The Pillars of the House Part 101

'Oh, if you do, it is your own concern. I only spoke for your sake.

And Alda marched off, while Wilmet's strong tender arms helped Cherry into her own room, and tended her through one of those gusts, part repentant, part hysterical, which had belonged to her earlier girlhood, though the present was now enhanced by the tumult of insulted maidenliness. Formerly, Wilmet had not treated these attacks on the soft system, but now all her bracing severity was gone.

Greatly incensed with Alda, she gave her whole self to sympathy with the victim, showing herself so ineffably sweet and loving, that Cherry felt a thrill of delicious surprise; and as her eye lit on the glittering ring, a little ecstatic cry, still slightly hysterical, welcomed the token.

'O Wilmet, oh! You have! You have--'

'To be sure I have,' answered Wilmet, not in the lest heeding what she said in her anxiety to calm her sister. 'It is all right, if only you will not go and be silly about it.'

The woman was so much more than her words, that their odd simplicity, coming from the grand-looking figure bending over her in tender solicitude, touched Cherry the more, and she threw her arms round her sister's neck, whispering, 'Oh! I am so glad!'

Poor Wilmet! At that moment all her gladness had gone into a weight like lead on her heart, though it only made her more gentle. 'Dear Cherry,' she softly said, 'don't talk of anything to upset you. Will you be good and lie quite still while I take off my things, and then I'll come and dress you? You must not be knocked up to-night.'

'Oh! I had much rather stay here!'

'No indeed! John would be so disappointed. He does like you so much, and I always depend on you to make it pleasant for him. You can't send word that Alda has been scolding you.'

'Oh dear! why can't I behave decently to her the moment we are alone together?'

'Don't begin on that, for pity's sake, or you'll get crying again,'

broke out Wilmet, in her natural voice. ''Tis she can't behave properly to anybody--that's all; so don't think any more about anything, like a good child, but lie still till I come back.'

So up went Wilmet, not rejoicing in her room-mate, whom she found, as usual, all injured innocence and self-justification.

'You have been petting Cherry all this time! She is quite spoilt among you! It is quite true what I said, though she didn't like it.

In society, I never saw a more arrant flirt, with her pathetic ill- used airs. Why, Ferdinand actually found fault to-day with my manner to her!'

Save for the effects, Wilmet was glad to hear it. 'Well, Alda, it is not always kind.'

'I only don't fuss and coax her; I see through her better than you do. She is the sharp one. As I told Ferdinand, it is I who have reason to complain of his manner to her, only I know it is not his fault. If there were no other objection to this preposterous scheme of Felix's, she would be a reason against it.'

'For shame, Alda! You don't consider what you are saying of your sister.'

'I do!' said Alda. 'I have been more in the world than you, Wilmet, and I know what comes of sticking oneself down close to one's family, especially when there is that sort of spoilt invalid, backed up in all kinds of unreasonable expectations. I advise you to take care, Wilmet; you don't know what goes on in your absence. I should not wonder if it never came to an engagement after all.'

At that moment Felix's step and knock were at the door. Wilmet went to it, and both her hands were clasped in her brother's. 'My Wilmet, my dear, this is well!'

Then Alda turned from her gla.s.s and understood. 'What? He has spoken?

O Wilmet, and you never told me!'

'I had not time.'

'And what a splendid ring! but it is not a proper engaged-ring. You can't wear it.'

'I must! He wishes it. It was his mother's--Felix, may I have one of Mamma's for a guard?'

'May you!' said Felix, smiling.

'I should like you to give it to me. Come in.'

He came to inspect the unlocking of the ponderous old inlaid dressing-case, with velvet-lined compartments mostly empty, or only with little labelled papers of first curls, down as far as 'Edward Clement, 1842,' after which stern reality had absorbed sentiment--a sad declension from the blue enamel shrine with a pearl cypher, where Felix's downy flax reposed.

To do Alda justice, there was no greed in her nature, and she even offered Wilmet a turquoise hoop of her own, instead of a little battered ring of three plaited strands of gold, which their mother had worn till her widowhood, and they believed to be the ring of her betrothal. And when Wilmet suggested that the locket would delight Cherry, Alda's ready a.s.sent inspired the hope that she felt some compunction for her jealous unkindness.

The locket did prove a soothing charm, coupled with the little consultation as to the ribbon, and the capture of a smooth brown lock of the present to add to the original. And as the manly fingers dealt with the hasp, and the kind smile welcomed her pleasure, Cherry's heart felt that while she had her Felix, Alda need little comprehend her craving for attention from any one.

Yet her greeting to John Harewood was shy, tame, and frightened, compared with Alda's pretty graceful cordiality, as she told him that she was delighted, and envied Lance his powers of diplomacy. In fact, it was Alda who kept up the conversation, and made things pleasant, with the ease of society; while Felix was shy, Wilmet longed for silence, and Ferdinand looked like a picture of Spanish melancholy, such as had almost infected the whole table.

'I believe I must ask you to bestow a little time on me,' he said, as soon as the meal was over; and Alda made it evident that she meant to be in the conclave, which took place in the back drawing-room. It was at once made evident that the Pursuivant proposal was abhorrent to her; not that she behaved to Felix, nor indeed did she ever do so to any of his s.e.x, as she permitted herself to do to Geraldine, but she showed great displeasure at the idea having been started.

'Things are unfortunate enough already,' she said, with something like Wilmet's dignity; 'but I should never forgive such hopeless ruin to dear Ferdinand's prospects.'

'Have I not told you that no prospect is anything to me if you can only be mine?'

'We know all that,' said Alda, drawing herself away rather sharply from the caressing hand, 'and therefore I must think for you, and I will not be the means of lowering your position in life.'

'Alda, dearest!' cried Ferdinand, glancing at Felix in such genuine distress as made him interfere in pity.

'We understand about position, Ferdinand; and you and Alda have been able to observe how far life is enjoyable in this lowered position.'

'Felix,' said Alda, who had evidently wound herself up for this crisis, 'you know very well that you stand quite out of common rules; but I am sure you can see that however valuable your work may be, it would be wrong to draw Ferdinand to the same level.'

'As for that,' said Ferdinand moodily, yet with the air of a banished prince, 'Felix knows what my father was; and if I knew that my grandfather was an honest man, it would be well. A stray wanderer, cast up at your door, has no right to talk of levels.'

'You are not to talk,' said Alda, more affectionately. 'You are too generous to be allowed to think.'

'In plain English, Alda,' said her brother, 'the objection is yours.'

'I cannot see him sacrifice himself for my sake,' said Alda.

'As though it could be a sacrifice!' exclaimed Ferdinand, 'when it opens the way to make you my own at once, my peerless beauty! If you--'

'Come, we have had all this over before,' said Alda, shrinking a little petulantly as he hovered over her, speaking with the fervour of his Mexican nature, and his eyes glowing with eagerness; 'if you will not have common sense, I must.'

'Common sense! It is not common sense I want! It is love!'

'If you doubt my affection--' said Alda, with dignity, drawing back.

'No! no! no! I never was so profane. Only it drives me frantic to hear you so coolly willing to keep us apart for--'

'Because my affection is less selfish and narrow than yours,' said Alda, raising her voice as his became like a roll of distant thunder.

'I tell you I will not be the means of binding you to a petty provincial paper, that may give an immediate pittance, but will lead to nothing. Would that be love worth having? I appeal to Felix, his scheme though it was.'

Felix was a very uncomfortable third party, especially as Alda's appeal implied a certain accusation of himself. 'I own,' he said, 'that this situation is not likely to lead to promotion, but it would be competence. Ferdinand would be satisfied, but you--'

'I, who know what he is used to, cannot be satisfied for him.'

'As if you--' gasped the lover; but Alda would not let him go on.