To hear Wilmet allow Alda to be other than impeccable so amazed Cherry, that she could scarcely answer. 'O Mettle, I never knew what you and Felix must be. I have so often thought of a house divided against itself, one against two, and two against three. We have been all to wrongs, and Clem and I have said we would not be a party; and yet we could not help it, for we always had to stand up together! Then Angel and Bear were against every one, and Alda set them against Clem, and fancied he did against her, which was not true. I should have minded nothing if Alda had not been so angry at Clement's sending for Sister Constance. You did give him leave, though?'
'Yes, and I should have done so much more decidedly if I had known.'
At that moment Sister Constance knocked at the door, with her work in her hand, and Wilmet inferred that this was the refuge from Alda and the drawing-room. To Cherry's surprise, Wilmet, instead of ignoring everything unsatisfactory, began at once, 'Please come in, Sister Constance; I wanted to thank you, and tell you how sorry and ashamed I am! I am afraid you have not been treated as-'
'Don't say any more, my dear,' as the tears were in her eyes; 'don't think about it.'
'I ought to think!' said Wilmet. 'I have been trying to understand things ever since I came home; but everybody except Cherry and Clem blames everybody, and they only blame themselves! I can't understand the rights of anything!'
'My dear,' said Sister Constance, 'I think it would be impossible to go into the details of all that has happened. Shall I tell you how it seemed to me?'
'Pray do!'
'I thought that the authority of an elder reared in so different a school necessarily was producing a few collisions. There was some ignorance, and a good deal of dislike of interference, and the younger ones would not have been human not to take advantage of it; but it is over now you are come home, and I strongly recommend an act of oblivion.'
'Oh! I don't want to punish the poor children,' said Wilmet.
'Oblivion, I said, not only amnesty;' and as she did not see perfect comprehension in Wilmet's face, she added, 'I mean, not only that the children should be forgiven, but that their elders should not go hunting for causes, and thinking how this or that could have been prevented.'
'I suppose not,' said Wilmet. 'It is all plain enough;' and the sigh that followed quite amazed Cherry, who smiled up in her face, saying, 'Plain enough that we can't do without you.'
'No,' said Wilmet, kissing Cherry's uplifted face ere leaving the room; but it was with such an effort at a responding smile, that Cherry exclaimed, 'Oh dear! how dreadfully we have vexed her!' And Sister Constance thought the more.
Yet again Wilmet had to hear another testimony to the anarchy in her absence. Those formidable bills had obliged her to apply to Alda for an advance of the sum she had offered for Lance's journey; and this, after some petulance and faltering, elicited that some old forgotten London bills had come down and swamped this Midsummer quarter's allowance, so that the promise must stand over till-till Michaelmas; or it might be that Ferdinand's matters were arranged, and then what would such a paltry sum be? Wilmet turned away in shame and disgust at having trusted for a moment to such offers. She could only do what she had never done before-apply to Mr. Froggatt for an advance on Felix's account: and she detained him after dinner for the purpose.
He was as kind as possible, assuring her that he should have been hurt if she had not come to him. And then, in his blandest way, he thought it right to hint that 'Young people were sometimes a little unguarded.' She was prepared for the story of the loss of Stella, but she was not prepared to hear of a gossipping intercourse over the newly arrived Punches, etc., carried on in the early morning with Redstone, not only by Bernard but Angela. She was but eleven years old, so it was no worse than the taste of childish underhand coquetry and giggling; there was no fear of its continuance after Felix's return, and, indeed, good old Mr Froggatt had kept guard by coming in two hours earlier ever since the discovery; but the propensity dismayed Wilmet more than all that had yet happened, and on this head she thought it right to reprove Angela seriously.
'Dear me, Wilmet, you are always telling us not to think ourselves above our station. Mr. Redstone is just as fit to speak to as Felix was before he was a partner.'
'Should you like Felix to have found you gossipping in the reading- room?'
'Well,' said audacious Angela, 'half the fun in things is the chance of being caught.'
'My dear, you don't know what you are saying,' replied Wilmet dejectedly, as if exhausted beyond the power of working out her reproof! and Angela had to fight hard against any softening, telling Bernard that W. W. was a tremendous old maid, who had no notion of a lark.
Robina, who stood in the peculiar position of neither accusing nor being accused, would not add her voice to the chorus of welcome, and did not wonder that every hour wore off something from the radiance of the beautiful bloom brought from the Bailey. Indeed, the unusual gravity and reserve of the younger sister struck Cherry's observant eyes, and made her think at first that she had been much pained by having to part with Lance in his weak half-recovered state; but when at tea-time the whole history of the illness was inquired into in detail by the assembled family, the downcast eyes and cheeks with which Robin encountered every mention of Captain Harewood's good offices led to the inference that she had in her excitement forgotten the bounds where the brook and river meet, and was in an anguish of shame; Wilmet meantime looking flushed with the fag of her vexatious day, and speaking plentifully of this same Captain, proving to herself all the while that she was doing so with ordinary gratitude and composure.
Robina was quartered upon Geraldine in the holiday crowding of the house; and somewhere about four o'clock on the summer morning, Cherry, wakening as usual, and reaching for her book, heard a voice from the corner asking if she wanted anything. 'No, thank you, Bobbie. Go to sleep again.'
'I can't; I've been thinking about it all night. I think he's coming to-day.'
'Who?'
'Captain Harewood. He promised to come and tell us how Lance and Felix are.'
'I am very glad; but Wilmet never said so.'
'No, but-O Cherry, I wish we could contrive some nice quiet place, but nothing is ever quiet in this house.'
'No,' said Geraldine, who was but too well aware of the fact, 'though I can't imagine that any Harewood can be distressed on that score.'
'Oh, but-' said Robina, to whom the communication began to feel so momentous, that she could not help toying round it before coming to the point-'I know; at least, I am sure he will want to see her particularly.'
'You Robin, what have you got into your head?' said Cherry, trying to misunderstand, but feeling a foreboding throb of consternation.
'It is not my head. Willie told me.' And as she detected a sigh of relief, 'And it is no nonsense of his either. He did it on Sunday evening by the river-side.'
'He did it?' repeated Geraldine, willing to take a moment's refuge in the confusion of antecedents, though too well aware what must be coming.
'You know what I mean. He-Jack-John-Captain Harewood, had it out with her when we were all walking together.'
'My dear, impossible!'
'I mean, we were out of hearing, but we saw them at it, and walked up and down till Lance got tired out, and Willie and I stayed to make it proper.'
Geraldine relieved herself by a little laugh, and said, in a superior tone of elderly wisdom, 'But, my dear, there might be a walk even without what you call doing it.'
'Yes,' reiterated Robina; 'but I know, for the Captain shut himself up with Mr. Harewood when we came in, and Bill heard his father telling his mother about it at night through the wall.'
'For shame, Robin!'
'Oh! he told them long ago that he could hear, and they don't care; besides, Mrs. Harewood told him himself when he went in to wish her good morning, and she kissed me and Lance too about it, and said they hadn't their equals. And poor Mettie thinks no one knows of it but their two selves, and mayb
e Mr. Harewood!'
'But, Robin, I don't know how to understand it. I think she would have told Alda, at least.'
'Perhaps she has to-night,' said Robina; 'but, you see, she didn't accept him.'
'Oh! then it doesn't signify.'
'Not out and out, I mean; and it is only because of us. At least, we are sure she likes him.'
'We! You and Willie!'
'And Lance. He saw it all the time he was getting well. Besides, the Captain told his father that she wouldn't listen to him, and would have hindered his going to Felix if Lance had been fit to travel alone.'
'Then it is not an engagement now?'
'No, she won't let it be.'
'And he is coming to-day?'
'Yes, after he has seen Felix. O Cherry! he is so nice, kind and bright, like all the Harewoods, and not ridiculous; and Lance does like him so!'
'Does Wilmet?'
'We are almost sure. As Lance says, she has never looked so bright, or so sweet, or so pretty. Do you think it is love, Cherry?'
'We shall see,' said Cherry. 'If she tells us nothing, we can judge; and if-if-'
Her voice died away into contemplation; and after waiting in vain for more, Robina somewhat resentfully decided that 'she had fallen asleep in her very face.'
No more was said till dressing-time, when there were a few speculations whether Alda knew; and Cherry could not help auguring that something had opened Wilmet's eyes to her twin's possible deficiencies. Sister Constance came, and seeing her patient's paleness, accused the sisters of untimely bedroom colloquies; and as they pleaded guilty, Robin was struck by the air of fixed resolution on Cherry's thin white face.
There was no sign of any confidence having been made to Alda. Wilmet plunged into her long-deferred holiday task of inspecting the family linen; and when she came back with a deep basket, an announcement that every one must mend and adapt, and portions of darning and piecing for Geraldine and Robina, they began to feel as if the morning's conversation was a dream.
But just as dinner was near its close, there were steps on the stairs; the drawing-room door was opened and shut, and Sibby, unnecessarily coming through the folding leaves, announced over the head of Clement, 'Captain Harewood.'
'Come to tell about Lance!' cried Angela, leaping up, and followed by Bernard, Alda, and even Mr. Froggatt; indeed, in the existing connection of chairs, tables, and doors, a clearance of that side of the table was needful before any one else could stir. Wilmet moved after them, and Clement was heard exclaiming, 'You are pinning me down, Bobbie!'
'I know! Oh, shut the door! There are more than enough there already.'
'True,' said Sister Constance, signing to Clement to obey. 'I meant to go to my room, but Cherry wants to hear of her brothers.'
'No, she doesn't!' cried Robina. 'At least-Oh! will nobody get the others out, and leave them to themselves!'
'Why, Bobbie, what nonsense is this?' said Clement. 'One would think you took them for Ferdinand and Alda.'
'It is all the same!-Stella, you run out to the garden-by that door, you child!' And then it all came out to the two fresh auditors, who listened with conviction. 'And now,' concluded Robina, 'there is not a place where he can so much as speak to her! What shall we do to get them away?'
'You do not know yet that she wishes it,' said Sister Constance, who had been a wife before she was a Sister, and saw that it was matronly tact and tenderness that the crisis needed; 'but I'll tell you what you can safely and naturally do. Go in and fetch Cherry's folding chair, and call the children to carry her appurtenances down to the garden. That will make a break, and Wilmet can take advantage of it if she sees fit.'
'Alda is worse than ten children,' said Clement; 'she has an inordinate appetite for captains in the absence of her own.'
'It can't be helped. Better do too little than too much.'
And finding Robina shy and giggling, and Clement shy and irresolute, Sister Constance herself made the diversion by opening the door, when Wilmet's nervous look and manner was confirmation strong. 'Lady Herbert Somerville-Captain Harewood,' was Alda's formal introduction in her bad taste; while the Sister, after shaking hands, bade Bernard take Geraldine's chair to the lawn.
'Oh, are we to go out?' said Alda. 'A good move. Of all things I detest in summer, a town house is the worst. I'll just fetch a hat, I want to show my pet view.-Our brothers are always fighting about their churches, Captain Harewood.'
The thing was done; Mr. Froggatt was already gone, and as Alda's trappings were never quickly adjusted, it needed very little contrivance to leave a not unwilling pair on one side of the doors, and cut off the rest. Robina, too much excited to stand still, flew about the stairs till Alda appeared in a tiny hat fluttering with velvet tails.
'Are they gone out?'
'Yes;' for quite enough to constitute a 'they' were gone; and when Alda reached them, they sedulously set themselves to detain her, and thereby betrayed the reason.
'Nonsense! How absurd! That horrid little fright of a red-haired man! No doubt poor dear Wilmet only wants me to go and put an end to it.'
Strictly speaking, this was self-assertion. She had not the assurance to intrude, and she contented herself with keeping Cherry on thorns by threatening to go in, and declaring that the whole must be untrue, since Wilmet had not told her.
Time went on very slowly; and at last Wilmet, about four o'clock, was seen advancing, with Theodore in one hand and her great basket of mending in the other. And before Alda had time to rise from her chair, Robina darted across the grass, with flaming cheeks and low, hurried, frightened confession-'Wilmet, please, it is honest to tell you; Willie Harewood knows, and told me, and I couldn't help it; I told them to keep away.'
'It always happens so,' said Wilmet, less discomposed than Robina expected, though she had evidently been shedding tears. 'Not that there is anything to tell.'
'Nothing!' cried Robina, looking blank.
'Of course not. He came to bring me a note from Felix. I hope no one knows but those three.'
'And Sister Constance.'
'Then take care no one does.'
'But, O Wilmet, please! You have not put an end to it all?'
'No,' said Wilmet. 'They will not let me, though I think it would have been wiser. I do not know how it is to be, except that it is utterly impossible for the present.'
With this much from the fountain-head, Robina was forced to content herself; and she had tact enough not to join the trio under the tree, but to betake herself to Clement, who had gone off with his books.
'So,' said Alda lightly, 'you have cheated us of another view of your conquest, Mettie.'
'He wanted to catch the 3.45 train,' said Wilmet gravely.
'You must have been very unmerciful to despatch him so soon. I thought you must want me to come to your rescue, but those romantic children wouldn't let me.'
'Thank you,' said Wilmet.
'My dear! You don't mean that you are smitten? Well! I can't flatter you as to his beauty. And yet, after all, situated as you are, it is a catch-that is, if he has anything but his pay; but of course he hasn't.'
'Yes,' said Wilmet abstractedly, 'his father told me he had-what did he call it?-"a fair independent competence of his own." Oh! they are so kind!'
'Then, O Wilmet, is it really so?' asked Geraldine, with eager eyes, clasped hands, and quivering frame, infinitely fuller of visible emotion than either of the handsome twins.
'I-don't know.'
'My dear Wilmet,' cried Alda, excited, 'you can't surely have anything better in view!'
'No,' said Wilmet, even now keeping herself blind to the offensiveness of Alda's suggestion; 'but as it is utterly impossible for me to think of-leaving home, I did think it would have been wiser to put a stop to it while there wa-is time,' and the tears began to gather again.
'And have you?
'They won't let me.'
'Who?'
'He-and his father, and Felix,' said Wilmet, speaking steadily, but th
e tears rolling down her cheeks.
'Felix! Oh, what does he say?'
'You may see;' and she held out a letter, which Alda and Cherry read together, while she rested her elbow on her knee, her brow on her hand, and let fall the tears, which with her were always soft, free, and healthy outlets of emotion, not disabling, but rather relieving.
Mrs. Pettigrew's Lodgings, North Beach, East Ewmouth, 20th July, 10 P.M.
MY DEAREST WILMET-What I have heard to-day is a great satisfaction. I had hardly hoped that you could have been brought within the reach of any one so worthy of you. My only fear is that you are too scrupulous and self-sacrificing to contemplate fairly, and without prejudice, what is best for us all. You will imagine yourself blinded by inclination, and not attend to common sense. Harewood tells me he trusts you have no objection on personal grounds. (I hope this does not sound as if he were presuming; if so, it is my fault. Remember, I am more used to writing 'summaries for the week' than letters on delicate subjects.) But at any rate, my Mettie, I see there is much worth and weight in his affection, and that you could not manage to snub him as entirely as you wanted to do. (Didn't you?) Now, it seems to me, that if you two are really drawn to one another, both being such as you are, it is the call of a Voice that you have no right to reject or stifle. I do not mean by this that anything immediate need take place; but granting your preference, I think it would be wrong not to avow it, or to refuse, because you scruple to keep him waiting while you may be necessary at home. If you imagine that by such rejection you would be doing better for the children and me, I beg leave to tell you it is a generous blunder. Remember that, as things have turned out, I am quite as much the only dependence for the others as I was seven years ago. I felt this painfully in the spring, when I was doubtful what turn my health would take; and the comfort of knowing you would all have such a man to look to would be unspeakable-indeed, he has already lightened me of much care and anxiety. Do not take this as pressing you. Between this and the end of his leave, there will be time for consideration. Nothing need be done in haste, least of all the crushing your liking under the delusion of serving us. So do not forbid him the house; and unless your objection be on any other score, do not make up your mind till you have seen me. I should of course have been with you instead of writing, if it were not for Lance. Till I saw the dear little fellow, I had no notion how very ill he has been. The five hours' journey had quite knocked him up, and he was fit for nothing but his bed when he came; but he revived in the evening. I only hope I shall take as good care of him as the first-rate nurses he describes so enthusiastically. That month must have been worth years of common acquaintance. I wish I knew what more to say to show you how glad I am of this day's work, and to persuade you to see matters as I do.- Ever your loving brother,
The Pillars of the House, V1 Page 48
