The Two Sides of the Shield Part 16

'Nay, don't be in a hurry,' said Miss Mohun. 'Don't give it to her unopened. Your only safety is in maintaining your right to see all the child's letters, except what her father specified.'

'Don't you wish it was you, Brownie?' asked her cousin.

'I hate it!' said Lady Merrifield; 'but I suppose I ought! However, there's no harm in this, that's a comfort; it is simply that the gentleman that the house is let to has found this note to her somewhere about, and thinks she would wish to have it. I think it is her mother's hand. How nice of him!'

'Now, Lily, don't go and be too apologetic,' said Jane. 'a.s.sert your right, or you'll have it all over again.'

'Without Jenny to do prudence,' said Lord Rotherwood, while Lady Merrifield, hardly hearing either of them, hurried on in search of her niece, but they would have been satisfied if they could have heard her.

'My dear, here's your letter. I am so sorry to have been too much hindered to look at it before. You must not mind, Dolly. I know it is very disagreeable; but every one who has the care of precious articles like young ladies is bound to look after them.'

Dolores took the letter with a kind of acknowledgement, but no more, for its detention offended her, and she was aggrieved at the prospect of future inspection, as another cruel stroke inflicted upon her.

Aunt Adeline was found in the drawing-room, where she had entertained such ladies as were afraid of the damp, or who did not approve of the dancing, and would not look on at it. Thence all went off to a merry meal, where the elders plunged into old stories, and went on capping each others' recollections and making fun, to the extreme delight of the young folk, who had often been entertained with tales of Beechcroft.

Aunt Ada declared that she had not laughed so much for ten years, and Aunt Jane declared that it was too bad to lower their dignity and be so absurd before all these young things.

'It's having four of the old set together!' said Lord Rotherwood; 'a chance one doesn't get every day. I wonder how soon Maurice and Phyllis will meet.'

'It depends on whether the Zen.o.bia touches at Auckland before going to the Fijis,' said Lady Merrifield.

'There is at least a sort of neighbourhood between them,' said Miss Mohun, 'though it may be about as close as between us and Sicily.'

'She is looking out for Maurice,' said Aunt Ada. 'She wrote, only it was too late, to propose his bringing Dolores to be at least nearer to him.'

'Just like Phyllis!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the marquess. 'You have one of your flock with something of her countenance, Lily.'

'I am so glad you see it, Rotherwood. It is what I am always trying to believe in, and I hope the likeness is a little within as well as without--but we poor creatures who have been tumbled about the world get sophisticated, and can't attain to the sweet, blundering freshness of "Honest Simplicity."'

'It is a plant that must be spontaneous--can't be grown to order.'

'His lordship's carriage at the door,' announced Macrae.

'Ah, well! Trains must be caught, I suppose. I'm glad you're settled here, Lilias. I feel as if a sort of reflex of old Beechcroft were attainable now.'

'I hope it won't be a G.F.S. day next time you come!'

'Oh, it was very jolly. I shall bring my child next time, if I can get her out of the clutches of the governesses for a day, but it is a hard matter. They look daggers at me if I put my head into the schoolroom.'

'You always were a dangerous element there, you know.'

'Poor dear Eleanor! What did I not make her go through! But she never went the length of one of my lady's governesses, who declared that she had as much call to interfere in my stable, as I had with her schoolroom.'

'What mischief were you doing there?'

'Well, if you must know, I was enlivening a very dry and Cromwellian abridgement with some of Lily's old cavalier anecdotes, so Lily was at the bottom of it, you see.'

'But did she fall on you then and there?'

'No, no. I trust my beard is too grey for that. But she looked at me with impressive dignity such as neither poor little Fly nor I could stand, and afterwards betook herself to Victoria, who, I am happy to say, sent her to the right about.'

'As I am about to do,' said Lady Merrifield; 'for if you don't miss your train, it will be by cruelty to animals. No, you've not got time to shake hands with all that rabble. Be off with you.'

'Ah! I shall tell Victoria that if she sees me tomorrow it's all owing to your unpitying punctuality,' said he, shaking himself into his overcoat.

'Dear old fellow!' said Lady Merrifield, as she turned from the front door, while he drove off. 'He is like a gust of old Beechcroft air! But I should think Victoria had a handful.'

'She knew what she was doing,' said Aunt Ada. 'I always thought she married him for the sake of breaking him in.'

'And very well she has done it, too,' returned Aunt Jane. 'Only now and then he gets a holiday, and then the real creature breaks out again.

But it is much better so. He would not have been of half so much good otherwise.'

Lady Merrifield looked from one to the other, but said no more, for all the young folks were round her; but every one was so much tired, children, servants, and all, that prayers were read early, and all went to their rooms. Yet, tired as she was, Lady Merrifield sat on in her sister Jane's room, in her dressing-gown, talking according to another revival of olden time.

'What did Ada mean about Rotherwood? Isn't he happy?'

'Oh yes, very happy; and it is much the best thing that could have happened. It is only another of the proofs that life is very long, especially for men.'

'Come, now, tell me all about it. You don't know how often I feel as if I had been buried and dug up again.'

'There are things one can't write about. Poor fellow! he never really wanted to marry anybody but Phyllis.'

'No! you don't mean it! I never knew it.'

'No, for you were in the utmost parts of the earth; and he was very good, so that I don't believe honest Phyl herself, or any one without eyes, guessed it; but he had it all out with our father, who begged him, almost on that allegiance he had always shown, to abstain from beginning about it. You see, not only are they first cousins, but our mother and his father both were consumptive, and there was dear Claude even then regularly breaking down every winter, and Ada needing to be looked after like a hothouse plan. I'm sure, when I think of the last generation of Devereuxes, I wonder so many of us have been tough enough to weather the dangerous age; and there had been an alarm or two about Rotherwood himself. Well, he was very good, half from obedience, half from being convinced that it would be a selfish thing, and especially from being wholly convinced that Phyl's feelings were not stirred. That was the way I came to know about it, for papa took me out for a drive in the old gig to ask what I thought about her heart, and I could truly and honestly say she had never found it, cared for Rotherwood just as she did for Reggie, and was not the sort to think whether a man was attentive to her. Besides, she was eighteen, and he thirty-one, and she thought him venerable. I believe, if he had asked her then, she might have taken him (because Cousin Rotherwood wished it), but she would have had to fall in love in the second place instead of the first. Well, he was very good, poor old fellow, except that by way of taking himself off, and diverting his mind, he went dear-stalking with such unnecessary vehemence that a Scotch mist was very nearly the death of him, and he discovered that he had as many lungs as other people. If you could only have seen our dear old father then, how distressed and how guilty he felt, and how he used to watch Phyllis, and examine Alethea and me as to whether she seemed more than reasonably concerned for Rotherwood had come and hit the right nail on the head he might have carried her off.'

'But he didn't.'

'No; for, you see, he was ill enough to convince himself, as well as other people, that he was a consumptive Devereux after all.'

'Oh yes! I remember the shock with which I heard like a doom that he was going the way of the others; and hen he and the dear Claude came out in his yacht to us at Gibraltar, and were so bright! We had a wonderful little journey into Spain together, and how Jasper enjoyed it! Little did I think I was never to see Claude here again. But it was true, was it not, that all Rotherwood's care gave the dear fellow much more comfort--perhaps kept him longer?'

'I am sure it was so. Rotherwood soon got over his own attachment--the missing an English winter was all he needed; but he would hear of nothing but devoting himself to Claude. Papa and Claude were both uneasy at his going off from all his cares and duties, but I believe--and Claude knew it--that he actually could not settle down quietly while Phyllis remained unmarried, and that having Claude to nurse and carry about from climate was the comfort of his life. Or, I believe, dear Claude would have been glad to have been left in peace to do what he could. Well, then Phyllis and Ada went to stay in the Close with Emily, and Ada wrote conscious letters and came home bridling and blushing about Captain May, so that we were quite prepared for his turning up at Beechcroft, but not at all for what I saw before he had been ten minutes in the house, that it was Phyllis that he meant, and had meant all along! Dear Harry! it almost made up for its not being Rotherwood. Well, poor Ada! It hadn't gone too deep, happily, and I opened her eyes in time to hinder any demonstration that could have left pain and shame--at least, I think so; but poor Ada has had too many little fits for one to have told much more than another. I believe Phyl did tell Harry that he meant Ada, but she let herself be convinced to the contrary; and the only objection I have to it is his having taken that appointment at Auckland, and carried her out of reach of any of us. However, it was better for Rotherwood, and when she was gone, and his occupation over with our dear Claude, his mother was always at him to let her see him married before she died. And so he let her have her way. No, don't look concerned. Lady Rotherwood is an excellent, good woman, just the wife for him, and he knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy.

But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis--Fly he calls her. She is a little skittish elf--Rotherwood himself all over; and doesn't he worship her! and doesn't he think it a holiday to carry her off to play pranks with! and isn't he happy to get amongst a good lot of us, and be his old self again!'

CHAPTER VIII. -- MY PERSECUTED UNCLE

Dolores was allowed to go to Cas.e.m.e.nt Cottage on Sunday. It was always rather an awful thing to her to get through the paddock when the farmer's cattle turned out there. She did not mind it so much in the broad road and in the midst of a large party, with Hal among them, and no dogs; but alone with only one companion, and in the easy path which was the shortest way to the cottage, she winced and trembled at the little black, s.h.a.ggy Scotch oxen, with white horns and faces that looked to her very wild and fierce.

'Oh, Gillian, those creatures! Can't we go the other way?'

'No; it is a great deal further round, and there's no time. They won't hurt. The farmer engaged not to turn out anything vicious here.'

'But how can he be sure?'