CHAPTER X.
GOING HOME
And now it had come to an end—all the novelty, the splendour, and the excitement of this first visit—and Agnes and Marian were about to go home. They were very much pleased, and yet a little disappointed—glad and eager to return to their mother, yet feeling it would have been something of a compliment to be asked to remain.
Rachel, who was a great deal more vehement and demonstrative than either of them, threw herself into their arms with violent tears. “I have been so happy since ever I knew you,” said Rachel—“so happy, I scarcely thought it right when I was not with Louis—and I think I could almost like to be your servant, and go home with you. I could do anything for you.”
“Hush!” said Agnes.
“No; it is quite true,” cried poor Rachel—“quite true. I should like to be your servant, and live with your mother. Oh! I ought to say,” she continued, raising herself with a little start and thrill of terror, “that if we were in a different position, and could meet people like equals, I should be so glad—so very glad to be friends.”
“But how odd Rachel would think it to live in Bellevue,” said Marian, coming to the rescue with a little happy ridicule, which did better than gravity, “and to see no one, even in the street, but the milkman and the greengrocer’s boy! for Rachel only thinks of the Willows and Winterbourne; she does not know in the least how things look in Bellevue.”
Rachel was beguiled into a laugh—a very unusual indulgence. “When you say that, I think it is a very little cottage like one of the cottages in the village; but you know that is all wrong. Oh, when do you think you will go to Winterbourne?”
“We will write and tell you,” said Agnes, “all about it, and how many are going; for I do not suppose Charlie will come, after all; and you will write to us—how often? Every other day?”
Rachel turned very red, then very pale, and looked at them with considerable dismay. “Write!” she said, with a falter in her voice; “I—I never thought of that—I never wrote to any one; I daresay I should do it very badly. Oh no; I shall be sure to find out whenever you come to the Old Wood Lodge.”
“But we shall hear nothing of you,” said Agnes. “Why should you not write to us? I am sure you do to your brother at home.”
“I do not,” said Rachel, once more drawing herself up, and with flashing eyes. “No one can write letters to us, who have no name.”
She was not to be moved from this point; she repeated the same words again and again, though with a very wistful and yielding look in her face. All for Louis! Her companions were obliged to give up the question, after all.
So there was another weeping, sobbing, vehement embrace, and Rachel disappeared without a word into the big bare room down stairs—disappeared to fall again, without a struggle, into her former forlorn life—to yield on her own account, and to struggle with fierce haughtiness for the credit of Louis—leaving the two sisters very thoughtful and compassionate, and full of a sudden eager generous impulse to run away with and take her home.
“Home—to mamma! It would be like heaven to Rachel,” said Agnes, in a little enthusiasm, with tears in her eyes.
“Ay, but it would not be like the Willows,” said the most practical Marian; and they both looked out with a smile and a sigh upon the beautiful sunshiny lawn, the river in an ecstasy of light and brightness, the little island with all its ruffled willow-leaves, and bethought themselves, finding some amusement in the contrast, of Laurel House, and Myrtle Cottage, and the close secluded walls of Bellevue.
Mrs Atheling had sent the Fly for her daughters—the old Islingtonian fly, with the old white horse, and the coachman with his shiny hat. This vehicle, which had once been a chariot of the gods, looked somewhat shabby as it stood in the broad sunshine before the door of the Willows, accustomed to the fairy coach of Mrs Edgerley. They laughed to themselves very quietly when they caught their first glimpse of it, yet in a momentary weakness were half ashamed; for even Agnes’s honest determination to let everybody know their true “rank in life” was not troubled by any fear lest this respectable vehicle should be taken for their own carriage now.
“Going, my love?” cried Mrs Edgerley; “the fatal hour—has it really come so soon?—You leave us all desolée, of course; how shall we exist to-day? And it was so good of you to come. Remember! we shall be dying till we have a new tale from the author of Hope Hazlewood. I long to see it. I know it will be charming, or it could not be yours.—And, my love, you look quite lovely—such roses! I think you quite the most exquisite little creature in the world. Remember me to your excellent mamma. Is your carriage waiting? Ah, I am miserable to part with you. Farewell—that dreadful word—farewell!”
Again that light perfumy touch waved over one blushing cheek and then another. Mrs Edgerley continued to wave her hand and make them pretty signals till they reached the door, whither they hastened as quickly and as quietly as possible, not desiring any escort; but few were the privileged people in Mrs Edgerley’s morning-room, and no one cared to do the girls so much honour. Outside the house their friend the gardener waited with two bouquets, so rare and beautiful that the timid recipients of the same, making him their humble thanks, scarcely knew how to express sufficient gratitude. Some one was arriving as they departed—some one who, making the discovery of their presence, stalked towards them, almost stumbling over Agnes, who happened to be nearest to him. “Going away?” said a dismayed voice at a considerable altitude. Mr Endicott’s thin head positively vibrated with mortification; he stretched it towards Marian, who stood before him smiling over her flowers, and fixed a look of solemn reproach upon her. “I am aware that beauty and youth flee often from the presence of one who looks upon life with a studious eye. This disappointment is not without its object. You are going away?”
“Yes,” said Marian, laughing, but with a little charitable compassion for her own particular victim, “and you are just arriving? It is very odd—you should have come yesterday.”
“Permit me,” said Mr Endicott moodily;—“no; I am satisfied. This experience is well—I am glad to know it. To us, Miss Atheling,” said the solemn Yankee, as he gave his valuable assistance to Agnes—“to us this play and sport of fortune is but the proper training. Our business is not to enjoy; we bear these disappointments for the world.”
He put them into their humble carriage, and bowed at them solemnly. Poor Mr Endicott! He did not blush, but grew green as he stood looking after the slow equipage ere he turned to the disenchanted Willows. Though he was about to visit people of distinction, the American young gentleman, being in love, did not care to enter upon this new scene of observation and note-making at this moment; so he turned into the road, and walked on in the white cloud of dust raised by the wheels of the fly. The dust itself had a sentiment in it, and belonged to Marian; and Mr Endicott began the painful manufacture of a sonnet, expressing this “experience,” on the very spot.
“But you ought not to laugh at him, Marian, even though other people do,” said Agnes, with superior virtue.
“Why not?” said the saucy beauty; “I laughed at Sir Langham—and I am sure he deserved it,” she added in an under-tone.
“Marian,” said Agnes, “I think—you have named him yourself, or I should not have done it—we had better not say anything about Sir Langham to mamma.”
“I do not care at all who names him,” said Marian, pouting; but she made no answer to the serious proposition: so it became tacitly agreed between them that nothing was to be said of the superb runaway lover when they got home.
CHAPTER XI.
HOME
And now they were at home—the Fly dismissed, the trunks unfastened, and Agnes and Marian sitting with Mamma in the old parlour, as if they had never been away. Yes, they had been away—both of them had come in with a little start and exclamation to this familiar room, which somehow had shrunk out of its proper proportions, and looked strangely dull, dwarfed, and sombre. It was very strange; they had lived here for years, and knew every corner of every chair and every table—and they had only been gone a fortnight—yet what a difference in the well-known room!
“Somebody has been doing something to the house,” said Marian involuntarily; and Agnes paused in echoing the sentiment, as she caught a glimpse of a rising cloud on her mother’s comely brow.
“Indeed, children, I am grieved to see how soon you have learned to despise your home,” said Mrs Atheling; and the good mother reddened, and contracted her forehead. She had watched them with a little jealousy from their first entrance, and they, to tell the truth, had been visibly struck with the smallness and the dulness of the family rooms.
“Despise!” cried Marian, kneeling down, and leaning her beautiful head and her clasped arms upon her mother’s knee. “Despise!” said Agnes, putting her arm over Mrs Atheling’s shoulder from behind her chair; “oh, mamma, you ought to know better!—we who have learned that there are people in the world who have neither a mother nor a home!”
“Well, then, what is the matter?” said Mrs Atheling; and she began to smooth the beautiful falling hair, which came straying over her old black silk lap, like Danae’s shower of gold.
“Nothing at all—only the room is a little smaller, and the carpet a little older than it used to be,” said Agnes; “but, mamma, because we notice that, you do not think surely that we are less glad to be at home.”
“Well, my dears,” said Mrs Atheling, still a little piqued; “your great friend, when he called the other day, did not seem to think there was anything amiss about the house.”
“Our great friend!” The girls looked at each other with dismay—who could it be?
“His card is on the mantelpiece,” said Mrs Atheling. “He had not very much to say, but he seemed a pleasant young man—Sir Something—Sir Langham; but, indeed, my dear, though, of course, I was pleased to see him, I am not at all sure how far such acquaintances are proper for you.”
“He was scarcely my acquaintance, mamma,” said Agnes, sorrowfully looking down from behind her mother’s chair upon Marian, who had hid her face in Mrs Atheling’s lap, and made no sign.
“For our rank in life is so different,” pursued the prudent mother; “and even though I might have some natural ambition for you, I do not think, Agnes, that it would really be wishing you well to wish that you should form connections so far out of the sphere of your own family as that.”
“Mamma, it was not me,” said Agnes again, softly and under her breath.
“It was no one!” cried Marian, rising up hastily, and suddenly seizing and clipping into an ornamental cross Sir Langham’s card, which was upon the mantelpiece. “See, Agnes, it will do to wind silk upon; and nobody cares the least in the world for Sir Langham. Mamma, he used to be like Harry Oswald—that is all—and we were very glad when he went away from the Willows, both Agnes and I.”
At this statement, made as it was with a blush and a little confusion, Mrs Atheling herself reddened slightly, and instantly left the subject. It was easy enough to warn her children of the evils of a possible connection with people of superior condition; but when such a thing fluttered really and visibly upon the verge of her horizon, Mrs Atheling was struck dumb. To see her pretty Marian a lady—a baronet’s wife—the bride of that superb Sir Langham—it was not in the nature of mortal mother to hear without emotion of such an extraordinary possibility. The ambitious imagination kindled at once in the heart of Mrs Atheling: she held her peace.
And the girls, to tell the truth, were very considerably excited about this visit of Sir Langham’s. What did it mean? After a little time they strayed into the best room, and stood together looking at it with feelings by no means satisfactory. The family parlour was the family parlour, and, in spite of all that it lacked, possessed something of home and kindness which was not to be found in all the luxurious apartments of the Willows. But, alas! there was nothing but meagre gentility, blank good order, and unloveliness, in this sacred and reserved apartment, where Bell and Beau never threw the charm of their childhood, nor Mrs Atheling dispersed the kindly clippings of her work-basket. The girls consulted each other with dismayed looks—even Rachel, if she came, could not stand against the chill of this grim parlour. Marian pulled the poor haircloth sofa into another position, and altered with impatience the stiff mahogany chairs. They scarcely liked to say to each other how entirely changed was their ideal, or how they shrank from the melancholy state of the best room. “Sir Langham was here, Agnes,” said Marian; and within her own mind the young beauty almost added, “No wonder he ran away!”
“It is home—it is our own house,” said Agnes, getting up for the occasion a little pride.
Marian shrugged her pretty shoulders. “But Susan had better bring any one who calls into the other room.”
Yes, the other room, when they returned to it, had brightened again marvellously. Mrs Atheling had put on her new gown, and had a pink ribbon in her cap. As she sat by the window with her work-basket, she was pleasanter to look at than a dozen pictures; and the sweetest Raphael in the world was not so sweet as these two little lovely fairies playing upon the faded old rug at the feet of Mamma. Not all the luxuries and all the prettinesses of Mrs Edgerley’s drawingrooms, not even the river lying in the sunshine, and the ruffled silvery willows drooping round their little island, were a fit balance to this dearest little group, the mother and the children, who made beautiful beyond all telling the sombre face of home.
CHAPTER XII.
A NEW ERA
It came to be rather an exciting business to Agnes and Marian making their report of what had happened at the Willows—for it was difficult to distract Mamma’s attention from Sir Langham, and Papa was almost angrily interested in everything which touched upon Lord Winterbourne. Rachel, of course, was a very prominent figure in their picture; but Mrs Atheling was still extremely doubtful, and questioned much whether it was proper to permit such an acquaintance to her daughters. She was very particular in her inquiries concerning this poor girl—much approved of Rachel’s consciousness of her own equivocal position—thought it “a very proper feeling,” and received evidence with some solemnity as to her “manners” and “principles.” The girls described their friend according to the best of their ability; but as neither of them had any great insight into character, we will not pretend to say that their audience were greatly enlightened,—and extremely doubtful was the mind of Mrs Atheling. “My dear, I might be very sorry for her, but it would not be proper for me to forget you in my sympathy for her,” said Mamma, gravely and with dignity. Like so many tender-hearted mothers, Mrs Atheling took great credit to herself for an imaginary severity, and made up her mind that she was proof to the assaults of pity—she who at the bottom was the most credulous of all, when she came to hear a story of distress.
And Papa, who had been moved at once to forbid their acquaintance with children of Lord Winterbourne’s, changed his mind, and became very much interested when he heard of Rachel’s horror of the supposed relationship. When they came to this part of the story, Mrs Atheling was scandalised, but Papa was full of pity. He said “Poor child!” softly, and with emotion; while Charlie pricked his big ear to listen, though no one was favoured with the sentiments on this subject of the big boy.
“And about the Rector and the old lady who lives at Abingford—papa, why did you never tell us about these people?” said Marian; “for I am sure you must know very well who Aunt Bridget’s neighbours were in the Old Wood Lodge.”
“I know nothing about the Riverses,” said Papa hastily—and Mr Atheling himself, sober-minded man though he was, grew red with an angry glow—“there was a time when I hated the name,” he added in an impetuous and rapid undertone, and then he looked up as though he was perfectly aware of the restraining look of caution which his wife immediately turned upon him.
“Such neighbours as are proper for us you will find out when we get there,” said Mrs Atheling quietly. “Papa has not been at Winterbourne for twenty years, and we have had too many things to think of since then to remember people whom we scarcely knew.”
“Then, I suppose, since papa hated the name once, and Rachel hates it now, they must be a very wicked family,” said Marian; “but I hope the Rector is not very bad, for Agnes’s sake.”
This little piece of malice called for instant explanation, and Marian was very peremptorily checked by father and mother. “A girl may say a foolish thing to other girls,” said Mamma, “and I am afraid this Rachel, poor thing, must have been very badly brought up; but you ought to know better than to repeat a piece of nonsense like that.”
“When are we to go, mamma?” said Agnes, coming in to cover the blush, half of shame and half of displeasure, with which Marian submitted to this reproof; “it is August now, and soon it will be autumn instead of summer: we shall be going out of town when all the fashionable people go—but I would rather it was May.”
“It cannot be May this year,” said Mrs Atheling, involuntarily brightening; “but papa is to take a holiday—three weeks; my dears, I do not think I have been so pleased at anything since Bell and Beau.”
Since Bell and Beau! what an era that was! And this, too, was a new beginning, perhaps more momentous, though not such a sweet and great revulsion, out of the darkness into the light. Mamma’s manner of dating her joys cast them all back into thought and quietness; and Agnes’s heart beat high with a secret and mercenary pleasure, exulting like a miser over her hundred and fifty pounds. At this moment, and at many another moment when the young author had clean forgotten Hope Hazlewood, the thought came upon her with positive delight of the little hoard in Papa’s hands, safely laid up in the office, one whole hundred pounds’ worth of family good and gladness still; for she had not the same elevated regard for art as her sister’s American admirer—she was not, by any means, in her own estimation, or in anybody else’s, a representative woman; and Agnes, who began already to think rather meanly of Hope Hazlewood, and press on with the impatience of genius towards a higher excellence, had the greatest satisfaction possible in the earnings of her gentle craft—was it an ignoble delight?
The next morning the two girls, with prudence and caution, began an attack upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer touching the best room. At first Mrs Atheling was entirely horrified at their extravagant ideas. The best room!—what could be desired that was not already attained in that most respectable apartment? but the young rebels held their ground. Mamma put down her work upon her knee, and listened to them quietly. It was not a good sign—she made no interruption as they spoke of mirrors and curtains, carpets and ottomans, couches and easy-chairs: she heard them all to the end with unexampled patience—she only said, “My dears, when you are done I will tell you what I have to say.”
What she did say was conclusive upon the subject, though it was met by many remonstrances. “We are going to the Old Wood Lodge,” said Mrs Atheling, “and I promise you you shall go into Oxford when we are there, and get some things to make old Aunt Bridget’s parlour look a little more like yourselves: but even a hundred pounds, though it is quite a little fortune, will not last for ever—and to furnish two rooms! My dears, you do not know any better; but, of course, it is quite ridiculous, and cannot be done.”
Thus ended at present their plan for making a little drawing-room out of the best room; for Mamma’s judgment, though it was decisive, was reasonable, and they could make no stand against it. They did all they could do under the circumstances; for the first time, and with compunction, they secretly instructed Susan against the long-standing general order of the head of the house. Strangers were no longer to be ushered into the sacred stranger’s apartment; but before Susan had any chance of obeying these schismatical orders, Agnes and Marian themselves were falling into their old familiarity with the old walls and the sombre furniture, and were no longer disposed to criticise, especially as all their minds and all their endeavours were at present set upon the family holiday—the conjoint household visit to the country—the glorious prospect of taking possession of the Old Wood Lodge.
In Bellevue, Charlie alone was to be left behind—Charlie, who had not been long enough in Mr Foggo’s office to ask for a holiday, and who did not want one very much, if truth must be told; for neither early hours nor late hours told upon the iron constitution of the big boy. When they pitied him who must stay behind, the young gentleman said, “Stuff! Susan, I suppose, can make my coffee as well as any of you,” said Charlie; but nobody was offended that he limited the advantages of their society to coffee-making; and even Mrs Atheling, in spite of her motherly anxieties, left her house and her son with comfortable confidence. Harm might happen to the house, Susan being in it, who was by no means so careful as she ought to be of her fire and her candle; but nobody feared any harm to the heir and hope of the house.