Caroline thought him mistaken, but could not argue an abstract question, and came to the personal one. "But how far has it gone? How do you know about it? I see now that I might have detected it in his tone, but one never knows, when one's children grow up."
"The Colonel was obliged to tell him in the autumn that we did not approve of flirtations between cousins," said Mrs. Brownlow.
"And he answered-?"
"That flirtation was the last thing he intended," said the Colonel. "On which I told him that I would have no nonsense."
"Was that all?"
"Except that at Christmas he sent her, by way of card, a drawing that must have cost a large sum," said the Colonel. "We thought it better to let the child keep it without remark, for fear of putting things into her head; though I wrote and told him such expensive trumpery was folly that I was much tempted to forbid. So what does he do on Valentine's Day but send her a complete set of ornaments like little birds, in Genoa silver-exquisite things. Well, she was very good, dear child. We told her it was not nice or maidenly to take such valuable presents; and she was quite contented and happy when her mother gave her a ring of her own, and we have written to Jessie to send her some pretty things from India."
"She said she did not care for anything that Ellie did not have too," added her mother.
"Then you returned them?"
"Yes, and my young gentleman patronisingly replies that he 'appreciates my reluctance, and reserves them for a future time.'"
"Just like Bobus!" said Caroline. "He never gives up his purpose! But how about dear little Esther? Is she really untouched?"
"I hope so," replied her mother. "So far it has all been put upon propriety, and so on. I told her, now she was grown up and come home from school she must not run after her cousins as she used to do, and I have called her away sometimes when he has tried to get her alone. Last evening, she told me in a very simple way-like the child she is-that Robert would walk home with her in the moonlight, and hindered her when she tried to join the others, telling me she hoped I should not be angry with her. He seems to have talked to her about this London plan; but I told her on the spot it was impossible."
"I am afraid it is!" sighed Caroline. "Dear Essie! I will do my best to keep her peace from being ruffled, for I know you are quite right; but I can't help being sorry for my boy, and he is so determined that I don't think he will give up easily."
"You may let him understand that nothing will ever make me consent," returned the Colonel.
"I will, if he enters on it with me," said Caroline; "but I think it is advisable as long as possible to prevent it from taking a definite shape."
Caroline was much better able now to hold her own with her brother and sister-in-law. Not only did her position and the obligations they were under give her weight, but her character had consolidated itself in these years, and she had much more force, and appearance of good sense. Besides, John was a weight in the family now, and his feeling for his aunt was not without effect. They talked of his prospects and of Jessie's marriage, over their early tea. The elders of the walking party came in with hands full of flowers, namely, the two Johns and Eleanor, but ominously enough, Bobus was not there. He had been lost sight of soon after they had met.
Yes, and at that moment he was loitering at a safe distance from the door of the now invalid and half-blind Mrs. Coffinkey, to whom the Brownlow girls read by turns. She lived conveniently up a lane not much frequented. This was the colloquy which ensued when the tall, well-proportioned maiden, with her fresh, modest, happy face, tripped down the steps:-
"So the Coffinkey is unlocked at last! Stern Proserpine relented!"
"Robert! You here?"
"You never used to call me Robert."
"Mamma says it is time to leave off the other."
"Perhaps she would like you to call me Mr. Robert Otway Brownlow."
"Don't talk of mamma in that way."
"I would do anything my queen tells me except command my tones when there is an attempt to stiffen her. She is not to be made into buckram."
"Please, Robert," as some one met and looked at them, "let me walk on by myself."
"What? Shall I be the means of getting you into trouble?"
"No, but I ought not-"
"The road is clear now, never mind. In town there are no gossips, that's one comfort. Mother Carey is propounding the plan now."
"Oh, but we shall not go. Mamma told me so last night."
"That was before Mother Carey had talked her over."
"Do you think she will?"
"I am certain of it! You are a sort of child of Mother Carey's own, you know, and we can't do without you."
"Mother would miss us so, just as we are getting useful."
"Yes, but Ellie might stay."
"Oh! we have never been parted. We _couldn't_ be."
"Indeed! Is there no one that could make up to you for Ellie?"
"No, indeed!" indignantly.
"Ah, Essie, you are too much of a child yet to understand the force of the love that-"
"Don't," broke in Esther, "that is just like people in novels; and mamma would not like it."
"But if I feel ten times far more for you than 'the people in novels' attempt to express?"
"Don't," again cried Esther. "It is Sunday."
"And what of that, my most scriptural little queen ?"
"It isn't a time to talk out of novels," said Esther, quickening her pace, to reach the frequented road and throng of church-goers."
"I am not talking out of any novel that ever was written," said Bobus seriously; but she was speeding on too fast to heed him, and started as he laid a hand on her arm.
"Stay, Essie; you must not rush on like a frightened fawn, or people will stare," he said; an
d she slackened her pace, though she shook him off and went on through the numerous passengers on the footpath, with her pretty head held aloft with the stately grace of the startled pheasant, not choosing to seem to hear his attempts at addressing her, and taking refuge at last in the innermost recesses of the family seat at Church, though it was full a quarter to five.
There the rest of the party found her, and as they did not find Bobus, they concluded that all was safe. However, when the two Johns were walking home with Mother Carey, Bobus joined them, and soon made his mother fall behind with him, asking her, "I hope your eloquence prevailed."
"Far from it, Bobus," she said. "In fact you have alarmed them."
"H. S. H. doesn't improve with age," he replied carelessly. "She never troubled herself about Jessie."
"Perhaps no one gave her cause. My dear boy, I am very sorry for you," and she laid her hand within his arm.
"Have they been baiting you? Poor little Mother Carey!" he said. "Force of habit, you know, that's all. Never mind them."
"Bobus, my dear, I must speak, and in earnest. I am afraid you may be going on so as to make yourself and-some one else unhappy, and you ought to know that your father was quite as determined as your uncle against marriages between first cousins."
"My dear mother, it will be quite time to argue that point when the matter becomes imminent. I am not asking to marry any one before I am called to the bar, and it is very hard if we cannot, in the meantime, live as cousins."
"Yes, but there must be no attempt to be 'a little more than kin.'"
"Less than kind comes in on the other side!" said Bobus, in his throat. "I tell you the child _is_ a child who has no soul apart from her sister, and there's no use in disturbing her till she has grown up to have a heart and a will of her own."
"Then you promise to let her alone?"
"I pledge myself to nothing," said Bobus, in an impracticable voice. "I only give warning that a commotion will do nobody any good."
She knew he had not abandoned his intention, and she also knew she had no power to make him abandon it, so that all she could say was, "As long as you make no move there will be no commotion, but I only repeat my assurance that neither your uncle nor I, acting in the person, of your dear father, will ever consent."
"To which I might reply, that most people end by doing that against which they have most protested. However, I am not going to stir in the matter for some time to come, and I advise no one else to do so."
CHAPTER XXVII. BLUEBEARD'S CLOSET.
A moment then the volume spread, And one short spell therein he read. Scott.
The reality of John's intention to devote himself to medicine made Caroline anxious to look again at the terms of the trust on which she held the Magnum Bonum secret.
Moreover, she wanted some papers and accounts, and therefore on Monday morning, while getting up, she glanced towards the place where her davenport usually stood, and to her great surprise missed it. She asked Emma, who was dressing her, whether it had been moved, and found that her maid had been as much surprised as herself at its absence, and that the housekeeper had denied all knowledge of it.
"Other things is missing, ma'am," said Emma; "there's the key of the closet where your dresses hangs. I've hunted high and low for it, and nobody hasn't seen it."
"Keys are easily lost," said Caroline, "but my davenport is very important. Perhaps in some cleaning it has been moved into one of the other rooms and forgotten there. I wish you would look. You know I had it before I came here."
Not only did Emma look, but as soon as her mistress was ready to leave the room she went herself on a voyage of discovery, peeping first into the little dressing-room, where seeing Babie at her morning prayers, she said nothing to disturb her, and then going on to look into some spare rooms beyond, where she thought it might have been disposed of, as being not smart enough for my lady's chamber. Coming back to her room she found, to her extreme amazement, the closet open, and Babie pushing the davenport out of it, with her cheeks crimson and a look of consternation at being detected.
"My dear child! The davenport there! Did you know it? How did it get there?"
"I put it," said Barbara, evidently only forced to reply by sheer sincerity.
"You! And why?"
"I thought it safer," mumbled Babie.
"And you knew where the key of the closet was?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"In my doll's bed, locked up in the baby-house."
"This is most extraordinary. When did you do this?"
"Just before we came out to you at Leukerbad," said Babie, each reply pumped out with great difficulty.
"Four years ago! It is a very odd thing. I suppose you had a panic, for you were too old then for playing monkey tricks."
To which Babie made no answer, and the next minute her mother, who had become intent on the davenport, exclaimed, "I suppose you haven't got the key of this in your doll's bed?"
"Don't you remember, mother," said Barbara, "you sent it home to Janet, and it was lost in her bag on the crossing?"
"Oh, yes, I remember! And it is a Bramah lock, more's the pity. We must have the locksmith over from Kenminster to open it."
The man was sent for, the davenport was opened, desk, drawers, and all. Caroline was once more in possession of her papers. She turned them over in haste, and saw no book of Magnum Bonum. Again, more carefully she looked. The white slate, where those precious last words had been written, was there, proving to her that her memory had not deceived her, but that she had really kept her treasure in that davenport.
Then, in her distress, she thought of Barbara's strange behaviour, went in quest of her, and calling her aside, asked her to tell her the real reason why she had thought fit to secure the davenport in the closet.
"Why," asked Babie, her eyes growing large and shining, "is anything missing?"
"Tell me first," said Caroline, trembling.
Then Babie told how she had wakened and seen Janet with the desk part raised up, reading something, and how, when she lay watching and wondering, Janet had shut it up and gone away. "And I did not feel comfortable about it, mother," said Babie, "so I thought I would lock up the davenport, so that nobody could get at it."
"You did not see her take anything away?"
"No, I can't at all tell," said Babie. "Is anything gone?"
"A book I valued very much. Some memoranda of your father were in that desk, and I cannot find them now. You cannot tell, I suppose, whether she was reading letters or a book?"
"It was not letters," said Babie, "but I could not see whether it was print or manuscript. Mother, I think she must have taken it to read and could not put it back again because I had hidden the davenport. Oh! I wish I hadn't, but I couldn't ask any one, it seemed such a wicked, dreadful fancy that she could meddle with your papers."
"You acted to the best of your judgment, my dear," said Caroline. "I ought never to have let it out of my own keeping."
"Do you think it was lost in the bag, mother?"
"I hope not. That would be worst of all!" said Caroline. "I must ask Janet. Don't say anything about it, my dear. Let me think it over."
When Caroline recollected Janet's attempt, as related by Robert, to break open her bureau, she had very little doubt that the book was there. It could not have been lost in the bag, for, as she remembered, reference had been made to it when Janet had extorted permission to go to Zurich, and she had warned her that even these studies would not be a qualification for the possession of the secret. Janet had then smiled triumphantly, and said she would make her change her mind yet; had looked, in fact, very much as Bobus did when he put aside her remonstrances. It was not the air of a person who had lost the records of the secret and was afraid to confess, though it was possible she might have them in her own keeping. Caroline longed to search the bureau, but however dishonourably Janet might have acted towards herself, she could not break into her private receptacles without warning. So afte
r some consideration, she made Barbara drive her to the station, and send the following telegraphic message to Janet's address at Edinburgh:-
"Come home at once. Father's memorandum book missing. Must be searched for."
All that day and the next the sons wondered what was amiss with their mother, she was so pensive, with starts of flightiness. Allen thought she was going to have an illness, and Bobus that it was a very strange and foolish way of taking his resistance, but all the time Armine was going about quite unperceiving, in a blissful state. The vicar's sister, a spirited, active, and very winning woman of thirty-five, had captivated him, as she did all the lads of the parish. He had been walking about with her, being introduced to all the needs of the parish, and his enthusiastic nature throwing itself into the cause of religion and beneficence, which was in truth his congenial element; he was ready to undertake for himself and his mother whatever was wanted, without a word of solicitation, nay rather, the vicar, who thought it all far too good to be true, held him back.
And when he came in and poured out his narrative, he was, for the first time in his life, even petulant that his mother was too much preoccupied to confirm his promises, and angry when Allen laughed at his vehemence, and said he should beware of model parishes.
By dinner-time the next day Janet had actually arrived. She looked thin and sharp, her keen black eyes roamed about uneasily, and some indescribable change had passed over her. Her brothers told her study had not agreed with her, and she did not, as of old, answer tartly, but gave a stiff, mechanical smile, and all the evening talked in a woman-of-the-world manner, cleverly, agreeably, not putting out her prickles, but like a stranger, and as if on her guard.
Of course there was no speaking to her till bedtime, and Caroline at first felt as if she ought to let one night pass in peace under the home roof; but she soon felt that to sleep would be impossible to herself, and she thought it would be equally so to her daughter without coming to an understanding. She yearned for some interchange of tenderness from that first-born child from whom she had been so long separated, and watched and listened for a step approaching her door; till at last, when the maid was gone and no one came, she yielded to her impulse; and in her white dressing-gown, with softly- slippered feet, she glided along the passage with a strange mixed feeling of maternal gladness that Janet was at home again, and of painful impatience to have the interview over.
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