The Pillars of the House Part 83

First, there was Alda's story. Never had there been such a miserable time--with Geraldine interfering, fussy, fretful, fault-finding; Clement intolerable in primness and conceit, only making the children worse when he pretended to keep them in order, and making such a fuss about Geraldine, when nothing ailed her but change of weather, incurring the expense of the Dearport doctor, and bringing down the Sister upon them, so awkward to have her in the drawing-room in that dress, but Sisters always thrust themselves into families. She hoped she had shown my Lady that she was not to be overawed by a t.i.tle-- such affectation, not using it! No consideration for her; the servants regularly spoilt, both of them; Martha a vulgar insolent creature, and Sibby disgustingly familiar and slovenly, no good at all, not even to keep Theodore out of the way. At which Theodore, knowing no more than his own name and Alda's displeasure, set up a dismal howl; and as Wilmet chose to coax and fondle him into silence instead of scolding and turning him out, Alda went off in a huff, muttering about asylums and proper places; and Wilmet descended to the kitchen, the little weak hand clasped tight into hers.

A sore sight awaited her below; the bills of this month for luxuries of sinful extravagance in her economical eyes! Chicken and asparagus, ducks and peas, even in the height of their season, were enormities to such housekeeping as hers, and had raised the sum total to four times the amount that her foreboding soul had dreaded. It exceeded her present supplies, and was a grave addition to the expenses of the two illnesses, that were serious enough already.

Martha was eloquent, not to say defiant, in self-defence. 'You see, Miss Underwood, if I'd been let alone, or Miss Cherry had been the one to take my orders from, which we could have made it out to your satisfaction; but with Miss Halder, which expects everything to be just like what it was in the fammerly up in London, which it stands to reason as it can't; which she hasn't got no more notion than a baby of prices, nor seasons, nor nothink; which is very determined, too, which won't suffer a word from n.o.body; which if you hadn't been coming home, Miss Underwood, I'd have given warning, which have always given you satisfaction.'

Wilmet's satisfaction was not increased when she encountered Sibby.

'Ah, my darling Missie dear, ye're the jewel that's been longed for!

The whole house has been mad entirely, and lost widout you; the children rampaging and playing pranks, and Miss Cherry dwining and pining to a skeleton, so that but for Master Clem and that holy woman, the Sisther, 'tis scarce alive ye'd have found her. Miss Alda, she's the very wonder of the worruld for jealousy and unfeelingness.

I up and told her at last there was well-nigh as much differ between you and she, as between Stella and this blessed lamb that she spites; for if you have not carried off all the wit and understanding, sure 'tis you that has got all the heart, and the head, and the hands.'

'And the partial old nursey, Sibby! You see I had no time nor thought but for poor Lance, and Alda was so new to it.'

'Ah, Missie dear, you were always the one to vindicate her, but 'tis no use! Newness! 'Twasn't newness that makes her turn the back of her hand to this darling innocent, till he cries if he's left a moment with her.--Ay, my precious, what would have become of you and me but for Masther Clem?--I tell you, Miss Wilmet, I never thought that long boy the aquil of his brothers till I saw him in time of need. Yer father himself--Heaven be his bed!--couldn't have been tenderer with Theodore nor Miss Cherry, by night or by day, an' never a cross word when he was bothered past his life with Miss Alda's ugliness an' the children's boldness.

'Oh, those children! What is come to them, Sibby?'

'Only funning and merriment, Missie dear. They'd never have had to be faulted if Miss Alda had let Miss Cherry deal with them; but she could neither rule them herself, nor bear to see them ruled; and though she was like a mad cow if they played their pranks on her, she backs them up if Miss Cherry, or Master Clem, or even the Sisther, do but say a word to them, so 'tis no wonder if the poor dears have been a bit off their heads, but they'll be as quiet as doves now ye're back again. Oh, Missie dear, my own child, but it's you that are the light of my eyes, looking the blooming beauty that you are.'

The foster-mother's genuine compliment could not lighten the load that had grown every moment heavier, and more compunctious for the deaf ear she had turned to Clement. Wilmet said a word or two of apology to him when she met him on the stairs, loaded with books to study in the garden.

'Never mind,' he magnanimously answered, 'it is all right now you are come, and it was impossible before. Only, please do say something warm to Sister Constance, for Alda is barely civil to her.'

'I am very sorry; I did not think Alda had that sort of prejudice,'

said Wilmet, whose instinct of defence of Alda had wonderfully diminished.

'The chief prejudice came of my sending for her,' said Clement.

'Besides, Sister Constance spoke out very sharply about the strawberries and when we had a couple of chickens, and Alda scolded me for helping her to a leg instead of a wing, Sister Constance said, "Oh, I supposed you had them on Geraldine's account;" and she gives the children leave to do anything Sister Constance objects to. These things are hardly their fault. But, I say, Mettie, now you are come, and it is all right, do you think I might go to St. Matthew's? The Vicar and Mr. Sterling are alone, while the other curates are holiday-making, and they say I could really be of some use to them, and they would give me some help with this reading for my examination. Somers is there too, and I have not seen him since Christmas.'

'Indeed,' said Wilmet, 'no one has deserved a holiday more than you, Clement! You have done your best.'

This--almost the first home praise or thanks that had fallen to his lot--elicited that real grace of humility for which poor self- conscious Clement really strove. 'I have tried, Mettie,' he said, with tears in his eyes; 'but it was not as if it had been one of the others. There must be something very wrong about me, to make me so disagreeable.'

'You have gained two hearts,' said Wilmet, 'Sibby's and this little fellow's.'

For Theodore had attached himself limpet fashion to Clement, who with difficulty piled his books so as to leave a hand free for him.

'He had better come with me,' said Wilmet; 'your reading must have been dreadfully interrupted.'

'It has, rather,' said Clement, whose examination was in alarming proximity; 'but I don't mind him, I can work to his tunes as well as Felix can; and all is right now you are come.'

That was the burthen of every one's song. It came next from Cherry, whom she found in her own room; 'There was so much bustle in the sitting-room,' she said.

'My dear, you have gone through a great deal!'

'"There's nae luck about the house when our gude man's awa',"' said Cherry. 'Clem played and whistled that so often, that Alda begged never to hear it again; but unluckily Tedo had caught it, and I don't think she quite believes he doesn't hum it on purpose! But now, how delicious it is to have got at least our gude woman! And, oh dear!

Wilmet, I beg your pardon; but you do look so lovely, I can't help telling you so! or is it the pleasure of seeing you?'

'My poor Cherry! I did not think half enough about you.'

'That would have done no good. Most of this rose out of my own crossness and horridness. If I could only be anxious without being peevish!'

'Now, Cherry, don't waste time in telling me it was your own fault; I know all about that! I really want to understand how it has all been with Alda and Clement. I am afraid Alda has not been behaving nicely.'

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, a.s.suring 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 a.s.sembled 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 f.a.g of her vexatious day, and speaking plentifully of this same Captain, proving to herself all the while that she was doing so with ordinary grat.i.tude 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?'