The Three Brides

“Yes.  Did you tell her anything?”

“I thought she knew more than I found afterwards that she did,” said Frank; “but there’s no harm done.  It is all coming now.”

“She told my father,” said Eleonora, sadly, “and he cannot understand our delay.  He is grieved and displeased, and thinks I have not been open with him.”

“Oh! that will be all right to-morrow,” said Frank.  “I’ll have it out with a free heart, now there’s no fear but that I have passed; and I’ve got the dearest of mothers!  I feel as if I could meet him if he were a dozen examiners rolled into one, instead of the good old benevolent parent that he is!  Ha!  Anne—Susan—Jenkins—thank you—that’s splendid!  May I have it here?  Super-excellent!  Only here’s half the clay-pit sticking to me!  Let me just run up and make myself decent.  Only don’t let her run away.”

Perhaps Clio would have scorned the instinct that made a Charnock unable to enjoy a much-needed meal in the presence of mother and of love till the traces of the accident and the long walk had been removed.  His old nurse hurried after—ostensibly to see that his linen was at hand, but really to have her share of the petting and congratulation; and Lenore stood a little embarrassed, till Mrs. Poynsett held out her arms, with the words, “My dear child!” and again she dropped on her knee by the couch, and nestled close in thankful joy.

Presently however, she raised herself, and said sadly, almost coldly, “I am afraid you have been surprised into this.”

“I must love one who so loves my boy,” was the ardent answer.

“I couldn’t help it!” said the maiden, again abandoning herself to the tenderness.  “Oh! it is so good of you!”

“My dear, dear daughter!”

“Only please give me one mother’s kiss!  I have so longed for one.”

“Poor motherless child!  My sweet daughter!”

Then after a pause Eleonora said, “Indeed, I’ll try to deserve better; but oh! pray forgive me, if I cost him much more pain and patience than I am worth.”

“He thinks you well worth anything, and perhaps I do,” said Mrs Poynsett, who was conquered, won over, delighted more than by either of the former brides, in spite of all antecedents.

“Then will you always trust me?” said Eleonora, with clasped hands, and a wondrous look of earnest sincerity on her grave open brow and beautiful pensive dark blue eyes.

“I must, my dear.”

“And indeed I don’t think I could help holding to him, because he seems my one stay and hope here; and now I know it is all right with you, indeed it is such happiness as I never knew.”

She laid her head down again in subdued joy and rest: but the pause was broken by Frank’s return; and a moment after, in darted the Peri in her pink cashmere costume, with a glow transforming her usually colourless face.  “Dear, dear Frank, I’m so glad!” she cried, bestowing her kiss; while he cried in amazement, “Is it Rose?  Is there a fancy ball?”

“Only Aladdin’s Cave.  I’m just out of it; and while Jenny is keeping up games, and Edith is getting up a charade, I could dash in to see that Frank was all there, and more too.  The exam, is safe, eh?”

“I trust so,” said Frank; “the list will not come just yet; but I am told I am certain of a pass—indeed, that I stand high as to numbers.”

“That’s noble!—Now, Mrs. Poynsett, turn him out as soon as he has eaten his dinner.  We want any one who can keep up a respectable kind of a row.  I say, will you two do Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess?  You look just like it.”

“Must we go?” asked Frank, reluctantly; and there was something in the expression of his face, a little paler than usual, that reminded his mother that the young man had for the first time seen sudden and violent death that day, and that though his present gladness was so great, yet that he had gone through too much in body and mind for the revels of the evening not either to jar, or to produce a vehement reaction, if he were driven into them.  So she answered by pleading the eleven miles’ walk; and the queen of the sports was merciful, adding, “But I must be gone, or Terry will be getting up his favourite tableau of the wounded men of Clontarf, or Rothesay, or the Black Bull’s Head, or some equally pleasing little incident.”

“Is it going on well?” asked Mrs. Poynsett.

“Sweetly!  Couldn’t be better.  They have all amalgamated and are in the midst of the ‘old family coach,’ with Captain Duncombe telling the story.  He is quite up to the trick, and enjoys turning the tables on his ladies.”

“And Camilla?” asked Lenore, in a hesitating, anxious tone

“Oh! she’s gone in for it.  I think she is the springs!  I heard her ask where you were, and Charley told her; so you need not be afraid to stay in peace, if you have a turn that way.  Good-bye; you’d laugh to see how delighted people are to be let off the lecture.”  And she bent over Lenore with a parting kiss, full of significance of congratulation.

She returned, after changing her dress, to find a pretty fairy tableau, contrived by the Bowater sisters, in full progress, and delighting the children and the mothers.  Lady Vivian contrived to get a word with her as she returned.

“Beautifully managed, Lady Rosamond.  I tell Cecil she should enjoy a defeat by such strategy.”

“It is Mrs. Poynsett’s regular Christmas party,” said Rosamond, not deigning any other reply.

“I congratulate her on her skilful representatives,” said Lady Tyrrell.  “May I ask if we are to see the hero of the day?  No?  What! you would say better employed?  Poor children, we must let them alone to-night for their illusion, though I am sorry it should be deepened; it will be only the more pain by and by.”

“I don’t see that,” said Rosamond, stoutly.

“Ah!  Lady Rosamond, you are a happy young bride, untaught what is l’impossible.”  Rosamond could not help thinking that no one understood it better than she, as the eldest of a large family with more rank and far more desires than means; but she disliked Lady Tyrrell far too much for even her open nature to indulge in confidences, and she made a successful effort to escape from her neighbourhood by putting two pale female Fullers into the place of honour in front of the folding doors into the small drawing-room, which served as a stage, and herself hovered about the rear, wishing she could find some means of silencing Miss Moy’s voice, which was growing louder and more boisterous than ever.

The charade which Rosamond had expected was the inoffensive, if commonplace, Inspector, and the window she beheld, when the curtain drew up, was, she supposed, the bar of an inn.  But no; on the board were two heads, ideals of male and female beauty, one with a waxed moustache, the other with a huge chignon, vividly recalling Mr. Pettitt’s Penates.  Presently came by a dapper professor, in blue spectacles and a college cap, who stood contemplating, and indulging in a harangue on entities and molecules, spirit and matter, affinities and development, while the soft deep brown eyes of the chignoned head languished, and the blue ones of the moustached one rolled, and the muscles twitched and the heads turned till, by a strong process of will explained by the professor, they bent their necks, erected themselves, and finally started into life and the curtain fell on them with clasped hands!

It rose to show the newly-animated pair, Junius Brutus and Barberina his wife, at the breakfast table, with a boar’s head of brawn before them, while the Lady Barberina boldly asserted her claims to the headship of the house.  Had she not lately been all head?

The pathetic reply was, “Would it were so still, my dear.  All head and no tongue, like our present meal.”

The lady heaved up the boar’s head to throw at him, and the scene closed.

Next, Brutus was seen awkwardly cleaning his accoutrements, having enlisted, as he soliloquized, to escape from woman.

Enter a sergeant with a rich Irish brogue, and other recruits, forming the awkward squad.  The drill was performed with immense spirit, but only one of the soldiers showed any dexterity; but while the sergeant was upholding him as ‘the very moral of a patthern to the rest,’ poor Brutus was seized with agonizing horror at the recognition of Barberina in this disguise!

“Why not?” she argued.  “Why should not woman learn to use the arms of which man has hitherto usurped the use?”

Poor Brutus stretched out his arms in despair, and called loudly for the professor to restore him to his original state of silent felicity in the barber’s window.

“Ye needn’t do that, me boy,” quoth the sergeant with infinite scorn.  “Be ye where ye will, ye’ll never be aught but a blockhead.”

Therewith carriages were being announced to the heads of families; and with compliments and eager thanks, and assurances that nothing could have been more delightful, the party broke up.

Captain Duncombe, while muffling his boys, declared that he never saw a cleverer hit in his life, and that those two De Lancey brothers ought to be on the stage; while Miss Moy loudly demanded whether he did not feel it personal; and Mrs. Tallboys, gracefully shaking hands with Anne and Rosamond, declared it a grand challenge where the truth had been unconsciously hit off.  Cecil was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER XVIII

Demonstrations

Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.—BURNS

The hours of the soirée had been early; but the breakfast was so irregular and undecided as to time, that no one took much notice of an intimation which Jenkins had received from the grim Mrs. Grindstone that Mrs, Charnock Poynsett would take breakfast in her own room.  Indeed, they all felt glad that her views of etiquette did not bind them to their places; for Frank was burning to be off to Sirenwood, forgetting that it was far easier to be too early than too late for Sir Harry Vivian, who was wont to smoke till long after midnight, and was never visible till the midday repast.

And thus it was Lady Tyrrell who came to Frank alone.  “Early afoot,” she said; “you foolish, impatient fellow!  You will outrun my best advice.”

“Ah! but I’m armed.  I always told you we might trust to my mother, and it is all right.  She loves Lenore with all her heart, and consents freely and gladly.”

“Indeed!  Well, the dear child has made her conquest!”

“I always knew she would when once reserve was broken down.”

“Did you get up the alarm on purpose?”

“Really, one would think I had done so.  One such moment was worth years of ordinary meetings!  Half the battle is won!”

“Have you seen your mother this morning?”

“No; but she knew I was coming.”

“Then you do not know what her feelings are on cooler reflection?”

“My mother would never retract what she has once assured me of,” said Frank, haughtily.

“Forgive me—of what has she assured you?”

“That she regards Eleonora as a dear daughter, and that implies doing the same for me as for my brothers.  If Sir Harry would but be so good as to come and see her—’

“Stay, Frank, you have not come that length.  You forget that if you have, as you say, gained half the battle, there is another half; and that my father very reasonably feels hurt at being the last to be favoured with the intelligence.”

“Dear Lady Tyrrell, you can see how it was.  There was no helping it when once I could speak to Lenore; and then no one would have let me utter a word till I had gone through the examination.  We never meant to go on a system of concealment; but you know how every one would have raved and stormed if I had betrayed a thought beyond old Driver, and yet it was only being at rest about Lenore that carried me through without breaking down.  Can’t you see?”

“You special pleader!  May you win over my father; but you must remember that we are a fallen house, unable to do all we wish.”

“If I might see Sir Harry!  I must make him forgive me.”

“I will see whether he is ready.”

Could Frank’s eyes have penetrated the walls, he would have seen Lady Tyrrell received with the words, “Well, my dear, I hope you have got rid of the young man—poor fellow!”

“I am afraid that cannot be done without your seeing him yourself.”

“Hang it!  I hate it!  I can’t abide it, Camilla.  He’s a nice lad, though he is his mother’s son; and Lenore’s heart is set on him, and I can’t bear vexing the child.”

“Lena cares for him only because she met him before she knew what life is like.  After one season she will understand what five hundred a year means.”

“Well, you ought to know your sister best; but if the lad has spoken to her, Lena is not the girl to stand his getting his congé so decidedly.”

“Exactly; it would only lead to heroics, and deepen the mischief.”

“Hang it!  Then what do you want me to say?”

“Stand up for your rights, and reduce him to submission by displeasure at not having been consulted.  Then explain how there can be no engagement at once; put him on his honour to leave her free till after her birthday in November.”

“What! have him dangling after her?  That’s no way to make her forget him.”

“She never will under direct opposition—she is too high-spirited for that; but if we leave it alone, and they are unpledged, there is a fair chance of her seeing the folly both for her and for him.”

“I don’t know that.  Lena may be high-flown; but things go deep with the child—deeper than they did with you, Camilla!”

Perhaps this was a stab, for there was bitterness in the answer.  “You mean that she is less willing to give up a fancy for the family good.  Remember, it is doubly imperative that Lena should marry a man whose means are in his own power, so that he could advance something.  This would be simply ruin—throwing up the whole thing, after all I have done to retrieve our position.”

“After all, Camilla, I am growing an old man, and poor Tom is gone.  I don’t know that the position is worth so much to me as the happiness to her, poor child!” said Sir Harry, wistfully.

“Happiness!” was the scornful answer.  “If you said ‘her own way,’ it would be nearer the truth.  A back street in London—going about in a cab—and occasional holidays on sufferance from Mrs. Poynsett.”

However little happiness either father or daughter had derived from their chosen ways, this idea was abhorrent to both; and Lady Tyrrell pressed her advantage.  “If we keep him waiting much longer he will be rushing after Lena, and if you show the least sign of relenting he will insist on dragging you to an interview with his mother.”

The threat was effectual; for Sir Harry had had passages-at arms enough with Mrs. Poynsett to make him dread her curt dry civility far more than either dun or bailiff, and he was at once roused to the determination to be explicit.

Frank met him, with crimson face and prepared speech.  “Good morning, Sir Harry!  I am afraid you may think that you have reason to complain of my not having spoken to you sooner; but I trusted to your previous knowledge of my feelings, and I was anxious to ascertain my position before laying it before you, though I don’t believe I should have succeeded unless my mind had been set at rest.”

Soft-hearted Sir Harry muttered, “I understand, but—”

The pause at that ‘but’ was so long that Frank ventured on going on.  “I have not had an official communication, but I know privately that I have passed well and stand favourably for promotion, so that my income will go on increasing, and my mother will make over to me five thousand pounds, as she has done to Miles and Julius, so that it can be settled on Eleonora at once.”

“There, there, that’s enough!” said Sir Harry, coerced by his daughter’s glances; “there’s plenty of time before coming to all that!  You see, my dear boy, I always liked you, and had an immense respect for your—your family; but, you see, Eleonora is young, and under the circumstances she ought not to engage herself.  She can’t any way marry before coming of age, and—considering all things—I should much prefer that this should go no further.”

“You ought both to be free!” said Lady Tyrrell.

“That I can never be!”

“Nor do you think that she can—only it sounds presumptuous,” smiled Lady Tyrrell.  “Who can say?  But things have to be proved; and considering what young untried hearts are, it is safer and happier for both that there should be perfect freedom, so that no harm should be done, if you found that you had not known your own minds.”

“It will make no difference to me.”

“Oh yes, we know that!” laughed Sir Harry.  “Only suppose you changed your mind, we could not be angry with you.”

“You don’t think I could!”

“No, no,” said Lady Tyrrell; “we think no such thing.  Don’t you see, if we did not trust your honour, we could not leave this in suspense.  All we desire is that these matters may be left till it is possible to see our way, when the affairs of the estate are wound up; for we can’t tell what the poor child will have.  Come, don’t repeat that it will make no difference.  It may not to you; but it must to us, and to your mother.”

“My mother expects nothing!” said Frank, eagerly; but it was a false step.

Sir Harry bristled up, saying, “Sir, my daughter shall go into no family that—that has not a proper appreciation of—and expectations befitting her position.”

“Dear papa,” exclaimed Lady Tyrrell, “he means no such thing.  He is only crediting his mother with his own romantic ardour and disinterestedness.—Hark! there actually is the gong.  Come and have some luncheon, and contain yourself, you foolish boy!”

“I am sorry I said anything that seemed unfitting,” said Frank, meekly.  “You know I could not mean it!”

“Yes, yes, yes, I bear no malice; only one does not like to see one’s own child courted without a voice in the matter, and to hear she is to be taken as a favour, expecting nothing.  But, there, we’ll say no more.  I like you, Frank Charnock! and only wish you had ten thousand a year, or were any one else; but you see—you see.  Well, let’s eat our luncheon.”

“Does she know this decision?” asked Frank, aside, as he held open the door for Lady Tyrrell.

“Yes, she knows it can go no further; though we are too merciful to deny you the beatific vision, provided you are good, and abstain from any more little tendresses for the present.—Ah!”—enter Cecil—“I thought we should see you to-day, my dear!”

“Yes; I am on my way to meet my husband at the station,” said Cecil, meeting her in the hall, and returning her kiss.

“Is Raymond coming home to-day?” said Frank, as he too exchanged greetings.  “Ah!  I remember; I did not see you at breakfast this morning.”

“No!” and there was signification in the voice; but Frank did not heed it, for coming down-stairs was Eleonora, her face full of a blushing sweetness, which gave it all the beauty it had ever lacked.

He could do no more than look and speak before all the rest; the carriage was ordered for the sisters to go out together, and he lingered in vain for a few words in private, for Sir Harry kept him talking about Captain Duncombe’s wonderful colt, till Cecil had driven off one way, and their two hostesses the other; and he could only ride home to tell his mother how he had sped.

Better than Rosamond, better even than Charlie, was his mother as a confidante; and though she had been surprised into her affectionate acceptance of Eleonora, it was an indescribable delight to mother and son to find themselves once more in full sympathy; while he poured out all that had been pent up ever since his winter at Rockpier.  She almost made common cause with him in the question, what would Raymond say?  And it proved to be news to her that her eldest son was to be immediately expected at home.  Cecil had not come to see her, and had sent her no message; but ungracious inattention was not so uncommon as to excite much remark from one who never wished to take heed to it; and it was soon forgotten in the praise of Eleonora.

Cecil meanwhile was receiving Raymond at the station.  He was pleased to see her there in her pony-carriage, but a little startled by the brief coldness of her reply to his inquiry after his mother, and the tight compression of her lips all the time they were making their way through the town, where, as usual, he was hailed every two or three minutes by persons wanting a word with him.  When at last there was a free space, she began: “Raymond, I wish to know whether you mean me to be set at naught, and my friends deliberately insulted?”

“What?”

A gentleman here hurried up with “I’ll not detain you a minute.”

He did, however, keep them for what seemed a great many, to the chafing spirit which thought a husband should have no ears save for his wife’s wrongs; so she made her preface even more startling—“Raymond, I cannot remain in the house any longer with Lady Rosamond Charnock and those intolerable brothers of hers!”

“Perhaps you will explain yourself,” said Raymond, almost relieved by the evident exaggeration of the expressions.

“There has been a conspiracy to thwart and insult me—a regular conspiracy!”

“Cecil! let me understand you.  What can have happened?”

“When I arranged an evening for my friends to meet Mrs. Tallboys, I did not expect to have it swamped by a pack of children, and noisy nonsensical games, nor that both she and I should be insulted by practical jokes and a personal charade.”

“A party to meet Mrs. Tallboys?”

“A ladies’ party, a conversazione.”

“What—by my mother’s wish?”

“I was given to understand that I had carte blanche in visiting matters.”

“You did not ask her consent?”

“I saw no occasion.”

“You did not?”

“No.”

“Then, Cecil, I must say that whatever you may have to complain of, you have committed a grave act of disrespect.”

“I was told that I was free to arrange these things!”

“Free!” said Raymond, thoroughly roused; “free to write notes, and order the carriage, and play lady of the house; but did you think that made you free to bring an American mountebank of a woman to hold forth absurd trash in my mother’s own drawing-room, as soon as my back was turned?”

“I should have done the same had you been there.”

“Indeed!” ironically; “I did not know how far you had graduated in the Rights of Women.  So you invited these people?”

“Then the whole host of children was poured in on us, and everything imaginable done to interrupt, and render everything rational impossible.  I know it was Rosamond’s contrivance, she looked so triumphant, dressed in an absurd fancy dress, and her whole train doing nothing but turning me into ridicule, and Mrs. Tallboys too.  Whatever you choose to call her, you cannot approve of a stranger and foreigner being insulted here.  It is that about which I care—not myself; I have seen none of them since, nor shall I do so until a full apology has been made to my guest and to myself.”

“You have not told me the offence.”

“In the first place, there was an absurd form of Christmas-tree, to which one was dragged blindfold, and sedulously made ridiculous; and I—I had a dust-pan and brush.  Yes, I had, in mockery of our endeavours to purify that unhappy street.”

“I should have taken it as a little harmless fun,” said Raymond.  “Depend on it, it was so intended.”

“What, when Mrs. Tallboys had a padlock and key?  I see you are determined to laugh at it all.  Most likely they consulted you beforehand.”

“Cecil, I cannot have you talk such nonsense.  Is this all you have to complain of?”

“No.  There was a charade on the word Blockhead, where your brother Charles and the two De Lanceys caricatured what they supposed to be Mrs. Tallboys’ doctrines.”

“How did she receive it?”

“Most good-humouredly; but that made it no better on their part.”

“Are you sure it was not a mere ordinary piece of pleasantry, with perhaps a spice of personality, but nothing worth resenting?”

“You did not see it.  Or perhaps you think no indignity towards me worth resentment?”

“I do not answer that, Cecil; you will think better of those words another time,” said Raymond, sternly.  “But when you want your cause taken up, you have to remember that whatever the annoyance, you brought it upon yourself and her, by your own extraordinary proceeding towards my mother—I will not say towards myself.  I will try to smooth matters.  I think the De Lanceys must have acted foolishly; but the first step ought to be an expression of regret for such conduct towards my mother.”