Under the Mendips Part 20

"Which is our house?" Gilbert asked.

"Not that one; not up the steps. But you shall not go in till you tell me her name."

"She is called Joyce," Gilbert said, in despair.

"Ah! then you allow there is only one _she_ for you in all the world, and _she_ is called Joyce."

"Now, I do hope you are satisfied," Gilbert said.

She laughed that loud, ringing laugh, as she ran upstairs before him.

"Oh! of course I am satisfied," she said.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VIII.

BARLEY WOOD.

Great preparations were made in the Vicar's Close at Wells for Charlotte's visit to Barley Wood. Her aunt gave her orders as to what she was to wear every day; how she was to be sure to make a proper curtsey at the door of the drawing-room when she entered Mrs. More's presence; that she was to play on the piano, and exhibit the screens she had just painted; and if Mrs. More admired them, she was to beg her to do her the favour to accept them.

"Do not let Joyce commit herself by any rustic manners; you who have been carefully educated, my dear Charlotte, must try to do me credit, and give Joyce a hint--"

"Joyce is so lovely!" Charlotte exclaimed, "it scarcely matters what she says, or wears."

"My dear, Joyce has no _style_, and is given to express herself too freely; and, I _think_, her voice is sometimes pitched in too high a key. Yours is gentle and well modulated; now do me credit at Barley Wood, Charlotte; I have taken so much pains to form you on the model of a true gentlewoman; and you must remember how many girls would think it a great honour to pay a visit to Mrs. Hannah More."

Charlotte promised to do her best; and when her uncle called to take her to the "Swan," where the four-wheel was waiting, she was in a flutter of excitement.

Mr. Falconer greeted his sister in his usual frank kindly manner; and while Charlotte ran upstairs to get ready, Miss Falconer said:

"I am glad to hear Melville is gone."

The squire sighed.

"Yes, he is gone, and his mother finds it hard to part from him."

"Hard to part from him! Really, Arthur, when one considers how much anxiety he has caused, I wonder you should say that."

"Ah! Let.i.tia, that is all very well; but mothers' hearts are the same, whether their sons are good or bad. It seems to me that mothers generally love the children best, that give them the most trouble.

However, the poor fellow is gone, bag and baggage. I went to Bath with him, and delivered him over to Mr. Crawford, a steady-going man he seems, and Melville will not have a chance of getting into mischief under his care, I hope. But it is an expensive matter. I had to put a hundred pounds into Crawford's keeping as a start; besides twenty I gave Melville."

"You ought not to have given him more than five pounds," Miss Falconer said. "The whole management of Melville has been a mistake."

"So you have told me before," said the squire. "My dear Let.i.tia, single women always think they know a great deal about the affairs of married people, and, as experience is wanting, they commonly know nothing."

"I have long since given up arguing the point with you, Arthur; however, let us say no more. I only hope that Melville may return a changed character, and then you will not regret this outlay for him. I only wish Joyce had some of the money spent on _her_."

"Joyce!" the squire exclaimed--a smile breaking over his fine face; "Joyce! all the money in the world could not improve her. She is my joy and comfort. I half grudge letting her go to Barley Wood, even for a short visit."

"You ought to be glad that she has had such an invitation; and, really, you have to thank me for it, Arthur. I take such a deep interest in Joyce. I have often tried to put before you what she needs, and now I have great hope that Mrs. More may suggest some plan for her."

The squire began to feel very impatient; his sister's interest in his children was undoubted, but he did not want to have it perpetually brought before him. Miss Falconer had an unfortunate habit of sounding her own excellencies, especially with regard to her nieces and nephews.

Then there were often little side hits at his wife; and it is always hard for a man like the squire, to be reminded that his sisters do not consider his wife their equal in the social scale, and the nearer the truth the less palatable is the a.s.sertion of it.

"Is not Charlotte ready?" he exclaimed. "Joyce will be waiting at Draycot, where we are to pick her up. Thomas was to drive her there with her box, as he had an errand at Farmer Scott's."

"In what did Joyce drive?"

"In the gig; and Joyce likes to pay Mrs. Scott, who is a sad cripple, a visit sometimes, so it all fitted in very well. Come Charlotte, my dear," he said, turning to his niece. "We shall find the four-wheel at the 'Swan,' and I've the ostler at the Close gate waiting to take your luggage. Two boxes! Joyce only took one."

"Charlotte was obliged to have a bonnet-box," her aunt said. "Her Tuscan bonnet would have been ruined with the dust if she had worn it."

The squire was already in the little lobby, and, cutting short good-byes, he strode down the Close, while Charlotte ran back twice, to kiss her aunt and say in a tearful voice:

"I cannot endure to leave you, sweet auntie."

"Good-bye, my treasure, good-bye," Miss Falconer repeated again and again, and very genuine tears were on her own cheeks. They were a very demonstrative pair, and, as we should say in these days, "gushed" over each other, but real love did underlie the fanciful expression of it; and Miss Falconer looked on Charlotte with the pride that a modeller in plastic clay, looks upon the work of his hands, and remembers how carefully every detail has been wrought out, and how, in spite of a little flaw here and there, the result is satisfactory.

Joyce was watching for her father at the door of Mr. Scott's farm, and came running down the garden between the lavender bushes and high shrub-fuschias, which were glowing scarlet in the sunshine.

The squire waved his hand to the farmer's wife, who, crippled with rheumatism, could not leave her seat in the porch to come towards him. A farmboy lifted Joyce's box to the back seat, where she soon mounted with a quick, alert spring, and then, with a shilling handed to the boy, the squire drove off.

Joyce's heart sank a little when they turned in at the gates of Barley Wood.

"Are you coming in with us, father?"

"No, no, my dear; I must get back as fast as I can. It is a good many miles for Mavis at a stretch."

They drew up at the door, and an old servant answered the ringing of the bell, which Joyce had jumped down to pull by a handle, made of a deer's foot. The servant's face was not very pleasant, and a forbidding looking woman called out:

"Company! yes, there's nothing but company. There's no rest from it."

The boxes were taken down, and the squire, unwilling to prolong the parting, which he felt more keenly than he cared to own, waved his whip, and saying "Good bye, my Sunshine, good-bye," drove off.

"This way," the woman said, pa.s.sing across the hall and opening the door of a low, pretty room, sweet with that scent of rose leaves and lavender, which always belonged to the atmosphere of a country house long ago. It was an aroma in which many scents blended, with no very great strength--a fragrance which dwells in the memory amongst the pleasant things of early days.

There was nothing very striking about Barley Wood; it was simply a pretty country residence--a place to live and die in. There was an air of tranquility about it, and an absence of anything like fashion or show, which was very refreshing.

Miss Frowde rose to greet the two girls, and, saying that Mrs. More would see them after dinner, she led them to two rooms at the back of the house, near the servants' quarters.

"The house will be full next week for the Bible meeting at Wrington, so we thought you would not object to these rooms. I hope you will be comfortable."

The rooms opened out of each other, and were very plain in their furniture. Joyce, accustomed to her mother's scrupulous care about every little detail, noticed that the counterpane on her bed was a good deal rumpled, and there were rims of dust on the bosses of the old-fashioned round mirror. Evidently the servants at Barley Wood had not taken much trouble about the guests.