The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 57

'Not sleeping; but we shall have them all day to-morrow, for they cannot get home the same day by setting off after the wedding. There will be no one else, for even our own people are going, for Harry is to go to Maplewood with Blanche, and Aubrey has to be at Woolwich; but we shall all be at home to-night.'

'Last time was in the volunteer days, two or three centuries ago.'

It was strange how, with this naturally least congenial of all the family, Ethel had a certain understanding and fellow-feeling that gave her a sense of rest and relief in his company, only impaired by the dread of rubs between him and his father. None, however, happened; Dr.

May had been too much hurt to press the question of the inheritance, and took little notice of Tom, being much occupied with the final business about the wedding, and engrossed by Hector and Harry, who always absorbed him in their short intervals of his company. Tom went to see Dr. Spencer, and brought him in, so cheerful and full of life, that what Ethel had been hearing seemed like a dream, excepting when she recognized Tom's un.o.btrusive gentleness and attention towards him.

She was surprised and touched through all the hara.s.s and hurry of that evening and morning, to find the 'must be dones' that had of late devolved on her alone, now lightened and aided by Tom, who appeared to have come for the sole purpose of being always ready to give a helping hand where she wanted it, with all Richard's manual dexterity, and more resource and quickness. The refreshment of spirits was the more valuable as this was a very unexciting wedding. Even Gertrude, not yet fourteen, had been surfeited with weddings, and replied to Harry's old wit of 'three times a bridesmaid and never a bride,' that she hoped so, her experience of married life was extremely flat; and a glance at Blanche's monotonous dignity, and Flora's worn face, showed what that experience was.

Harry was the only one to whom there was the freshness of novelty, and he was the great element of animation; but as the time came near, honest Harry had been seized with a mortal dread of the tears he imagined an indispensable adjunct of the ceremony, and went about privately consulting every one how much weeping was inevitable. Flora told him she saw no reason for any tears, and Ethel that when people felt very much they couldn't cry; but on the other hand, Blanche said she felt extremely nervous, and knew she should be overcome; Gertrude a.s.sured him that on all former occasions Mary did all the crying herself; and Aubrey told him that each bridesmaid carried six handkerchiefs, half for herself and half for the bride.

The result was, that the last speech made by Harry to his favourite sister in her maiden days was thus:--'Well, Mary, you do look uncommonly nice and pretty; but now'--most persuasively--'you'll be a good girl and not cry, will you?' and as Mary fluttered, tried to smile, and looked out through very moist eyes, he continued, 'I feel horribly soft-hearted to-day, and if you howl I must, you know; so mind, if I see you beginning, I shall come out with my father's old story of the spirit of the flood and the spirit of the fell, and that will stop it, if anything can.'

The comicality of Harry's alarm was nearly enough to 'stop it,' coupled with the great desire of Daisy that he should be betrayed into tears; and Mary did behave extremely well, and looked all that a bride should look. Admirable daughter and sister, she would be still more in her place as wife; hers was the truly feminine nature that, happily for mankind, is the most commonplace, and that she was a thoroughly generic bride is perhaps a testimony to her perfection in the part, as in all others where quiet unselfish womanhood was the essential. Never had she been so sweet in every tone, word, and caress; never had Ethel so fully felt how much she loved her, or how entirely they had been one, from a time almost too far back for memory. There had not been intellectual equality; but perhaps it was better, fuller affection, than if there had been; for Mary had filled up a part that had been in some measure wanting in Ethel. She had been a sort of wife to her sister, and thus was the better prepared for her new life, but was all the sorer loss at home.

The bridegroom! How many times had Ethel to remind herself of her esteem, and security of Mary's happiness, besides frowning down Gertrude's saucy comments, and trying to laugh away Tom's low growl that good things always fell to the share of poor hearts and narrow minds. Mr. Cheviot did in fact cut a worse figure than George Rivers of old, having a great fund of natural bashfulness and self-consciousness, which did not much damage his dignity, but made his attempts at gaiety and ease extremely awkward, not to say sheepish.

Perhaps the most trying moment was the last, when hearing a few words between Ethel and Mary about posting a mere sc.r.a.p, if only an empty envelope, from the first resting-place, he turned round, with his laugh, to object to rash promises, and remind his dear sister Ethel that post-offices were not always near at hand! After that, when Mary in her bright tenderness hung round her sister, it was as if that was the last fond grasp from the substance--as if only the shadow would come back and live in Minster Street.

Perhaps it was because Ethel had tried to rule it otherwise, Mr.

Cheviot had insisted that the c.o.c.ksmoor children's share in the festivity should be a dinner in the Whichcote hall, early in the day, after which they had to be sent home, since no one chose to have the responsibility of turning them loose to play in the Grammar-school precincts, even in the absence of the boys. Richard was much afraid of their getting into mischief, and was off immediately after church to superintend the dinner, and marshal them home; and the rest of the world lost the resource that entertaining them generally afforded the survivors after a marriage, and which was specially needed with the two Cheviot sisters to be disposed of. By the time the Riverses were gone home, and the Ernescliffes and Harry off by the train, there were still four mortal hours of daylight, and oh! for Mary's power of making every one happy!

Caroline and Annie Cheviot were ladylike, nice-looking girls; but when they found no croquet mallets in the garden, they seemed at a loss what life had to offer at Stoneborough! Gertrude p.r.o.nounced that 'she played at it sometimes at Maplewood, where she had nothing better to do,' and then retreated to her own devices. Ethel's heart sank both with dread of the afternoon, and with self-reproach at her spoilt child's discourtesy, whence she knew there would be no rousing her without an incapacitating discussion; and on she wandered in the garden with the guests, receiving instruction where the hoops might be planted, and hearing how nice it would be for her sister to have such an object, such a pleasant opportunity of meeting one's friends--an interest for every day. 'No wonder they think I want an object in life,' thought Ethel; 'how awfully tiresome I must be! Poor things, what can I say to make it pleasanter?--Do you know this Dielytra? I think it is the prettiest of modern flowers, but I wish we might call it j.a.pan fumitory, or by some English name.'

'I used to garden once, but we have no flower-beds now, they spoilt the lawn for croquet.'

'And here comes Tom,' thought Ethel; 'poor Tom, he will certainly be off to London this evening.'

Tom, however, joined the listless promenade; and the first time croquet was again mentioned, observed that he had seen the Andersons knocking about the b.a.l.l.s in the new gardens by the river; and proposed to go down and try to get up a match. There was an instant brightening, and Tom stepped into the drawing-room, and told Daisy to come with them.

'To play at croquet with the Andersons in the tea-gardens!' she exclaimed. 'No, I thank you, Thomas!'

He laid his hand on her shoulder--'Gertrude,' he said, 'it is time to have done being a spoilt baby. If you let Ethel f.a.g herself ill, you will rue it all your life.'

Frightened, but without clear comprehension, she turned two scared eyes on him, and replaced the hat that she had thrown on the table, just as Ethel and the others came in.

'Not you, Ethel,' said Tom; 'you don't know the game.'

'I can learn,' said Ethel, desperately bent on her duty.

'We would teach you,' volunteered the Cheviots.

'You would not undertake it if you knew better,' said Tom, smiling.

'Ethel's hands are not her strong point.'

'Ethel would just have to be croqued all through by her partner,' said Gertrude.

'Besides, my father will be coming in and wanting you,' added Tom; 'he is only at the hospital or somewhere about the town. I'll look after this child.'

And the two sisters, delighted that poor little Gertrude should have such a holiday treat as croquet in the public gardens, away from her governess elder sister, walked off glorious; while Ethel, breathing forth a heavy sigh, let herself sink into a chair, feeling as if the silence were in itself invaluable, and as if Tom could not be enough thanked for having gained it for her.

She was first roused by the inquiry, 'Shall I take in this letter, ma'am? it is charged four shillings over-weight. And it is for Mr.

Thomas, ma'am,' impressively concluded the parlour-maid, as one penetrated by Mr. Thomas's regard to small economies.

Ethel beheld a letter bloated beyond the capacities of the two bewigged Washingtons that kept guard in its corner, and addressed in a cramped hand unknown to her; but while she hesitated, her eye fell on another American letter directed to Miss Mary May, in Averil Ward's well-known writing, and turning both round, she found they had the same post-mark, and thereupon paid the extra charge, and placed the letter where Tom was most likely to light naturally on it without public comment. The other letter renewed the pang at common property being at an end. 'No, Mab,' she said, taking the little dog into her lap, 'we shall none of us hear a bit of it! But at least it is a comfort that this business is over! You needn't creep under sofas now, there's n.o.body to tread upon your dainty little paws. What is to be done, Mab, to get out of a savage humour--except thinking how good-natured poor Tom is!'

There was not much sign of savage humour in the face that was lifted up as Dr. May came in from the hospital, and sitting down by his daughter, put his arm round her. 'So there's another bird flown,' he said. 'We shall soon have the old nest to ourselves, Ethel.'

'The Daisy is not going just yet,' said Ethel, stroking back the thin flying flakes over his temples. 'If we may believe her, never!'

'Ah! she will be off before we can look round,' said the Doctor; 'when once the trick of marrying gets among one's girls, there's no end to it, as long as they last out.'

'Nor to one's boys going out into the world,' said Ethel: both of them talking as if she had been his wife, rather than one of these fly-away younglings herself.

'Ah! well,' he said, 'it's very pretty while it lasts, and one keeps the creatures; but after all, one doesn't rear them for one's own pleasure. That only comes by the way of their chance good-will to one.'

'For shame, Doctor!' said Ethel, pretending to shake him by the collar.

'I was thinking,' he added, 'that we must not require too much. People must have their day, and in their own fashion; and I wish you would tell Tom--I've no patience to do it myself--that I don't mean to hamper him. As long as it is a right line, he may take whichever he pleases, and I'll do my best to set him forward in it; but it is a pity--'

'Perhaps a few years of travelling, or of a professorship, might give him time to think differently,' said Ethel.

'Not he,' said the Doctor; 'the more a man lives in the world, the more he depends on it. Where is the boy? is he gone without vouchsafing a good-bye?'

'Oh no, he has taken pity on Annie and Caroline Cheviot's famine of croquet, and gone with them to the gardens.'

'A spice of flirtation never comes amiss to him.'

'There, that's the way!' said Ethel, half-saucily, half-caressingly; 'that poor fellow never can do right! Isn't it the very thing to keep him away from home, that we all may steal a horse, and he can't look over the wall, no, not with a telescope?'

'I can't help it, Ethel. It may be very wrong and unkind of me--Heaven forgive me if it is, and prevent me from doing the boy any harm! but I never can rid myself of a feeling of there being something behind when he seems the most straightforward. If he had only not got his grandfather's mouth and nose! And,' smiling after all--'I don't know what I said to be so scolded; all lads flirt, and you can't deny that Master Tom divided his attentions pretty freely last year between Mrs.

Pugh and poor Ave Ward.'

'This time, I believe, it was out of pure kindness to me,' said Ethel, 'so I am bound to his defence. He dragged off poor Daisy to chaperon them, that I might have a little peace.'

'Ah! he came down on us this morning,' said the Doctor, 'on Richard and Flora and me, and gave us a lecture on letting you grow old, Ethel--said you were getting over-tasked, and no one heeding it; and looking--let's look'--and he took off his spectacles, put his hand on her shoulder, and studied her face.

'Old enough to be a respectable lady of the house, I hope,' said Ethel.

'Wiry enough for most things,' said the Doctor, patting her shoulder, rea.s.sured; 'but we must take care, Ethel; if you don't fatten yourself up, we shall have Flora coming and carrying you off to London for a change, and for Tom to practise on.

'That is a threat! I expected he had been prescribing for me already, never to go near c.o.c.ksmoor, for that's what people always begin by--'

'Nothing worse than pale ale.' At which Ethel made one of her faces.

'And to make a Mary of that chit of a Daisy. Well, you may do as you please--only take care, or Flora will be down upon us.'

'Tom has been very helpful and kind to me,' said Ethel. 'And, papa, he has seen Leonard, and he says he looked so n.o.ble that to shake hands with him made him feel quite small.'

'I never heard anything so much to Tom's credit! Well, and what did he say of the dear lad?'