The Pillars of the House, V1

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  The others had been perfectly happy in their several ways, and made eager comments on their way to the house of Harewood, whither Lance piloted them-this time by the front way, through the garden, which lay behind the close-entering, in spite of the mannerly demurs of the elder ones, through the open door, into a hall whence a voice of hearty greeting at once ensued. 'Here you are at last; and how's the poor darling your sister! not over-tired?'

  And Cherry, before she was aware, found herself kissed, and almost snatched away from Felix, to be deposited on a sofa; and while the like kisses were bestowed on the two little girls, and hospitable offers showered on all, she was amused by perceiving that good Mrs. Harewood was endowed with exactly the same grotesque order of ugliness as her son William; but she was even more engaging, from an indescribably droll mixture of heedlessness, blundering, and tender motherliness.

  'There, now, you'll just leave her to me, the poor dear; and Lance will take you down to the Mead, and find Papa and the girls for you.'

  'Oh, thank you, I could not think of your staying. Now pray-'

  'Now prays' were to no purpose; Mrs. Harewood professed only to want an excuse for staying at home-she did not want to be done up with running after her girls to the four ends of the Mead, when it was a long step for her to begin with. Off with them.

  So when Wilmet was satisfied that Geraldine was comfortable, the five moved off-Felix and Alice, Angel in Wilmet's hand, and Lance's and Robina's tongues wagging so fast that the wonder was how either caught a word of what the other was saying.

  Meanwhile, Mrs. Harewood, tossing her bonnet and gloves aside, in perfect indifference to the exposure of the curious structure of red and gray hair she thus revealed, lavished meats and drinks upon her guest, waiting on her with such kindness, that in spite of all weariness and craving for quiet after these deep and wonderful impressions, it was impossible not to enjoy that warmth of heart. There was exactly the tender motherliness that even Wilmet and Sister Constance could not give.

  It was charming to hear how fond Mrs. Harewood was of Lance, and how the having such a companion had made it possible to keep her Willie at the cathedral school, where the mixture of lads was great, but the master first-rate. He thought highly of the promise of both; 'but to tell the truth,' said Mrs. Harewood, as she sat and fanned herself with her husband's trencher cap, looking more than ever like a frog in a strawberry bed, 'though my Willie is the cleverest boy in the school, little good his cleverness would have done him, and he would have been harum-scarum Bill more than ever, if it were not for Lance. So say his father and brother Jack; so that they will not be for his going to a public school unless Lance were sure of it too.'

  'Will not they be able to stay on here?'

  Mrs. Harewood explained that the year that the barristers-choristers she meant-were sixteen, when their voices were usually unserviceable, they, together with those of like age in the school, were subjected to an examination, and the foremost scholar obtained an exhibition, in virtue of which he could remain free of expense for another two years, and then could try for one of the Minsterham scholarships at one of the colleges at Cambridge. Those who failed, either had to pay like the ordinary schoolboys, or left the school.

  Dear Mrs. Harewood was a perfect Malaprop, and puzzled Geraldine by continually calling the present occasion the rural meeting, and other like slips, uncommonly comical in a well-educated woman with the words she knew best.

  All this, and a great deal more-about the shy woman-hating organist, and the unluckiness of the dissenter-no, precentor-having a sick wife, and the legal difficulties that prevented building a better house for the boarders than the queer long room where they lodged, between the cloister and the Bailey-the proper name of the little court by which Geraldine had come-was poured out; and kind as it was, there was a certain sense of having been talked to death.

  A whole flood of Harewoods, Underwoods, and untold numbers besides, swept into the room as the bell began to ring for Evensong. Most sincere were Cherry's entreaties that she might be left alone. She could not go back to her coign of vantage, 'it had been too beautiful for her to bear more,' she said; and she severally declined offers of companionship from three female Harewoods and two sisters, telling Wilmet at last that all she wanted was to be still and alone.

  Alone she was, but not still, for there was nothing to hinder the magnificent volume of sound that surged around the Cathedral from coming to her; and she could trace the service all along-in chant, pealing mighty Amens, with the hush between, in anthem, and in jubilant hymn. She was more calmly happy than in the oppressive grandeur of the morning, as she lay there, in the cool drawing-room, with the open window veiled by loose sprays of untrimmed roses, and sacred prints looking down from the walls.

  The solitude lasted rather too long, when she had heard the hum and buzz of the host pouring out of the Cathedral, and still no one came. They were to go home by the 5.10 train, and every time she counted the chimes she became more alarmed lest they should be too late. Minutes dragged on. Five! It was five! Was she forgotten? Should she be only missed and remembered at the station, too late? Tired, nervous, unused to oblivion, she found tears in her eyes, and was too sorrowful and angry with her own impatience even to think of the old woman of Servia. Hark! a trampling? Had they remembered her? But oh, it would be late for the train!

  In burst Lance, in his cap and little short quaint black gown.

  'O Lance, I shall be too late!'

  'You don't go by this train.'

  'Oh dear! oh dear! Mr. Froggatt was to meet me;' and the tears started from her eyes. 'How could Felix forget?'

  'Never mind, there's sure to be a fly or something.'

  'Yes, but Mr. Froggatt waiting!'

  'Never mind,' repeated Lance, ''tis a fine evening to air the old boss.'

  'Don't, Lance; you none of you have any proper regard for Mr. Froggatt;' which, as far as Lance was concerned, was unjust, and it was well for Cherry that it was not addressed to either of the brothers who better deserved it.

  What Lance did was to execute one of his peculiar summersaults, and then, making up a dismal face, to say, 'Alas! I commiserate the venerable citizen disappointed of the pleasure of driving my Lady Geraldine home from the wash as well as hisself.'

  She was past even appreciating the bathos. 'It is no laughing matter, she said; 'it is so uncivil, when he is so kind. I can't imagine what Felix is thinking of?'

  'Croquet,' said Lance briefly, then seeing the flushed, quivering, mortified face, he added, 'Wilmet has not forgotten you one bit, Cherry; but Alice Knevett and Robin did so want to see the fun in the mead-there's running in sacks, and all sorts of games-that there's no getting any one away; and the W's are in charge, and can't leave them to their own devices, so she said perhaps you would be more rested by lying still than rattling home.

  'Oh, I dare say Wilmet is as sorry as anybody,' said Cherry rather querulously, for the needle point was pricking her again.

  'And as to your dear old Froggy,' continued Lance, 'she says he told her he did not in the least expect you back by this train, and if you did not come by it, he'll stay in town for the 8.50.'

  'How very good of him!' said Cherry, beginning to be consoled. 'And Felix at croquet!'

  'Alice is teaching him. You never did see such a joke as old Blunderbore screwing up his eyes at the balls, and making at them with his mallet like a sledge-hammer. He and Alice and Robin and that Bisset curate are playing against Bill, two of the girls, and Shapcote-Bexley against Minsterham, and little Bobbie's a real out- and-outer. She'll make her side win by sheer cool generalship.'

  'And poor little Angel?' The needle point was a pang now.

  'Oh, Angel is happier than ever she was in her life. The Bishop's daughter has a turn for little kids, and has got all the small ones together in the pleached alley, playing at all manner of things.'

  'Run back, Lance, to the fun. I shall do very well,' said poor Geraldine.

  'I should th
ink so, when I get you so often!' scornfully ejaculated Lancelot, drawing a dilapidated brioche from under the sofa, and squatting on it, with his dancing eyes close to her sad ones.

  An effusion of spirits prompted her to lay her hands on his shoulders, kiss him on each cheek, and cry, 'O Lance, you are the very sweetest boy!'

  'Sweetest treble, you mean,' said Lance quaintly; 'if you had only heard me! You should see how the old ladies in the stalls peep and whisper, and how Bill Harewood opens his mouth rather wider than it will go, and they think it is he.'

  'Not for fun, Lance?'

  'Well, I believe all their jaws are hung on looser than other people's. But I say, ain't you dying of thirst?'

  'Perhaps Mrs. Harewood will give us some tea when she comes in.'

  'If you trust to that-'

  'O Lance!' she cried, alarmed at seeing him coolly ring the bell.

  'Bless you, she's forgotten all about you and tea and everything! They are drinking it by the gallon in the tents; and by and by she'll roll in, ready to cry that you've had none, and mad with herself and me for giving you none; and the fire will be out, and the kettle will boil about ten minutes after you are off by the train. We'll have some this minute.'

  'But, Lance-'

  'But, Cherry, ain't I a walking Sahara with roaring at the tiptop of my voice to lead the clod-hoppers? How they did bellow! I owe it as a duty to the Chapter to wet my whistle.'

  'One comfort is, nobody knows your coolness. Nobody comes for all your ringing.'

  'Reason good! Every living soul in the house is in the Bishop's meadow, barring the old cat; I seen 'em with their cap-strings flying. But that's nothing. I know where Mother Harewood keeps her tea and sugar;' and he pounced on a tea-caddy of Indian aspect.

  'Lance, if you did that to Mettie-'

  'Exactly so. I don't;' and he ran out of the room, while Cherry sat up on her sofa, her petulance quite banished between amusement and desperation at such proceedings in a strange house. He came back presently with two cups, saucers, and plates, apparently picked up at hap-hazard, as no two were alike. 'My dear Lance, where have you been?'

  'In the kitchen. Such a jolly arched old hole. Bill and I have done no end of Welsh rabbits there. Once when we were melting some lead, Bill let it drop into the pudding, and the Pater got it at dinner, and said it was the heaviest morsel he ever had to digest.'

  'But wasn't it poison?'

  'I suppose not, for you see he isn't dead. Another time, when we were melting glue, we upset a whole lot of fat, and the chimney caught fire; and wasn't that a go? Bill got a pistol out of Jack's room, and fired it up the chimney to bring the soot down; and down it came with a vengeance! He was regularly singed, and I do think the place would have been burned if it had not been too old! All the Shapcotes ran out into the court, hallooing Fire! and the engine came, but there was nothing for it to do. Oh, the face Wilmet would make to see that kitchen. Kettle's biling-I must run.'

  He came back with an enormous metal tea-pot in one hand, and a boiling kettle in the other, a cloud of vapour about his head.

  'You appear in a cloud, like a Greek divinity,' said Cherry, beginning to enter into the humour of the thing.

  'Bringing nectar and ambrosia,' said Lance, depositing the kettle amid the furbelows of paper in the grate, and proceeding to brew the tea. 'Excuse the small trifles of milk and cream, and as to bread, I can't find it, but here are the cakes you had for luncheon, shunted off into the passage window. Sugar, Cherry! Fingers were made before tongs. Now I call this jolly.'

  'I only hope this isn't a great liberty.'

  'If you fired off a cannon under Mrs. Harewood's nose, she would not call it a liberty.'

  'So it appears. But Mr. Harewood does not look-like that.'

  'Oh, he's well broken in. He is the pink of orderliness in his own study and the library, but as long as no one meddles there, he minds nothing. It just keeps him alive; but I believe the Shapcotes think this house a mild lunatic asylum.'

  'Who are the Shapcotes?'

  'He's registrar. They live in the other half of this place-the old infirmary, Mr. Harewood calls it. Such a contrast! He is a tremendous old Turk in his house, and she is a little mincing woman; and they've made Gus-he's one of us, you know-a horrid sneak, and think it's all my bad company and Bill's. By-the-by, Cherry, Gus Shapcote asked me if my senior wasn't spoony about-'

  'I nope you told him to mind his own business!' cried Geraldine, with a great start of indignation.

  'I told him he was a sheep,' said Lance. 'But, I say, Cherry, I want to know what you think of it.'

  'Think? I'm not so ready to think nonsense!'

  'Well, when the old giant was getting some tea for her, I saw two ladies look at one another and wink.'

  'Abominably ill-mannered,' she cried, growing ruddier than the cherry.

  'But had you any notion of it?'

  'Impossible!' she said breathlessly. 'He is only kind and civil to her, as he is to everybody. Think how young he is!'

  'I'm sure I never thought old Blunderbore much younger than Methuselah. Twenty-one! Isn't it about the age one does such things?'

  'Not when one has twelve brothers and sisters on one's back,' sighed Geraldine. 'Poor Felix! No, there can't be anything in it. Don't let us think of foolish nonsense this wonderful day. What a glorious hymn that was!'

  Lance laid his head lovingly on the sofa-cushion, and discussed the enjoyment of the day with his skilled appreciation of music. Geraldine's receptive power was not inferior to his own, though she had none of that of expression, nor of the science in which he was trained. He was like another being from the merry rattle he was at other times; and she had more glimpses than she ever had before of the high nature and deep enthusiasm that were growing in him.

  'Hark! there's somebody coming,' she cried, starting.

  'Let him come. Oh, it is the Pater.-Here is some capital tea, Mr. Harewood. Have some? I'll get a cup.'

  'You are taking care of your sister. That is right. A good colonist you would make.-Come in, Lee,' said Mr. Harewood, who, to Cherry's increased consternation, was followed by another clergyman. 'We are better off than I dared to expect, thanks to this young gentleman. Miss Geraldine Underwood-Mr. Lee.-You knew her father, I think.'

  'Not poor Underwood of Bexley? Indeed! I knew him. I always wished I could have seen more of him,' said Mr. Lee, coming up and heartily shaking hands with Cherry, and asking whether she was staying there, etc.

  Meantime Lance had fetched a blue china soup-plate, a white cup and pink spotted saucer; another plate labelled 'Nursery,' a coffee-cup and saucer, one brown and the other blue, and as tidily as if he had been lady of the house or parlour-maid, presented his provisions, Mr. Harewood accepting with a certain quiet amusement. His remarkable trim neatness of appearance, and old-school precision of manner, made his quiet humorous acquiescence in the wild ways of his household all the more droll. After a little clerical talk, that reminded Cherry of the old times when she used to lie on her couch, supposed not to understand, but dreamily taking in much more than any one knew-it appeared that Mr. Lee wanted to see something in the Library, and Mr. Harewood asked her whether she would like to come and see Coeur de Lion's seal.

  She was fully rested, and greatly pleased. Lance's arm was quite sufficient now, and she studied the Cathedral and its precincts in a superexcellent manner. Mr. Harewood, who had spent almost his whole life under its shadow, and knew the history of almost every stone or quarry of glass, was the best of lionisers, and gave her much attention when he perceived how intelligent and appreciative she was. He showed her the plan of the old conventual buildings, and she began to unravel the labyrinth through which she had been hurried. The Close and Deanery were modernised, but he valued the quaint old corner where he lived for its genuine age. The old house now divided between him and Mr. Shapcote had been the infirmary; and the long narrow building opposite, between the Bailey and the cloister, had been the lodgings either of lay-brothers or s
ervants. There being few boarders at the Cathedral school, they had always been lodged in the long narrow room, with the second master in a little closet shut off from them. Cherry was favoured with a glance at Lance's little corner, with the old-fashioned black oak bedstead, solid but unsteady table and stool, the equally old press, and the book-case he had made himself with boards begged from his friend the carpenter. A photograph and drawing or two, and a bat, completed the plenishing. She thought it very uncomfortable, but Lance called it his castle; and Mr. Harewood, pointing to the washing apparatus, related that in his day the cock in the Bailey was the only provision for such purposes. The boys were safely locked in at eight every night when the curfew rang, and the Bailey door was shut, there being no other access to the rooms, except by the Cathedral, through the Library, and the private door that led into the passage common to the Harewoods and Shapcotes.

  The loveliness of the Cloister, the noble vault of the Chapterhouse, the various beauties and wonders of the Cathedral, and lastly the curiosities of the Library-where Mr. Harewood enthroned her in his own chair, unlocked the cases, brought her the treasures, and turned over the illuminated manuscripts for her as if she had been a princess-made Geraldine forget time, weariness, and anxiety, until, as the summer sun was at last taking leave, a voice called at the window, 'Here she is! I thought Papa would have her here!' and the freckled face of a Miss Harewood was seen peering in.

  There the truants were, eager, hurried, afraid for the train, full of compunction, for the long abandonment: Alice, most apologetic; Wilmet, most quiet; Felix, most attentive; Robina, still ecstatic; and Angela, tired out-there they all were. It was all one hasty scramble to the crowded station, and then one merry discussion and comparison of notes all the way home, Geraldine maintaining that she had enjoyed herself the best of all; and Alice incredulous of the pleasure of sitting in a musty old library with an old gentleman of at least sixty; while Felix was so much delighted to find that she had been so happy, that he almost believed that the delay had been solely out of consideration for her.