The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 26

'See what you have done.'

'I am glad it was not your head,' said Leonard. 'What does it cost?

I'll pay.'

'More than your keep for a year,' moaned Henry, as he sighed over the long limbs of the starfish-like fracture.

'Well, I will give up anything you like, if you will only not be sulky about it, Henry. It was unlucky, and I'm sorry for it; I can't say more!'

'But I can,' said Henry with angry dignity, re-inforced by the sight of the seamed reflection of his visage in the shivered gla.s.s. 'I tell you, Leonard, there's no having you in the house; you defy my authority, you insult my friends, you waste and destroy more than you are worth, and you are absolutely dangerous. I would as soon have a wild beast about the place. If you don't get the Randall next week, and get off to the University, to old Axworthy's office you go at once.'

'Very well, I will,' said Leonard, turning to collect the fossils, as if he had done with the subject.

'Henry, Henry, what are you saying?' cried the sister.

'Not a word, Ave,' said Leonard. 'I had rather break stones on the road than live where my keep is grudged, and there's not spirit enough to get over a moment's fright.'

'It is not any one individual thing,' began Henry, in a tone of annoyance, 'but your whole course--'

There he paused, perceiving that Leonard paid no attention to his words, continuing quietly to replace the furniture and collect the fossils, as it no one else were in the room, after which he carried the basket up-stairs.

Averil hurried after him. 'Leonard! oh, why don't you explain? Why don't you tell him how the stones came there?'

Leonard shook his head sternly.

'Don't you mean to do anything?'

'Nothing.'

'But you wanted another year before trying for the scholarship.'

'Yes; I have no chance there.'

'He will not do it! He cannot mean it!'

'I do then. I will get my own living, and not be a burthen, where my brother cannot forgive a broken gla.s.s or a moment's fright,' said Leonard; and she felt that his calm resentment was worse than his violence.

'He will be cooler, and then--'

'I will have no more said to him. It is plain that we cannot live together, and there's an end of it. Don't cry, or you won't be fit to be seen.'

'I won't come down to dinner.'

'Yes, you will. Let us have no more about it. Some one wants you.'

'Please, ma'am, the fish is come.'

'Sister, sister, come and see how I have done up the macaroons in green leaves.'

'Sister, sister, do come and reach me down some calycanthus out of the greenhouse!'

'I will,' said Leonard, descending; and for the rest of the day he was an efficient a.s.sistant in the decorations, and the past adventure was only apparent in the shattered gla.s.s, and the stern ceremonious courtesy of the younger brother towards the elder.

Averil hurried about, devoid of all her former interest in so doing things for herself as to save interference; and when Mrs. Ledwich and Mrs. Pugh walked in, overflowing with suggestions, she let them have their way, and toiled under them with the sensation of being like 'dumb driven cattle.' If Leonard were to be an exile, what mattered it to her who ruled, or what appearance things made?

Only when she went to her own room to dress, had she a moment to realize the catastrophe, its consequences, and the means of averting them. So appalled was she, that she sat with her hair on her shoulders as if spell-bound, till the first ring at the door aroused her to speed and consternation, perhaps a little lessened by one of her sisters rushing in to say that it was Mrs. Ledwich and Mrs. Pugh, and that Henry was still in the cellar, decanting the wine.

Long before the hosts were ready, Dr. May and Ethel had likewise arrived, and became cognizant of the fracture of the mirror, for, though the nucleus was concealed by a large photograph stuck into the frame, one long crack extended even to the opposite corner. The two ladies were not slow to relate all that they knew; and while the aunt dismayed Ethel by her story, the niece, with much anxiety, asked Dr.

May how it was that these dear, nice, superior young people should have such unfortunate tempers--was it from any error in management? So earnest was her manner, so inquiring her look, that Dr. May suspected that she was feeling for his opinion on personal grounds, and tried to avert the danger by talking of the excellence of the parents, but he was recalled from his eulogium on poor Mrs. Ward.

'Oh yes! one felt for them so very much, and they are so religious, so well principled, and all that one could wish; but family dissension is so dreadful. I am very little used to young men or boys, and I never knew anything like this.'

'The lads are too nearly of an age,' said the Doctor.

'And would such things be likely to happen among any brothers?'

'I should trust not!' said the Doctor emphatically.

'I should so like to know in confidence which you think likely to be most to blame.'

Never was the Doctor more glad that Averil made her appearance! He carefully avoided getting near Mrs. Pugh for the rest of the evening, but he could not help observing that she was less gracious than usual to the master of the house; while she summoned Leonard to her side to ask about the volunteer proceedings, and formed her immediate court of Harvey Anderson and Mr. Scudamour.

The dinner went on fairly, though heavily. Averil, in her one great trouble, lost the sense of the minor offences that would have distressed her pride and her taste had she been able to attend to them, and forgot the dulness of the scene in her anxiety to seek sympathy and counsel in the only quarter where she cared for it. She went mechanically through her duties as lady of the house, talking commonplace subjects dreamily to Dr. May, and scarcely even giving herself the trouble to be brief with Mr. Anderson, who was on her other side at dinner.

In the drawing-room, she left the other ladies to their own devices in her eagerness to secure a few minutes with Ethel May, and disabuse her of whatever Mrs. Ledwich or Mrs. Pugh might have said. Ethel had been more hopeful before she heard the true version; she had hitherto allowed much for Mrs. Ledwich's embellishments; and she was shocked and took shame to her own guiltless head for Gertrude's thoughtlessness.

'Oh no!' said Averil, 'there was nothing that any one need have minded, if Henry had waited for explanation! And now, will you get Dr. May to speak to him? If he only knew how people would think of his treating Leonard so, I am sure he would not do it.'

'He cannot!' said Ethel. 'Don't you know what he thinks of it himself?

He said to papa last year that your father would as soon have sent Leonard to the hulks as to the Vintry Mill.'

'Oh, I am so glad some one heard him. He would care about having that cast up against him, if he cared for nothing else.'

'It must have been a mere threat. Leonard surely has only to ask his pardon.'

'No, indeed, not again, Miss May!' said Averil. 'Leonard asked once, and was refused, and cannot ask again. No, the only difficulty is whether he ought not to keep to his word, and go to the mill if he does not get the Randall.'

'Did he say he would?'

'Of course he did, when Henry threatened him with it, and talked of the burden of his maintenance! He said, "Very well, I will," and he means it!'

'He will not mean it when the spirit of repentance has had time to waken.'

'He will take nothing that is grudged him,' said Averil. 'Oh! is it not hard that I cannot get at my own money, and send him at once to Cambridge, and never ask Henry for another farthing?'

'Nay, Averil; I think you can do a better part by trying to make them forgive one another.'

Averil had no notion of Leonard's again abasing himself, and though she might try to bring Henry to reason by reproaches, she would not persuade. She wished her guest had been the sympathizing Mary rather than Miss May, who was sure to take the part of the elder and the authority. Repentance! Forgiveness! If Miss May should work on Leonard to sue for pardon and toleration, and Mrs. Pugh should intercede with Henry to take him into favour, she had rather he were at the Vintry Mill at once in his dignity, and Henry be left to his disgrace.