Poor Armine was not getting much comfort out of his friend, who was too much preoccupied to attend to what he was saying, and only mechanically assented at intervals to the proposition that it was an inscrutable dispensation that the will and the power should so seldom go together. He heard all Armine's fallen castles about chapels, schools, curates, and sisters, as in a dream, really not knowing whether they were or were not to be. And with all his desire to be useful, he never perceived the one offer that would have been really valuable, namely, to carry off the boy out of sight of the scene of his disappointment.
Fordham was compelled to stay for an uncomfortable luncheon, when there were spasmodic jerks of talk about subjects of the day to keep up appearances before the servants, who flitted about in such an exasperating way that their mistress secretly rejoiced to think how soon she should be rid of the fine courier butler.
Just as the pony-carriage came round for Armine to drive his friend back to the station, the Colonel came in, and was an astonished spectator of the farewells.
"So that's your young lord," he said. "Poor lad! if our nobility is made of no tougher stuff, I would not give much for it. What brought him here?"
'Kindness-sympathy-" said Caroline, a little awkwardly.
"Much of that he showed," said Allen, "just knowing nothing at all about anybody! No! If it were not so utterly ridiculous I should think he had come to make an offer to Babie:" and as his sister flew out of the room, "You don't mean that he has, mother?"
"Pray, don't speak of it to any one!" said Caroline. "I would not have it known for the world. It was a generous impulse, poor dear fellow; and Babie has no feeling for him at all."
"Very lucky," said the uncle. "He looks as if his life was not worth a year's purchase. So you refused him? Quite right too. You are a sensible woman, Caroline, in the midst of this severe reverse!"
CHAPTER XXX. AS WEEL OFF AS AYE WAGGING
'Lesbia hath a beaming eye, But no one knows for whom it beameth, Right and left its arrows fly, But what they aim at, no one dreameth.'
By the advice, or rather by the express desire, of her trustees, Mrs. Brownlow remained at Belforest, while they accepted an offer of renting the London house for the season. Mr. Wakefield declared that there was no reason that she should contract her expenditure; but she felt as if everything she spent beyond her original income, except of course the needful outlay on keeping up the house and gardens, were robbery of Elvira, and she therefore did not fill up the establish- ment of servants, nor of horses, using only for herself the little pair of ponies which had been turned out in the park.
No one had perhaps realised the amount of worry that this arrangement entailed. As Barbara said, if they could have gone away at once and worked for their living like sensible people in a book, it would have been all very well-but this half-and-half state was dreadful. Personally it did not affect Babie much, but she was growing up to the part of general sympathiser, and for the first time in their lives there was a pull in contrary directions by her mother, and Armine.
Every expenditure was weighed before it was granted. Did it belong rightly to Belforest estate or to Caroline Brownlow? And the claims of the church and parish at Woodside were doubtful. Armine, under the influence of Miss Parsons, took a wide view of the dues of the parish, thought there was a long arrear to be paid off, and that whatever could be given was so much out of the wolf's mouth.
His mother, with 'Be just before you are generous' ringing in her ears, referred all to the Colonel, and he had long had a fixed scale of the duties of the property as a property, and was only rendered the more resolute in it by that vehemence of Armine's which enhanced his dislike and distrust of the family at the vicarage.
"Bent on getting all they could while they could," he said, quite unjustly as to the vicar, and hardly fairly by the sister, whose demands were far exceeded by those of her champion.
The claims of the cottages for repair, and of the school for sufficient enlargement and maintenance to obviate a School Board, were acknowledged; but for the rest, the Colonel said, "his sister was perfectly at liberty. No one could blame her if she threw her balance at the bank into the sea. She would never be called to account; but since she asked him whether the estate was bound to assist in pulling the church to pieces, and setting up a fresh curate to bring in more absurdities, he could only say what he thought," etc.
These thoughts of his were of course most offensive to Armine, who set all down to sordid Puritan prejudice, could not think how his mother could listen, and, when Babie stood up for her mother, went off to blend his lamentations with those of Miss Parsons, whose resignation struck him as heroic. "Never mind, Armine, it will all come in time. Perhaps we are not fit for it yet. We cannot expect the world's justice to understand the outpouring of the saints' liberality."
Armine repeated this interesting aphorism to Barbara, and was much disappointed that the shrewd little woman did not understand it, or only so far as to say, "But I did not know that it was saintly to be liberal with other people's money."
He said Babie had a prejudice against Miss Parsons; and he was so far right that the Infanta did not like her, thought her a humbug, and sorely felt that for the first time something had come between herself and Armine.
Allen was another trouble. He did not agree to the retrenchments, in which he saw no sense, and retained his horse and groom. Luckily he had retained only one when going abroad, and at this early season he needed no more. But his grievous anxiety and restlessness about Elvira did not make him by any means insensible to the effects of a reduced establishment in a large house, and especially to the handiwork of the good woman who had been left in charge, when compared with that of the 80L cooks who had been the plague of his mother's life.
No one, however, could wonder at his wretchedness, as day after day passed without hearing from Elvira, and all that was known was that she had left Mrs. Evelyn and gone to stay with Lady Flora Folliott, a flighty young matron, who had been enraptured with her beauty at a table d'hote a year ago, and had made advances not much relished by the rest of the party.
No more was to be learnt till Lucas found a Saturday to come down. Before he could say three words, he was cross-examined. Had he seen Elvira?
"Several times."
"Spoken to her?"
"Yes."
"What had she said?"
"Asked him to look at a horse."
"Did she know he was coming home?"
"Yes."
"Had she sent any message?"
"Well-yes. To desire that her Algerine costume should be sent up. Whew!" as Allen flung himself out of the room. "How have I put my foot in it, mother?"
"You don't mean that that was all?"
"Every jot! What, has she not written? The abominable little elf! I'm coming." And he shrugged his shoulders as Allen, who had come round to the open window, beckoned to him.
"He was absolutely grappled by a trembling hand, and a husky voice demanded, "What message did she really send? I can't stand foolery."
"Just that, Allen-to Emma. Really just that. You can't shake more out of me. You might as well expect anything from that Chinese lantern. Hold hard. 'Tis not I-"
"Don't speak! You don't know her! I was a fool to think she would confide to a mere buffoon," cried poor Allen, in his misery. "Yet if they were intercepting her letters-"
Wherewith he buried himself in the depths of the shrubbery, while Jock, with a long whistle, came back through the library window to his mother, observing-
"Intercepted! Poor fellow! Hardly necessary, if possible, though Lady Flora might wish to catch her for Clanmacnalty. Has the miserable imp really vouchsafed no notice of any of you?"
"Not the slightest; and it is breaking Allen's heart."
"As if a painted little marmoset were worth a man's heart! But Allen has always been infatuated about her, and there's a good deal at stake, though, if he could only see it in the right fight, he is well quit of such a bubble of a c
reature. I wouldn't be saddled with it for all Belforest."
"Don't call her any more names, my dear! I only wish any one would represent to her the predicament she keeps Allen in. He can't press for an answer, of course; but it is cruel to keep him in this suspense. I wonder Mrs. Evelyn did not make her write.
"I don't suppose it entered her mind that the little wretch (beg your pardon) had not done it of her own accord, and with those Folliotts there's no chance. They live in a perpetual whirl, enough to distract an Archbishop. Twenty-four parties a week at a moderate computation."
"Unlucky child!"
"Wakefield is heartily vexed at her having run into such hands," said Jock; "but there is no hindering it, no one has any power, and even if he had, George Gould is a mere tool in his wife's hands."
"Still, Mr. Wakefield might insist on her answering Allen one way or the other. Poor fellow! I don't think it would cost her much, for she was too childish ever to be touched by that devotion of his. I always thought it a most dangerous experiment, and all I wish for now is that she would send him a proper dismissal, so that his mind might be settled. It would be bad enough, but better than going on in this way."
"I'll see him," said Jock, "or may be I can do the business myself, for, strange to say, the creature doesn't avoid me, but rather runs after me."
"You meet her in society?"
"Yes, I've not come to the end of my white kids yet, you see. And mother, I came to tell you of something that has turned up. You know the Evelyns are all dead against my selling out. I dined with Sir James on Tuesday, and found next day it was for the sake of walking me out before Sir Philip Cameron, the Cutteejung man, you know. He is sure to be sent out again in the autumn, and he has promised Sir James that if I can get exchanged into some corps out there, he will put me on his staff at once. Mother!"
He stopped short, astounded at the change of countenance, that for a moment she could neither control nor conceal, as she exclaimed "India!" but rallying at once she went on "Sir Philip Cameron! My dear boy, that's a great compliment. How delighted your uncle will be!"
"But you, mother!"
"Oh yes, my dear, I shall, I will, like it. Of course I am glad and proud for my Jock! How very kind of Sir James!"
"Isn't it? He talked it over with me as if I had been Cecil, and said I was quite right not to stay in the Guards; and that in India, if a man has any brains at all and reasonable luck, he can't help getting on. So I shall be quite and clean off your hands, and in the way of working forward, and perhaps of doing something worth hearing of. Mother, you will be pleased then?"
"Shall I not, my dear, dear Jockey! I don't think you could have a better chief. I have always heard that Sir Philip was such a good man."
"So Mrs. Evelyn said. She was sure you would be satisfied. You can't think how kind they were, making the affair quite their own," said Jock, with a little colour in his face. "They absolutely think it would be wrong to give up the service."
"Yes; Mrs. Evelyn wrote to me that you ought not to be thrown away. It was very kind and dear, but with a little of the aristocratic notion that the army is the only profession in the world. I can't help it; I can't think your father's profession unworthy of his son."
"She didn't say so!"
"No, but I understood it. Perhaps I am touchy; I don't think I am ungrateful. They have always made you like one of themselves."
"Yes, so much that I don't like to run counter to their wishes when they have taken such pains. Besides, there are things that can be thought of, even by a poor man, as a soldier, which can't in the other line."
This speech, made with bent head, rising colour, and hand playing with his mother's fan, gave her, all unwittingly on his part, a keen sense that her Jock was indeed passing from her, but she said nothing to damp his spirits, and threw herself heartily into his plans, announcing them to his uncle with genuine exultation. To this the Colonel fully responded, telling Jock that he would have given the world thirty years ago for such a chance, and commending him for thus getting off his mother's hands.
"I only wish the rest of you were doing the same," he said, "but each one seems to think himself the first person to be thought of, and her the last."
"The Colonel's wish seemed in course of fulfilment, for when Lucas went a few days later to his brother Robert's rooms, he found him collecting testimonials for his fitness to act as Vice-principal to a European college at Yokohama for the higher education of the Japanese.
"Mother has not heard of it," said Jock.
"She need not till it is settled," answered Bobus. "It will save her trouble with her clerical friends if she only knows too late for a protest."
Jock understood when he saw the stipulations against religious teaching, and recognised in the Principal's name an essayist whose negations of faith had made some stir. However, he only said, "It will be rather a blow."
"There are limits to all things," replied Bobus. "The truest kindness to her is to get afloat away from the family raft as speedily as possible. She has quite enough to drag her down."
"I should hope to act the other way," said Jock.
"Get your own head above water first," said Bobus. "Here's some good advice gratis, though I've no expectation of your taking it. Don't go in for study in the old quarters! Go to Edinburgh or Paris or anywhere you please, but cut the connection, or you'll never be rid of loafers for life. Wherever mother is, all the rest will gravitate. Mark me, Allen is spoilt for anything but a walking gentleman, Armine will never be good for work, and how many years do you give Janet's Athenian to come to grief in? Then will they return to the domestic hearth with a band of small Grecians, while Dr. Lucas Brownlow is reduced to a rotifer or wheel animal, circulating in a trap collecting supplies, with 'sic vos non vobis' for his motto."
Jock looked startled. How if there be no such rotifer?" he said. "You don't really think there will be nothing to depend when we are both gone?"
"When?"
"Yes, I've a chance of getting on Cameron's staff in India."
"Oh, that's all right, old fellow! Why, you'll be my next neighbour."
"But about mother? You don't seriously think Ali and Armie will be nothing but dead weights on her?"
"Only as long as there's anybody to hold them up", said Bobus, perceiving that his picture had taken an effect the reverse of what he intended. "They have no lack of brains, and are quite able to shift for themselves and mother too, if only they have to do it, even if she were a pauper, which she isn't."
But it was with a less lightsome heart that Jock went to his quarters to prepare for a fancy ball, where he expected to meet Elvira, though whether he should approach her or not would depend on her own caprice.
It was a very splendid affair. A whole back garden, had been transformed into a vast pavilion, containing an Armida's garden, whose masses of ferns and piles of gorgeous flowers made delightful nooks for strangers who left the glare of the dancing-room, and the quaint dresses harmonised with the magic of the gaslight and the strange forms of the exotics.
The simple scarlet of the young Guardsman was undistinguished among the brilliant character-groups which represented old fairy tales and nursery rhymes. There were 'The White Cat and her Prince,' 'Puss-in- Boots and the Princess,' 'Little Snowflake and her Bear,' and, behold, here was the loveliest Fatima ever seen, in the well-known Algerine dress, mated with a richly robed and turbaned hero, whose beard was blue, though in ordinary life red, inasmuch as he was Lady Flora's impecunious and not very reputable Scottish peer of a brother. That lady herself, in a pronounced bloomer, represented the little old woman of doubtful identity, and her husband the pedlar, whose 'name it was Stout'; while not far off the Spanish lady, in garments gay, as rich as may be, wooed her big Englishman in a dress that rivalled Sir Nicolas Blount's.
There was a pretty character quadrille, and then a general melee, in which Jock danced successively with Cinderella and the fair equestrian of Banbury Cross, and lost sight of Fatima, till, jus
t as he was considering of offering himself to little Bo-peep, he saw her looking a good deal bored by the Spanish lady's Englishman.
Tossing her head till the coins danced on her forehead, she exclaimed, "Oh, there's my cousin; I must speak to him!" and sprang to her old companion as if for protection. "Take me to a cool corner, Jock, " she said, "I am suffocating."
"No wonder, after waltzing with a mountain."
"He can no more waltz than fly! And he thinks himself irresistible! He says his dress is from a portrait of his ancestor, Sir Somebody; and Flora declares his only ancestor must have been the Fat Boy! And he thought I was a Turkish Sultana! Wasn't it ridiculous! You know he never says anything but 'Exactly.'"
"Did he intone it so as to convey all this?"
"He is a little inspired by his ruff and diamonds. Flora says he wants to dazzle me, and will have them changed into paste before he makes them over to his young woman. He has just tin enough to want more, and she says I must be on my guard."
"You want no guard, I should think, but your engagement."
"What are you bringing that up for? I suppose you know how Allen wrote to me?" she pouted.
"I know that he thought it due to you to release you from your promise, and that he is waiting anxiously for your reply. Have you written?"
"Don't bore so, Jock," said Elvira pettishly. "It was no doing of mine, and I don't see why I should be teased."
"Then you wish me to tell him that he is to take your silence as a release from you."
"I authorise nothing," she said. "I hate it all."
"Look here, Elvira," said Jock, "do you know your own mind? Nobody wants you to take Allen. In fact, I think he is much better quit of you; but it is due to him, and still more to yourself, to cancel the old affair before beginning a new one."
"Who told you I was beginning a new one?" asked she pertly.
"No one can blame you, provided you let him loose first. It is considered respectable, you know, to be off with the old love before you are on with the new. Nay, it may be only a superstition."
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