'Dear child! I wish I were there!'
'Can't we go?'
'What, you? Think of the train.'
Lance shook his head. 'Couldn't I stay by myself, and you run up?'
'I don't think I can help it.
But the excitement of the evening broke Lance's sleep, and the next day he was quite ill; while Felix not only saw that he must not be left, but perceived after the first that Sister Constance's warning ought to be respected, and that an arrival would only agitate Cherry's nerves. So he wrote his sanction with a very heavy heart, betraying as little emotion as was consistent with the tenderness so essential to support brave but fragile little Geraldine.
The anxiety seemed to have swallowed up the recollection of Mr. Staples' message; indeed, it was not willingly that Felix answered his note, and made a half engagement to the picnic.
Felix was struck by seeing how much, under the circumstances, Lance missed the daily service to which he had been used all his life.
'I didn't mind it at first,' said the chorister, 'it seemed a part of the holiday; but somehow the day seems all stupid and astray without it.'
But there was no church with it to be heard of; and indeed one attempt on Sunday at East Ewmouth resulted in Lance's collapsing into some of his most distressing symptoms, caused, as he declared, by the overpowering might and untuneableness of the singing, but quite bad enough to make Felix resolve against permitting further experiments, and thus walk off by himself on the next Wednesday forenoon when he heard the bell.
There was a long lecture that he had not bargained for, and when he came out with a slightly impatient impulse, the first thing he saw was a blue umbrella, a white hat, and a hand waving a paper. In silence Felix read-
'Constance Somerville to Felix Underwood.-11.30. Favourably over. No cause for anxiety.'
They were rather grave and awe-struck, and scarcely spoke all the way home-indeed, Felix was chiefly thinking how to get Lance home out of the sun without hurrying or over-heating him, but after dinner came a reaction; the boy went frantic with admiration of a beautiful yacht that was standing into the bay, and Felix, with his letter to Sister Constance to write, one to Australia to finish, and his leading articles to draw up, was forced to command peace in something of the old rough-and-ready style; and even when Lance vanished, he was to be heard singing scraps of comic songs in the distance.
By and by he came in carrying a board taller than himself. 'Please your Majesty, I'll be as mute as a mole; but I must do this here, for Mrs. Pettigrew is baking.'
'What in the name of wonder, have you got there?' asked Felix, as Lance proceeded to lay his board on the sofa (his day and Felix's night-bed) and place on it a white and soppy mass.
'A little dab out, as Sibby calls it,' said Lance. 'It's my puggery. Ever since it fell overboard it has been a disgrace to human nature, so I have been washing it, and now I've got an iron heating.'
'What a mess you will make of it!' observed Felix, with a grimace of disgust, as Lance returned again from the kitchen, holding the iron scientifically near his cheek.'
'That's all you know about it! Why, I've ironed dozens of pocket- handkerchiefs-at least, not dozens, but my own, dozens of times-in the Harewood tubs.'
'I thought the Chapter washed you?'
'So it does, in reason; but last spring there was a doom on my pocket-handkerchiefs. The Harewood puppy ate up one; one dropped into the canal; I tied up a fellow that had got a cut with one, and the beggar never returned it; and two or three more went I don't know how. I knew W. W. would be in a dreadful state if I asked for a fresh lot, so I used to wash out the last two by turns, till I got some tip and bought some fresh ones-such jolly ones, all over acrobats and British flags; and after all, didn't I catch it? Wilmet was no end of disgusted to miss her little stupid speckotty ones, vowed these weren't decent for the Cathedral, and boned them all for Theodore! Now, hush! or I shall come to grief!'
Felix held his pen suspended to watch the dexterity that reduced the crude mass to smooth muslin, which in its expanded state looked as impracticable as before.
'Now, do you mean to get Mrs. Pettigrew to put it on in those elegant festoons?'
'You just mind your leader, Blunderbore! A man who has had women to do for him all his life is a pitiable being!'
And Lance, according to instructions obtained from John Harewood, wreathed his hat triumphantly in the white drapery, and completed Felix's surprise and amusement by producing a needle and thread, and setting to work on various needful repairs of his own buttons and his brother's, over which he shook his head in amusement as he chuckled at the decay which had befallen the garments of so neat a personage as Felix, and which had been very distressing to himself.
'Ah! thank you. I never knew what Robinson Crusoe felt like before!' said Felix, as Lance came on a wrist-band minus button.
'Robinson Crusoe! You'd soon have been like Man Friday before he caught him.'
'But doesn't the matron mend for you?'
'She pretends; but I should like to see her face if one brought her a chance thing to do. My eyes! if that isn't old Staples! I must absquattilate.'
Which after all he had no time to effect, with all his works, before their friend came to ask whether they were relieved about their sister, and was amused at the handy little schoolboy's ingenious preparations. 'After all, I find it is to be more of an affair than I expected; I thought it was to be only ourselves and the Brandons, but they are the kind of people who always pick up every one.'
'Does that yacht belong here?' eagerly asked Lance.
'That! It is the Kittiwake-Captain Audley's.'
'Ha! That's what Fulbert went to Alexandria in! What fun!'
'He is the son of Sir Robert Audley. Do you know him?'
'His brother was my father's fellow-curate,' said Felix, 'and is our guardian and kindest friend. I have seen this one in London. Will he be at this picnic?'
'Not likely. He is shy and uncertain, very hearty and friendly when you do meet him, but reluctant to go into society, and often taking no notice one day, when he has seemed like one's best friend the day before. They say he has never got over the loss of his wife; but I don't like such manners.'
'Does he live here, then!'
'He rents the little Tudor cottage under the cliff year by year, for the sake of his yachting-for he won't go near the regular stations. He's got his boy at school at Stoneborough, and stays here all the winter.'
When the brothers were walking part of the way back with their visitor, they met the gentleman in question, with three boys after him, and he was evidently in a cordial mood; for after shaking hands with Mr. Staples, he exclaimed, 'I am sure I ought to know you!'
'Felix Underwood,' said the owner of that name.
'Indeed! Not staying with your worthy relations?'
'No, I am down here with my brother, who has been laid up by a sunstroke, and wanted sea air.'
'I wish I had been at home' said the Captain, who had taken a great fancy to Felix when they had been together in London two years before; 'but I've been giving my boy and his cousins, the two young Somervilles, a trip to the Hebrides; and now, just as I am come home, I fall upon Mrs. Brandon, hounding me out to an abominable picnic, and my youngsters are wild to go. Are you in for it? I believe we shall go round to the cove in the yacht. Can I take you two?'
Felix gladly accepted, aware that their transport was a difficulty to the Stapleses, and that the Kittiwake would be felicity to Lance, who had fraternised with the boys, and went off with them to see the vessel. He returned brimful of delight and fatigue, only just in time to tumble into bed as fast as possible, and Felix was thus able to get his work off his mind by midnight.
The morning's letters set them quite at rest. Sister Constance and Clement both wrote: Geraldine had been calm and resolute from the time Felix's consent arrived, and doubt was over, and Clement, though tender, and striving hard to be firm, had been chiefly useful in calling out her words of enc
ouragement. He had spent the time of the operation in the oratory, and there had been so entirely overcome by the tidings that all was safely over, that he was hardly fit to go to Cherry when he was sent for, and that was not soon, for the effect of chloroform on her had indeed been to annihilate pain, but only half to make her unconscious, for she went on talking to Felix about the expedience all the time, ever repeating the old motto, 'Under Wode, Under Rode;' and the trance had lasted for a good while, though when once over, she remembered nothing of it, and was only so rejoiced and thankful that it was difficult to keep her calm enough. She sent her brothers her love, and entreated them not to say a word at home. Lady Liddesdale had contrived the sale of the book of illustrations-a work that had been Cherry's delight of many years, so that she could feel that she herself had earned what would cover the expense incurred, all but the medical attendance, freely given to an inmate of St. Faith's. 'Tell Felix I am as happy as a queen,' was the final message; 'tell him to give thanks for me.'
Felix's voice trembled, shook, and gave way, as he read; and at last he sprang up, and walked about the room, saying that no one ever had such brothers and sisters as himself. There was something almost oppressive in the relief from so much anxiety, and it was some time before he roused his ordinary senses to say, 'Well! we must finish breakfast, or we shan't be ready for the Captain. How round the world is! Those boys must be Sister Constance's nephews-Lady Liddesdale's sons.'
'Those boys,' said Lance. 'What, Sum and Frank? Well, I did think it queer that the sailors on board the Kittiwake called every one My Lord.'
'Sum, I imagine, must mean Lord Somerville. What did you think of them?'
'Nicish chaps of eleven and twelve. Nothing like such swells as Tom Bruce! The little one wanted to know where I was at school, and his senior snubbed him; so I supposed he saw by the looks of me that I wasn't upper-crust public school; and when I said I was a choir-boy, the other-Charley Audley-said, "Oh, then you're one of the awful lot my father always jaws about when he's out of sorts!" I told him I was very sorry, and it wasn't my fault, but yours; and then we got on like a house on fire.'
CHAPTER XXI. A KETTLE OF FISH
'Our Pursuivant at arms will show
Both why we came and when we go.'
SCOTT.
The place of the picnic was a good way off, being the point of the promontory that shut in the mouth of the river, a great crag, with a long reef of rocks running out into the sea, playfully called the Kitten's Tail, though the antiquarians always deposed that the head had nothing to do with cats or kits, but with the disposition to erect chapels to St. Christopher on the points of land where they might first greet the mariners' eyes. Beneath this crag, sheltered by the first and larger joints of the Kitten's Tail, was a delightful sandy nook, where appeared a multitude of smart hats, male and female, a great many strangers even to Captain Audley, who would fain have recognised none of them. In a strong access of his almost morbid silence, he devoted himself to Felix, and kept aloof from almost every one. Even at the dinner, spread on a very sloping bit of beach, picnic exigencies enabled him to be nearly tete-a-tete with Felix, who found himself almost back to back to a lady in a brilliant foreign pheasant's plume, with glass dew-drops at the points.
In a pause of their own conversation, they heard the inquiry, 'Do you know who that boy is-that fair delicate-looking lad just opposite, with the white muslin round his hat?'
'Oh-that!' answered the pheasant lady; 'that is young Lord Somerville, son to the Marquess of Liddesdale. He and his brother, Lord Francis, have been out yachting with Captain Audley.'
The Captain smiled as he looked at the boys. 'Ay,' he observed, with a flash of his bright dark eyes,' he has the advantage over Sum.'
For Lance had resumed his lark-like air, and it was perhaps the more striking from the fragility and transparency that remained about his looks; and he was full of animation, as he, with a reinforcement of boys, clustered round a merry sunny-faced girl, full of joyous drollery.
'Very queer and eccentric-quite a bear,' was the next thing they heard; whereat Captain Audley nodded and smiled to Felix. After the general turmoil caused by the change of courses had subsided, that penetrating voice was heard again. 'Yes, we came home sooner than we had intended. The fact was, we found that old Mr. Underwood was being beset by some of those relations. You remember? Oh, yes; they have sunk very low-got into trade, absolutely got into trade! One of them a mere common singing-boy. Mr. Underwood is getting aged-quite past- -and we did not know what advantage might be taken of him.'
'Your turn now,' murmured Captain Audley, with a look of diversion calculated to allay the wounded flush on his neighbour's cheek.
'Do you mean Mr. Edward Underwood's sons?' said a voice on the other side. 'I always understood them to be very respectable and well conducted.'
'Oh, very likely! Only I do happen to know that one of them has been a great trouble and vexation to Tom Underwood; and we didn't want the same over again with the poor old Squire.'
'Did I understand you that any of them were here?' added the other voice; 'for I had just been struck by the likeness of that boy opposite, talking to my sister, to poor Mr. Edward Underwood, as I remember him.'
'Oh no, Mrs. Rivers; I assure you that's young Lord Somerville!'
Captain Audley made an effort, rather difficult in his Turkish position, to crane his head beyond the interposing figures, recognised and bowed to the speaker, who greeted him by name, and thus diminished the flow of Mrs. Fulbert Underwood's conversation by her awe of the high and mighty bear whom she scarcely knew by sight. He had no taste for scenes, and did not put either her or Felix to pain by mentioning his name; but when the last act of the meal was over, and people began to move, he made his way in the direction of the inquiring voice. 'Mrs. Rivers, let me introduce Mr. Felix Underwood.'
'I am very happy-' and there was a cordial smile and a hand held out. 'Are you here for long? My father would be so much pleased to see you.'
It was a rather worn pale face; but the ease and sweetness of manner, and the perfect fitness of the dress, made a whole that gave Felix a sense of the most perfect lady he had met with, except his mother and Sister Constance.
'I am at Ewmouth, with one of my brothers who has been ill.'
'Lord Somerville?' and all three burst out laughing. 'My sister has found him out, I see. She and your little boy are old friends, Captain Audley.'
'Yes, you have been very kind to him. But I am as much surprised to see you here as you can be to see my friend. Are you from home?'
'We go back this evening. We slept at the Crewes' last night. My husband had business there; and when they asked us to this picnic, it was a good opportunity for Gertrude to learn the beauties of her county.'
'Which she seems to be doing under full escort,' laughed Captain Audley, as the young lady and the young boy flock were seen descending to the rocks.
'She has a strong taste for little boys,' said the elder sister.
'You have the Somerville boys here, haven't you, though?'
'Yes; there had been scarlatina or something or other in their school, and their mother was afraid of them among their sisters, till I had purified them by a sea voyage.'
Probably Mrs. Fulbert never found out her mistake; for Lord Somerville reported that he had never been so pitched into in his life as by an old girl in a 'stunning tile,' who found him washing out an empty pie-dish for the benefit of some maritime monsters that he wanted to carry home to his sisters; but that when Lance came up, she was as meek as a mouse. Certainly, the two boys were little sturdy fellows, burnt lobster-like up to the roots of their bleached and rough hair; and their costumes were more adapted to the deck of the Kittiwake in all weathers than to genteel society. Their sisters were in an aquarium fever, and their sport all through their expedition had been researches for what they had learnt in Scotland to call 'beasts'; and now the collection was to be completed from the mouth of the Ewe, and the scrambling and tumbling it
involved were enchanting.
Kate Staples, who usually considered Lance her charge, was not sorry to see a croquet player disposed of among his own congeners, for the game seemed such a necessary of life, that it was actually prepared for on the sands, to the extreme contempt of the anemone hunters. 'Play at croquet, forsooth, when rocks aren't to be had to scramble on every day!' And scramble ecstatically they did, up and over slippery stone and rock festooned with olive weed, peeping into pools of crystal clearness, and admiring rosy fans of weed, and jewel-like actinias embellished by the magic beauty of intense clear brightness. The boys took off shoes and stockings, turned up trousers, and scrambled and paddled like creatures to the manner born.
'O dear! I wish I might!' sighed the young lady.
'Why don't you?' said Charlie Audley. 'Kate and Em and Annie always do-don't they, Frank?'
'Of course they do, or how would they ever get on!'
'Come along then, Miss Gertrude,' said Charlie. 'You can't think how jolly it is!'
And soon another pair of little white feet were dancing on the rocks. 'Oh dear! what a blunder of civilisation it is to wear shoes at all! How delicious a hold one gets!'
'I can't think why people do wear them! They never are anything but a bother,' said Lance.
'To play at football with,' suggested Somerville from the top of a rock.
'But women don't,' said Gertrude.
'I think women do it, and make us, that they may have something to worrit about,' said Frank. 'Damp stockings are the bother of creation till one goes to school; and then, isn't it Jolly!'
'Except the chilblains,' called out Charlie.
'I believe,' said Lance, 'chilblains come of shoes.'
'No, they can't,' argued Charlie, 'for one has them on one's hands.'
'Well,' said Gertrude, 'let's form ourselves into a society for the suppression of shoes and stockings!'
'Hurrah!' cried Lance. 'I know one person at least that it would be a blessing to.
The question was, how the five bold reformers were to begin. Frank suggested drowning all the present stock, and pretended to be about to begin, but was of course prevented by a scream.
The Pillars of the House, V1 Page 52
