Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 99

He was in a state of nervous excitement at every postman's knock, making sure, poor fellow, that Elvira's first use of her victory would be to return to him. But all that was heard of was a grand reception at Belforest, bands, banners, hors.e.m.e.n, triumphal arches, banquet, speeches, toasts, and ball, all, no doubt, in "Gould taste."

The penny-a-liner of the Kenminster paper outdid himself in the polysyllables of his description, while Colonel Brownlow briefly wrote that "all was as insolent as might be expected, and he was happy to say that most of the county people and some of the tenants showed their good feeling by their absence."

Over this Mrs. Brownlow would not rejoice. She did not like the poor girl to be left to such society as her aunt would pick up, and she wrote on her behalf to various county neighbours; but the heiress had already come to the house in Hyde Corner, chaperoned by her aunt, who, fortified by the trust that she was "as good as Mrs. Joseph Brownlow," had come to fight the battle of fashion, with Lady Flora Folliott for an ally.

The name of George Gould, Esquire, was used on occasion, but he was usually left in peace at his farm with his daughter Mary, with whom her step-mother had decided that nothing could be done. Kate was made presentable by dress and lessons in deportment, and promoted to be white slave, at least so Armine and Barbara inferred, from her constrained and frightened manner when they met her in a shop, though she was evidently trying to believe herself very happy.

Allen was convinced at last that he was designedly given up, and so far from trying to meet his faithless lady, dejectedly refused all society where he could fall in with her, and only wandered about the parks to feed his melancholy with distant glimpses of her on horseback, while Armine and Barbara, who held Elvira very cheap, were wicked enough to laugh at him between themselves and term him the forsaken merman.

Jock had likewise given up his old connections with fashionable life.

Several times, if anything were going on, or if he met a former brother officer in the street, he would be warmly invited to come and take his share, or to dine with the mess; he might have played in cricket matches and would have been welcome as a frequent guest; but he had made up his mind that this would only lead to waste of time and money, and steadily declined, till the invitations ceased. It would have cost him more had any come from Cecil Evelyn, but all that had been seen of him was a couple of visiting-cards. The rest of the family had not come to town for the season, and though the two mothers corresponded as warmly as ever, and Fordham and Armine exchanged letters, there was a sort of check and chill upon the friendship between the two young girls, of which each understood only her own half.

Jock said nothing, but he seemed to have grown mother-sick, spent all his leisure moments in haunting his mother's steps, helping her in whatever she was about, and telling her everything about his studies and companions, as if she were the great solace of the life that had become so much less bright to him.

In general he showed himself as droll as ever, but there were days when, as John said, "all the skip was gone out of the Jack." The good Monk was puzzled by the change, which he did not think quite worthy of his cousin, having--though the son of a military man--a contempt for the pomp and circ.u.mstance of war. He marvelled to see Jock affectionately hook up his sword over the photograph of Engelberg above his mantelshelf; and he hesitated to join the volunteers, as his aunt wished, by way of compelling variety and exercise. Jock, however, decided on so doing, that Sydney might own at least that he was ready for a call to arms for his country. He did not like to think that she was reading a report of Sir Philip Cameron's campaign, in which the aide-de-camp happened to receive honourable mention for a dashing and hazardous ride.

"Why, old fellow, what makes you so down in the mouth?" said John, on that very day as the two cousins were walking home from a lecture. They had had to get into a door-way to avoid the rush of rabble escorting a regiment of household troops on their way to the station, and Lucas had afterwards walked the length of two streets without a word. "You don't mean that you are hankering after all this style of thing--row and all the rest of it."

"There's a good deal more going to it than row," said Jock, rather heavily.

"What, that donkey, Evelyn, having cut you? I should not trouble myself much on that score, though I did think better of him at Eton."

"He hasn't cut me," Jock made sharp return.

"One pasteboard among all the family," grunted the Friar. "I reserve to myself the satisfaction of cutting him dead the next opportunity," he added magniloquently.

Jock laughed, as he was of course intended to do, but there was such a painful ring in the laugh that John paused and said--

"That's not all, old fellow! Come, make a clean breast of it, my fair son. Thou dost weary of thy vocation."

"No such thing," exclaimed Jock, with an inaudible growl between his teeth. "Trust Kencroft for boring on!" and aloud, with some impatience, "It is just what I would have chosen for its own sake."

"Then," said John, still keeping up the grand philosophical air and demeanour, though with real kindness and desire to show sympathy, "thou art either entangled by worldly scruples, leading thee to disdain the wholesome art of healing, or thou art, like thy brother, the victim of the fickle s.e.x."

"Shut up!" said Jock, pushed beyond endurance; "can't you understand that some things can't be talked of?"

"Whew!" John whistled, and surveyed him rather curiously from head to foot. "It is another case of deluded souls not knowing what an escape they've had. What! she thought you a catch in the old days."

"That's all you know about it!" said Jock. "She is not that sort. The poverty is nothing, but there's a fitness in things. Women, the best of them, think much of what I suppose you call the row. It fits in with all their chivalry and romance."

"Then she's a fool," said John, shortly.

"I can't stand any more of this, Monk, I tell you. You know just nothing at all about it, and I've no right to complain, nor any one to bait me with questions."

The Monk took the hint, and when they reached their own street Jock said--

"You meant it all kindly, Reverend Friar, but there are things that won't stand probing, as you'll know some day."

"Poor old chap," said John, with his hand on his shoulder, "I'll not bother you any more. The veil shall be sacred. If this has been going on all the time, I wonder you have carried it off so well!"

"Ali is a caution," said Jock, who had shaken himself into his ordinary manner. "What would become of Babie with two blighted beings on her hands? Besides, he has some excuse, and I have not."

After this at every carriage to which Lucas bowed, John frowned, and scanned the inmates in search of the fair deceiver, never making a guess in the right direction.

John had enough of the Kencroft character not to be original. Set him to work, and he had plenty of intelligence and energy, perhaps more absolute force and power than his cousin Lucas; but he would never devise things for himself, and was not discursive, pausing at novelties, because his nature was so thorough that he could not take up anything without spending his very utmost force upon it.

His University training made him an excellent aid to Armine, who went up for his examination at King's College and acquitted himself so well as to be admitted to begin his terms after the long vacation.

Indeed he and Barbara had drawn together again more. She had her home tasks and her cla.s.ses at King's College, and did not fret as at St.

Cradocke's for want of work; she enjoyed the full tide of life, and had plenty of sympathy for whatever did not come before her in a "goody"

aspect, and, though there might be little depth of serious reflection in her, she was a very charming member of the household. Then her enjoyment of society was gratified, for society of her own kind had by no means forgotten one so agreeable as Mrs. Brownlow, and whereas, in her prosperity, she had never dropped old friends, they welcomed her back as one of themselves, resuming the homely inexpensive gatherings where the brains were more consulted than the palate, aesthetics more than fashion. She was glad of it for the young people's sake as well as her own, and returned to her old habit of keeping open house one evening in the week between eight and ten, with cups of coffee and varieties of cheap foreign drinks, and slight but dainty cakes made by herself and Babie according to lessons taken together at the school of cookery.

As Allen declared these evenings a grievance, and often thought himself unable to bear family chatter, she had made the old consulting room as like his luxurious apartment at home as furniture and fittings could do, and he was always free to retire thither. Indeed the toleration and tenderness with which his mother treated him were a continual wonder and annoyance to Barbara, the active little busy bee, who not unjustly considered him the drone of the family, and longed to sting him, not to death but to exertion.

It was provoking that when all the other youths had long finished breakfast and gone forth, Mother Carey should wait lingering in the dining-room to cherish some delicate hot morceau and cup of coffee, till the tardy, soft-falling feet came down the stairs, and then sit patiently as long as he chose to dally with his meal, telling how little he had slept. Babie had tried her tongue on both, but Allen, when she shouted at his door that breakfast was ready, came forth no sooner, and when he did so, told his mother that he could not have children screaming at his door at all hours of the morning. Mother Carey replied to her impatient champion that while waiting for Allen was her time for writing letters and reading amusing books, and that the day was only too long for him already, poor fellow, without urging him to make it longer.

"More shame for him," muttered pitiless sixteen.

After breakfast Allen generally strolled out to see the papers or to bestow his time somewhere--in the picture galleries or in the British Museum, where he had a reading order; but it was always uncertain whether he would disappear for the whole day, shut himself up in his own room, or hang about the drawing-room, very much injured if his mother could not devote herself to him. Indeed she always did so, except when she was bound to take Barbara to some of her cla.s.ses (including cookery), or when she had promised herself to Dr. and Mrs. Lucas, who were now both very infirm, and knew not how to be thankful enough for the return of one who became like a daughter to them; while Jock, their G.o.dson, at once made himself like the best of grandsons, and never failed to give them a brightening, cheering hour every Sunday.

The science of cookery was by no means a needless task, for the cook was very plain, and Allen's appet.i.te was dainty, and comfort at dinner could only be hoped for by much thought and contrivance. Allen was never discourteous to his mother herself, but he would look at her in piteous reproach, and affect to charge all failures on the cook, or on "children being allowed to meddle," the most cutting thing to Babie he could say.

Then the two Johns always took up the cudgels, and praised the food with all their might. Indeed the Friar was often sensible of a strong desire to flog the dawdling melancholy out of his cousin, and force him no longer to hang a dead weight on his mother; and even Jock began to be annoyed at her unfailing patience and pity, though he understood her compa.s.sion better than did those who had never felt a wound.

She did in truth blame herself for having given him no profession, and having acquiesced in the indolent dilettante habits which made all harder to him now; and she was not certain how far it was only his fancy that his health and nerves were perilously affected, though Dr. Medlicott, whom she secretly consulted, a.s.sured her that the only remedies needed were good sense and something to do.

At last, at Midsummer, the crisis came in a heavy discharge of bills, the consequence of Allen's incredulity as to their poverty and incapability of economising. He said "the rascals could wait," and "his mother need not trouble herself." She said they must be paid, and she found it could be done at the cost of giving up spending August at St. Cradocke's, as well as of breaking into her small reserve for emergencies.

But she told Allen that she insisted on his making some exertion for his own maintenance.

"Yes," said Allen in languid a.s.sent.

"I know it is harder at your age to find occupation."

"That is not the point. I can easily find something to do. There's literature. Or I could take up art. And last year there was a Hungarian Count who would have given anything to get me for a tutor."

"Then why didn't you go?"

"Mother, you ask me why!"

"I know you had not made up your mind to the worst, but it is a pity you missed the opportunity."

"There will be more," said Allen loftily. "I never meant to be a burden, but ladies are so impatient, I suppose you do not wish to turn me out instantly to seek my fortune. No, mother, I do not mean to blame you.

You have been sadly hara.s.sed, and no woman can ever enter into what I have suffered. Put aside those bills. Long before Christmas, I shall be able to discharge them myself."

So Allen wrote to Bobus's friend at Oxford, but he of course did not keep a pocketful of Hungarian Counts. He answered one or two advertis.e.m.e.nts for a travelling tutor, and had one personal interview, the result of which was that he could have nothing to do with such insufferable sn.o.bs. He also concocted an advertis.e.m.e.nt beginning with "M.A., Oxford, accustomed to the best society and familiar with European languages," but though the newspapers charged highly for it, he only received one answer, except those from agents, and that, he said with illimitable disgust, was from a Yankee.

Meantime he turned over his poems, and made Barbara copy out a ballad he had written for the "Traveller's Joy" on some local tradition in the Tyrol. He offered this to a magazine, whose editor, a lady, was an occasional frequenter of Mrs. Brownlow's evenings. The next time she came, she showed herself so much interested in the legend that Allen said he should like to show her another story, which he had written for the same domestic periodical.

"Would it serve for our Christmas number?"