But then what a welcome upstairs! what a clamour of happy tongues! what an ecstatic humming of 'The Hardy Norseman!' what a clinging to and climbing on him! If he had the cares, he had much of the joys, of the goodman of the house! But presently he missed the voice usually blithest of all, and asked for Lance.
'He was here a little while ago,' said Wilmet, 'drinking his tea. He must have gone up to bed.'
'No,' said Bernard; 'I've just been up to the barrack, and he isn't there.'
'You've not let him sleep in the attic!' exclaimed Felix. 'Why, under the leads it is like an oven!'
'I am very sorry,' said Wilmet, 'but I could not see how to help it. Your room is worse, with the glare of the setting sun; and so is Cherry's at this time of the evening.'
'Then he must have Mr. Froggatt's.'
'I thought,' said Alda, 'that you never took liberties with Mr. Froggatt?'
'Nonsense!' said Felix. 'There are only two bedrooms in this house fit for that boy in his present state-yours and Mr. Froggatt's. Which shall we have, Wilmet?'
'Mr. Froggatt's,' she answered at once. 'If you will not have another cup, I'll get it ready for him at once.'
'I've just done. I'll come and help you. But where can the boy be? In the garden?'
'No,' said Wilmet, taking a survey from the window.
'I have hardly seen him all day,' added Alda. 'I suppose he has pursuits of his own.'
'Pursuits!' said Felix, looking really anxious; 'poor little chap, he can't do without constant care and quiet!'
Wilmet made no answer, but rose and left the room; Alda muttered something about his looking quite well, which Felix did not stay to hear, following his sister out with a word about looking for him. At the same moment a little soft hand was thrust into his, and Stella, as soon as the door was shut, said, 'Please, I know where Lance is, but it's a secret.'
'Not from me, I hope?' said Felix, catching her up in his arms.
'I think not,' said Stella meditatively. 'He only told me not to let Bear and Tedo know, because they make a row. He is only up over the back warehouse, where he used to play the fiddle to us last Easter.'
'The only cool quiet place he could find!' said Felix, with more of a look of reproach than he had ever given Wilmet.
It went to her heart. 'I did not know what to do,' she said meekly. 'I wanted very much to go into the barrack ourselves, but Alda said it would kill her, and you know it has always been a sore subject that we would not let her have Mr. Froggatt's room. I ought not to have given way.'
'Alda's selfishness is a great power,' muttered Felix; and Wilmet was too much ashamed to contradict him, except by 'She is vexed because she has not heard from Ferdinand,' as they hastily made their way to the warehouse, which, being on the north side of higher buildings, never did get scorched through.
Felix went up a step-ladder, Wilmet following; and there, sure enough, was Lance, lying in a nest of paper shavings, with head on his air-pillow. 'Oh, you've unearthed me, have you? I wish you'd let me stay here all night!' he said, with some weary fretfulness; but the next moment burst into a peal of laughter, as Wilmet's head appeared above the floor. 'Pallas Athene ascends! Oh! what a place it would be to act a play-only then all the fry would find it out! I hope they haven't! I told the Star not to tell!'
'My poor dear Lance, is this the only quiet place you could find? and you let us all neglect you, and never complained!' exclaimed Wilmet, kissing his hot forehead.
'Why, it's only my stupidity,' said Lance, wearily but gratefully; 'and you can't make places quiet or cool! If you would just let me sleep here!'
'No; but you shall have Mr. Froggatt's room. He will not want it now. Come along, Lance, we'll bring your things down. The barrack is a great deal too hot for you to go into!'
He did not make any resistance; but as they landed from the ladder, threw his arm round Wilmet, and leant against her with a sort of lazy mischievous tenderness, as he said, 'Isn't the Froggery wanted for- somebody else?' and tried to look up in her face.
'Ferdinand always goes to the Fortinbras Arms,' answered Wilmet, with admirable composure.
'Oh! that's a precedent,' said Lance, ostentatiously winking at Felix, who was very glad the ice was broken. 'When is he coming, Mettie?'
'I think Alda hoped he might have run down to-night, on hearing of your return.'
There they paused while entering the house and going upstairs, but no sooner were they in the barrack, which was certainly insufferably hot, than Lance returned to the charge.
'But when is he coming? Not Fernan-he's an old story.'
'Yes, said Felix, walking up to Wilmet to fold together the corners of the sheets they were stripping from Lance's bed, and looking into her eyes so archly as to bring up an incarnadine blush, 'I want particularly to improve my acquaintance, if you don't.-What shall we do, Lance?'
'Advertise in Pur,' suggested Lance. 'The editor returned. Young men may apply!'
'Don't, boys!' exclaimed Wilmet, in tones belonging to bygone days, when neither she nor Felix had been too serious to tease or be teased. 'He is much better than you,' she added, with a pretty confused petulance, when Felix put on a pleading inquisitive face. 'When he found we didn't like it he went away to visit his uncle.'
'Better than we! There, Lance!' said Felix, in a gratified provoking tone of discovery.
'In one sense,' said Wilmet, walking down before him.
'I am very glad you have found it out,' added Felix, as they entered Mr. Froggatt's cool well-blinded bedroom, the only well-furnished one in the house.
'It is no laughing matter,' said Wilmet seriously.
'That's well,' was the dry answer.
But there Felix perceived that she was on the verge of tears, and he kindly and quietly helped her to despatch her arrangements for Lance before any more was said; only as they turned to bid the tired boy goodnight, he said, 'Where does the uncle live? I shall telegraph to-morrow, you cruel person!'
'Hush! silly boy-goodnight,' said Wilmet, with a quivering voice, then, as she shut the door, 'Please don't go on this way, Felix-I wouldn't have had it happen for any consideration.'
'I suppose not,' said Felix, as they returned to the twilight garden; but as it has-Why, my Mettie, dear!' as she pressed close to him, and hid her face on his shoulder, with a strong craving for the help and sympathy from which the motherless girl had hitherto been debarred.
'O Felix! I wish he would not be so good and kind! I wish you would not try to make me give in!'
'My dear girl,' said Felix, with his arm round her. 'You know I would not if I did not see that you had given in.'
'No, I haven't!' she cried. 'Why should you want to persuade me? Isn't it very cruel and hard to let him give all himself to one that can't come to him? He will have to go out and live all dreary and lonely for years and years, and come home to find nothing but a stupid old worn-out drudge, with all these pretty looks gone off! Felix, be reasonable, please! Can't you see that I ought not to let things go that way?'
'Do you mean,' said Felix, 'that you would be quite content to put an end to all this-let Harewood go away believing you indifferent, and never see him again?'
'Felix, why do you-?' with tears in her eyes.
'Because I am quite sure that the consideration you want to show him would be no kindness. The pain of having his affection thrown over' (he spoke with a spasm in the throat) 'would be greater than you would like to inflict, if you were forced by truth to own you did not care for him; and if he be what I think, the carrying away security of your feeling for him will be gladness enough. And as for the looks, I have a better opinion of yours than to think they won't wear! Any way, dearest, it seems to me that you have won the heart of a good man, and that if you like him, it is your duty to give him the comfort of knowing it without thinking about to-morrows.'
'But I know so much more would come if I did just allow that much! And I might get to wish to leave you all,' she said in an appalled voice. 'And there see
ms to me not the slightest chance. You see Alda and Cherry never will get on together; and Cherry seems glad of an excuse to stay from home. I thought she would have cared to come back when you did.'
'Poor Cherry!' said Felix, hesitating, with a little of her own nervous awe of broaching the subject.
'You don't mean that there is anything seriously amiss!' she cried, startled.
'Wilmet, do you remember what Rugg said would be the very best thing for that poor child?'
She stood still, dismayed and angered. 'They aren't tormenting the poor little thing about that?'
'It is not their doing,'
'It can't have become necessary! Sister Constance would have told me! Felix say she is not worse!'
'No, much better. But, Wilmet, what we could not bear to think of, she thought of for herself, and begged to have it done.'
'Then I must go to her.'
'There is no occasion. She knew you could not be spared. It was done on the 10th, and she will soon walk better than she has done all these years.'
'Done! without our knowledge?'
'She wished to spare us all, but that was not allowed. I was written to, and told that her strong desire was such a favourable condition, that I had better consent, so as not to protract the strain of spirits. She made a point of no one else knowing except Clement.'
'Ah!' Wilmet spoke as if under a weight, 'that was the day Clement went down to Dearport, and came home so late! How could Sister Constance consent not to tell me?'
'You must forgive her, for it was the little one's desire! Of course we should have been fetched if anything had gone wrong; but she has done perfectly well; and there she is, very happy, and so full of fun, that the Sisters say she keeps them all alive.'
'Done? I cannot fancy it!' said Wilmet. 'Do you know, I believe it has been my bugbear for years past to think I might have to persuade her to this?'
'To tell you the truth, so it has to me.'
'Little nervous timid thing, I can't even understand her thinking of it!'
'She wanted me not to tell you, but I would not promise. She could not rest without trying not to be an obstacle to-'
Wilmet interrupted with a cry of pain.
'Isn't it a noble little thing?'
'But it is so silly!' broke out Wilmet, not choosing her words amid her tears.
'So she thinks now, poor child; she is quite ashamed of the presumptuous notion that did brace and carry her through.'
'I don't like her to be disappointed,' said Wilmet; 'but it is quite ridiculous.'
'Only comfort her a little, Mettie dear, for she is very much afraid you will think she has taken a great liberty with your property.'
'I only wish I could kiss her this moment.'
'Well, run down by the train to-morrow. They would all be delighted.'
'No, no, Felix, impossible. Think of the cost!'
'Half a crown! Sinful waste!' said Felix, in a tone of alarming levity.
'Felix, if you only knew what the housekeeping mounted up in that unhappy month that I was away! I did not like to tell you before, but-'
'Well!' at the dreadful pause.
'I had to get fifteen pounds from Mr. Froggatt's; and Alda finds, after all, that she cannot advance the money for Lance's journey.'
'So you are pinching it out by pence, my poor W. W.!'
'Nothing extra must be done till this is made up.'
'Yet it seems needful that Bernard should go to school. I wrote about-'
'No,' she resolutely interrupted. 'Bernard must wait over this year. Thirty pounds. Utterly out of the question!'
'Her tone gave Felix an unusual sense of chill penury, and brought Vale Leston before his eyes. He laughed rather bitterly, saying, 'Perhaps some day neither thirty pence nor thirty pounds may have so direful a sound!'
'I never mean to learn to waste.'
'You may have to learn to spend.'
'That's enough to set me against it!' she exclaimed, with a good deal of pain; and he found how nearly he had broken his resolution, and how her application of his words to herself had saved him. He followed the lead.
'Nay; you were glad of Alda's prosperity?'
'Oh yes; but poor Alda has been hindered from being like one of us,' she said. 'We have fought it out together. And I should not mind so much if he were poor like us, and had to wait on his own account.'
'I appreciate that,' said Felix; 'but at least you will let the poor fellow come and judge for himself?'
'If-if only, Felix, you will promise not to try to tempt me into deserting you all, when I know it would be wrong.'
'If I will promise you not to cut my own throat, eh? Come, W. W., put out of your head "what it may lead to," confess that you are afraid of getting connected with such a mad harum-scarum set!'
'It isn't,' broke out Wilmet. 'I never saw any one so thoughtful and considerate. They are all so kind and warm-hearted, that I grew quite ashamed of my own fidgetiness; and he-he always knew the right thing at the right time. You can't think how his look seemed to hold me up, when poor Lance was moaning and talking nonsense!'
Having thus let herself out as she had never dared, nor indeed been tempted to do, since the first dawn of the courtship, Wilmet at last relieved herself of some of the vast sense of emotion that she had been forcing back for the last month. Hitherto the mistress of the house had seemed older than the master; but now the elder brother took the place of both parents-ay, and of sister-as, all her fencing over, she poured out her heart, and let him sympathise, cheer, soothe, and encourage, more by kind tones than actual words. The harvest-moon shone over the house-tops, as a month before she had shone by the river-side; and the Pillars of the House walked up and down till Alda grew desperate, and sallied out to tell them that it was past eleven.
It was only such snatches of time that Felix could give to home affairs, for his hands were full of arrears of business, and the excitement respecting Mr. Smith necessarily occupied him. Pending the arrival of letters from the Rector, every tongue was in commotion, and the reading-room was a focus of debate and centre of intelligence. So many letters, either in assault or defence, were addressed to the editor of the Pursuivant, that only a supplement as big as the Times could have contained them. Every poor person who had not had every demand supplied from the charities was running about, adding to the grievance at every encounter with tender-hearted lady or justice-loving gentleman, whose blood boiled over into a letter for the Pursuivant, which, when sifted and refused, was transferred to the Dearport Hermes, or Erms, as most of its supporters termed it.
CHAPTER XXII. THE REAL THING AND NO MISTAKE
'With asses all his time he spent,
Their club's perpetual president,
He caught their manners, looks, and airs-
An ass in everything but ears.'
GAY.
The master of the house was unable to contribute much more than his name to the propriety of the arrival of the suitors, and this made Wilmet the more determined that Geraldine should precede them. Nor, since the half-crown must be disbursed on an escort for her, did the housewifely conscience object to the expedition, for Wilmet could not but long to thank the Superior and Sister Constance, and to obtain Dr. Lee's advice as to future management. Her coming was great joy to Cherry, who had dreaded the meeting almost with a sense of guilt, though still hoping Felix had been silent on her motive; and Wilmet did not betray him, but only treated her sister with a mixture of almost shy tenderness and reverence. Nor did Cherry dare to ask a question as to Wilmet's own affairs, nor even about Ferdinand Travis, lest she should seem to be leading in that direction. However, Wilmet, in a persuasive tone, communicated that Ferdinand had been long without writing, and though Cherry tried to be sorry for Alda, her spirit quailed at the state of temper her sister evidently meant to prepare her for.
But fate was more kind than she expected. That very Saturday brought both gentlemen, and by the same train. They made each other out as they were leaving t
heir bags at the Fortinbras Arms, and arrived together in marked contrast-the tall, dark, regular-featured, soft-eyed Life-guardsman, and the little sandy, freckled, sun-dried engineer; and thus two courtships had to be carried on in the two rooms, only supplemented by the narrow parallelogram of a garden! For Ferdinand Travis was back again, rather amused at the family astonishment at the rapidity of his journey to America, which to his Transatlantic notions of travel was as nothing, and indeed had been chiefly performed in a big steamer, where he could smoke to his heart's content.
For the first few days there was a good deal of restraint: Wilmet was more shy than in the unconscious days of Bexley, while John Harewood was devoid of his family's assurance and bonhomie, and so thoroughly modest and diffident as to risk nothing by precipitation in begging for a decision. Felix, inexperienced, and strongly sensible of his office as guardian of his sister's dignity, would not hint at the result of his investigations into Wilmet's sentiments; and it was to Geraldine that Captain Harewood's attentions were chiefly paid. Knowing Alda's resolute monopoly of her Cacique, Cherry at first held back, and restrained her keen enjoyment of real conversation; but she found Wilmet thankful to have the talk done for her, and content to sit at work, listening almost in silence, but proud that her Captain should be interested in her sister, and pleased to see Cherry's expressive face flash and sparkle all over for him. While Wilmet was at Miss Pearson's, Cherry was his chief resource; they read, drew, and talked, and in that half-hour's out- of-door exercise, which Dr. Lee had so strongly enjoined, his arm was at her service. They were soon on the borders of confidence, though never quite plunging over them. Perhaps the broad open-mouthed raillery at his home made the gentle reticence of the Underwoods the more agreeable to him; at any rate, he did not try to break through it, nor to presume beyond the step he had gained. Alda, who could best perhaps have acted as helper, had her own affairs to attend to; and they were evidently unsatisfactory, for Ferdinand was more than ever the silent melancholy Don, and she was to domestic eyes visibly cross, and her half-year at home had rendered her much less capable of concealing ill-humour. Something was owing to wear and suspense, together with the effects of the summer heat and confined monotonous life without change or luxury; but much was chargeable on the manifestations of temper to which she had given way in the home circle. She told Wilmet the trouble, which Ferdinand wished to have kept from open discussion till he had received a final statement of his means to lay before Felix. He had received no remittances since the spring, and on demanding his own share of the capital and investments, had found it, instead of the lion's, a ridiculously small portion. The whole fortunes of the house of Travis had been built on his mother's inheritance; but the accounts laid before him represented all the unprosperous speculations undertaken by his father, William, while the small ventures of his Uncle Alfred had, alongside of them, swelled into the huge wealth of which Ferdinand had been bred to believe himself the heir! So palpably outrageous was this representation, that he had persuaded himself that personal investigation on the spot would clear it up, or perhaps more truly his blood was up, and he could not bear to be inactive. He had rushed over to New York, and of course he had been baffled. Exposure was of no use where sympathy was for the lucky rather than the duped and luckless, and where the Anglicised Life-guardsman could expect it least of all-at a time, too, when all business affairs were convulsed by the uncertainties of civil war. Alda could not believe at first that he had done his utmost, and seemed to have reproached him with weakness and mismanagement; but by her own account she had roused the innate lion. He would not tell her what had passed in the interview with his uncle, but he had shuddered over the remembrance; and when she upbraided him with not having gone far enough, he terrified her by the fierceness with which he had turned upon her, bidding her never recur to what she knew nothing about, and muttering to himself, 'Far enough-thank God I went no further, or I should not be here now!' and then falling into deep gloom. He had certainly made Alda afraid of him, and she burst into tears as she told Wilmet, declaring herself the most miserable girl in the world.
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