The Three Brides

Frank would not commit himself, but he was evidently at the era of sensitiveness on the poetical side.  Cecil spoke for him.  “How very provoking!  What did you do to him, Rosamond?”

“I kept off the sand-flies!  I can’t say but I was glad of a little rest, for I had been packing up for the whole family for ten days past, with interludes of rushing out into the town; for whatever we had not forgotten, the shops had not sent home!  Oh! what a paradise of quiet it was under the rocks at Filey—wasn’t it, Julius?”

“We will go there again next time we have a chance,” said Julius, looking blissful.

“I would never go again to the same place,” cried Cecil.  “That’s not the way to acquire new ideas.”

“We are too old to acquire new ideas, my dear,” drawled Rosamond, sleepily.

“What did you go to the Church Congress for!” asked Charlie.

“I hope Julius was awake by that time,” said Frank.

“Not if we are to have all the new ideas tried on us,” said Raymond, dryly.

“I went to a Congress once!” exclaimed Cecil.

“Indeed!” said her husband, surprised.

“Yes.  We thought we ought to encourage them.  It was the Congress of Sunday-school managers for our archdeaconry.”

“Did you acquire any new ideas?” asked Frank; while Rosamond’s very eyelashes seemed to curl with suppressed diversion.

“Oh yes.  We explained our system of tickets, and the Arch-deacon said it was a very good one, and ought to be adopted everywhere.”

This mode of acquisition of new ideas was quite too much for Julius and Charlie, who both exploded; but Frank retained composure enough to ask, “Did you explain it in person?”

“No.  We made Mr. Venn.”

“The schoolmaster?” said Julius.

“No.  He is our clergyman, and he always does as we tell him; and so Dunstone is quite the model parish of the archdeaconry.”

Julius could not help making an odd little bend of the head, half deferential, half satirical; and Raymond said, “Cecil, I believe it rests with you to make the move.”  An ingenuous girlish blush mantled on her cheek as she looked towards Rosamond and moved.

The drawing-room adjoined the dining-room, and likewise had a glass door leading into the conservatory; but this, like the other windows, was concealed by the pale-blue damask curtains that descended from cornices gilded like the legs of the substantial chairs and sofas.  There was, however, no lack of modern light cane and basket seats round the fire, and it looked cheery and comfortable.  Rosamond put an arm round Anne’s waist—“Poor tired dear, come and lie on the sofa.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t.  The gentlemen will come in.”

“All brothers!  What, will you only be satisfied with an easy-chair!  A charming room, and a charming fire!”

“Not so nice as a library,” said Cecil, stabbing the fire with the poker as a sort of act of possession.  “We always sit in the library at Dunstone.  State rooms are horrid.”

“This only wants to be littered down,” said Rosamond.  “That’s my first task in fresh quarters, banishing some things and upsetting the rest, and strewing our own about judiciously.  There are the inevitable wax-flowers.  I have regular blarney about their being so lovely, that it would just go to my heart to expose them to the boys.”

“You have always been on the move,” said Cecil, who was standing by the table examining the ornaments.

“You may say so! there are not many of Her Majesty’s garrisons that I have not had experience of, except my native country that I wasn’t born in.  It was very mean of them never once to send us to Ireland.”

“Where were you born?” said Cecil, neither of the two catching at the bull which perhaps Rosamond had allowed to escape by way of trying them.

“At Plymouth.  Dick and I were both born at Plymouth, and Maurice at Scutari; then we were in the West Indies; the next two were born all up and down in Jamaica and all the rest of the Islands—Tom and Terry—dear boys, I’ve got the charge of them now they are left at school.  Three more are Canadians; and little Nora is the only Irish-born one amongst us.”

“I thought you said you had never been in Ireland.”

“Never quartered there, but on visits at Rathforlane,” said Rosamond.  “Our ten years at home we have been up and down the world, till at last you see I’ve ended where I began—at Plymouth.”

“Oh, what a lovely Florentine mosaic!” exclaimed Cecil, who had taken but slight interest in this itinerary.  “It is just like a weight at Dunstone.”  Then opening a miniature-case, “Who is this—Mrs. Poynsett when she was young?”

“Most likely,” said Rosamond.  “It is like her now, and very like Charlie.”

“Yes.  Charles is quite unlike the family.”

“What family?” said Rosamond.

“The Charnocks, of course.  Raymond is a perfect Charnock!”

“A vast advantage,” murmured Rosamond.

“Of course,” said Cecil, taking it quite seriously.  “No one else could be the same thing to us.  Papa said there was not a match in the whole world that could have gratified him so much.”

“How old are you, Cecil?” quoth Rosamond, with a ripple in her voice.

“Oh, his age was no matter.  I don’t like young men.  That’s not the drawback; no, it is that horrid Poynsett at the end of the name.”

“You see you had better have waived your objections to youth, and taken a younger son.”

“I couldn’t,” said this naive young person.  “Besides, there is much more of a field for me here than at Dunstone since papa’s marriage.”

Whatever Rosamond had on the tip of her tongue was averted by the entrance of the three younger brothers.  Julius seated himself beside her in the cushioned fireside corner; and Cecil asked where Raymond was.

“Just stepped in to see my mother,” said Frank.  “This room opens into hers.  Will you come to them?”

“Not yet,” said Cecil.  “I want you to tell me about the neighbourhood.”

“Just what I want,” said Rosamond.  “Whenever I ask, Julius always says there’s Dr. Easterby.”

Frank and Charlie burst out laughing.

“Dr. Easterby is one of the greatest men in the English Church,” said Julius.

“Precisely!  But what is the regiment at Backsworth?” and as Charlie named it, “Oh, what fun!  That’s where Laurie Cookson exchanged.  He will be sure to send us cards for everything.”

“At Dunstone we never used to go to garrison gaieties,” said Cecil, gravely.

“Oh!  I’m a military pariah,” said Rosamond, hastily.

“Who are the land-owners?” continued Cecil.  “There was a place I saw from the line, but Raymond didn’t hear when I asked whose it was.  Close to the station, I mean.”

“That is Sirenwood,” said Charles.  “Sir Harry Vivian’s.  He is just come back there with his two daughters.”

“I thought Emily Vivian was dead,” said Julius.  “You don’t mean that women!”

“That woman?” laughed his wife.  “What has she done to be a that woman?”

“Offended his Reverence,” said Frank, in that sort of jocose tone which betrays annoyance.

“A heartless mischievous woman!” said Julius.

Rosamond cocked up her left eyebrow with an ineffably droll look, which encouraged Charlie to say, “Such fierceness can only be prompted by personal experience.  Look out, Rosamond!”

“Come ’fess, Julius,” said she, merrily.  “’Fess and make it up.”

“I—I have nothing to confess,” said Julius, seriously.

“Hasn’t he indeed?” said she, looking at the brothers.

“Oh! don’t ask us,” said Charlie.  “His youthful indiscretions were over long before our eyes had risen above the horizon!”

“Do you mean that they have really come home to live here?” demanded Julius, with singular indifference to the personal insinuations.

“I am sorry it is so painful to you,” said I Frank, somewhat ironically; “but Sir Harry thinks it right to return and end his days among his own people.”

“Is he ill, then?”

“I can’t gratify you so far,” returned Frank; “he is a fine old fellow of sixty-five.  Just what humbugging papers call a regular specimen of an old English gentleman,” he added to Cecil.

“Humbugging indeed, I should hope,” muttered Julius.  “The old English gentleman has reason to complain!”

“There’s the charity of the clergy!” exclaimed Frank.  “No forgiveness for a man who has spent a little in his youth!”

“As an essential of the old English gentleman?” asked Julius.

“At any rate, the poor old fellow has been punished enough,” said Charlie.

“But what is it?  Tell me all about it,” said Cecil.  “I am sure my father would not wish me to associate with dissipated people.”

“Ah!  Cecil,” said Rosamond.  “You’ll have to take refuge with the military, after all!”

“It is just this,” said Charlie.  “Sir Harry and his only son were always extravagant, one as bad as the other—weren’t they, Julius?  Phil Bowater told me all about it, and how Tom Vivian lost fifteen thousand pounds one Derby Day, and was found dead in his chambers the next morning, they said from an over-dose of chloroform for neuralgia.  Then the estate was so dipped that Sir Harry had to give up the estate to his creditors, and live on an allowance abroad or at watering-places till now, when he has managed to come home.  That is to say, the house is really leased to Lady Tyrrell, and he is in a measure her guest—very queer it must be for him in his own house.”

“Is Lady Tyrrell that woman?” asked Rosamond.

“I conclude so,” said Charlie.  “She was the eldest daughter, and married Lord Tyrrell, who died about two years ago.  She has no children, so she has taken the family in charge, patches up Sir Harry’s affairs with her jointure, and chaperons her sister.”

“What is she like?”

“Ask Frank,” said Charlie, slyly.

“No!” said Frank, with dignity.  “I shall say no more, I only excite prejudice.”

“You are right, Frank,” said Julius, who had evidently recovered from the shock.  “It is not fair to judge people now from what they were eleven years ago.  They have had some terrible lessons, and may be much changed.”

“Ay,” said Frank; “and they have been living in an atmosphere congenial to you, at Rockpier, and are hand and glove with all the St. Chrysostom folk there.  What do you say to that, Julius?  I can tell you they are enchanted with your curate!”

“They are not in this parish.”

“No, but they turn up here—the ladies, at least—at all the services at odd times that Bindon has begun with.”

“Ah! by the bye, is Herbert Bowater come?”

“Yes, the whole family came over to his installation in Mrs. Hornblower’s lodgings.”

“I saw him this morning, poor old Herbs,” added Frank, “looking uncommonly as if he felt himself in a strait waistcoat.”

“What, are there two curates?” demanded Cecil, in a tone of reprobation.

Julius made a gesture of assent, with a certain humorous air of deprecation, which, however, was lost upon her.

“We never let Mr. Venn have one,” continued Cecil, “except one winter when he was ill, and then not a young one.  Papa says idle young clergymen are not to be encouraged.”

“I am entirely of Mr. Charnock’s opinion.  But if I have exceeded the Dunstone standard, it was not willingly.  Herbert Bowater is the son of some old friends of my mother’s, who wanted to keep their son near home, and made it their request that I would give him a title.”

“And the Bowaters are the great feature in the neighbourhood,” added Frank.  “Herbert tells me there are wonderful designs for entertaining the brides.”

“What do they consist of?” asked Rosamond.

“All the component parts of a family,” said Frank.  “The eldest daughter is a sort of sheet-anchor to my mother, as well as her own.  The eldest son is at home now.  He is in the army.”

“In the Light Dragoons?” asked Rosamond.  “Oh! then I knew him at Edinburgh!  A man with yellow whiskers, and the next thing to a stutter.”

“I declare, Julius, she is as good as any army list,” exclaimed Charlie.

“There’s praise!” cried Frank.  “The army list is his one book!  What a piece of luck to have you to coach him up in it!”

“I dare say Rosamond can tell me lots of wrinkles for my outfit,” said Charles.

“I should hope so, having rigged out Dick for the line, and Maurice for the artillery!”

Charlie came and leant on the mantel-shelf, and commenced a conversation sotto voce on the subject nearest his heart; while Cecil continued her catechism.

“Are the Bowaters intellectual?”

“Jenny is very well read,” said Julius, “a very sensible person.”

“Yes,” said Frank; “she was the only person here that so much as tried to read Browning.  But if Cecil wants intellect, she had better take to the Duncombes, the queerest firm I ever fell in with.  He makes the turf a regular profession, actually gets a livelihood out of his betting-book; and she is in the strong-minded line—woman’s rights, and all the rest of it.”

“We never had such people at Dunstone,” said Cecil.  “Papa always said that the evil of being in parliament was the having to be civil to everybody.”

Just then Raymond came back with intelligence that his mother was about to go to bed, and to call his wife to wish her good night.  All went in succession to do the same.

“My dear,” she said to Anne, “I hoped you were in bed.”

“I thought I would wait for family worship.”

“I am afraid we don’t have prayers at night, my dear.  We must resume them in the morning, now Raymond and Julius are come.”

Poor Anne looked all the whiter, and only mumbled out a few answers to the kind counsels lavished upon her.  Mrs. Poynsett was left to think over her daughters-in-law.

Lady Rosamond did not occupy her much.  There was evidently plenty of good strong love between her and her husband; and though her training might not have been the best for a clergyman’s wife, there was substance enough in both to shake down together in time.

But it was Raymond who made her uneasy—Raymond, who ever since his father’s death had been more than all her other sons to her.  She had armed herself against the pang of not being first with him, and now she was full of vague anxiety at the sense that she still held her old position.  Had he not sat all the evening in his own place by her sofa, as if it were the very kernel of home and of repose?  And whenever a sense of duty prompted her to suggest fetching his wife, had he not lingered, and gone on talking?  It was indeed of Cecil; but how would she have liked his father, at the honeymoon’s end, to prefer talking of her to talking with her?  “She has been most carefully brought up, and is very intelligent and industrious,” said Raymond.  His mother could not help wondering whether a Roman son might not thus have described a highly accomplished Greek slave, just brought home for his mother’s use.

CHAPTER III

Parish Explorations

A cry more tuneableWas never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:Judge, when you hear.—But, soft; what nymphs are these?Midsummer Night’s Dream

It was quite true that Cecil Charnock Poynsett was a very intelligent industrious creature, very carefully brought up—nay, if possible, a little too much so.  “A little wholesome neglect” had been lacking.

The only child of her parents who had lived to see a second birthday was sure to be the centre of solicitude.  She had not been spoilt in the usual acceptation of the word, for she had no liberty, fewer indulgences and luxuries than many children, and never was permitted to be naughty; but then she was quite aware that each dainty or each pleasure was granted or withheld from a careful consideration of her welfare, and that nothing came by chance with her.  And on her rare ebullitions of self-will, mamma, governess, nurse, nay even papa, were all in sorrowful commotion till their princess had been brought to a sense of the enormity of her fault.

She lost her mother at fourteen, but the same anxious training was carried on by her father; and after three years he married her mother’s most intimate friend, avowedly that the perfect system might be continued.  Cecil’s gaieties as a come-out young lady were selected on the same judicious principles as her childish diversions; and if ever the Dunstone family favoured an entertainment not to their taste, it was after a debate on the need of condescension and good-nature.  She had, however, never had a season in London—a place her father hated; but she was taken abroad as soon as she was deemed old enough thoroughly to appreciate what she was to see there; and in Switzerland her Cousin Raymond, who had at different times visited Dunstone, overtook the party, and ere long made his proposals.  He was the very man to whom two or three centuries ago Mr. Charnock would have betrothed the heiress in her infancy; and Cecil had never liked any one so well, feeling that her destiny came to a proper culmination in bestowing her hand on the most eligible Charnock, an M.P., and just a step above her father in rank and influence.

Her step-mother was under orders to spend the winter in Italy and the wedding had therefore taken place in Venice, so that Cecil might finish her journey as a wife.  She had been very happy and fully occupied; Raymond, being younger and stronger than her parents, was more competent to escort her to every height or depth to which she wished to go, hunted up information for her, and was her most obedient servant, only resisting any prolongation of the journey beyond the legitimate four weeks; nor indeed had Cecil been desirous of deferring her introduction to her new sphere.

There she stood, her hair and pretty Parisian winter dress arranged to perfection, contemplating with approval the sitting-room that had been appropriated to her, the October sunshine lighting up the many-tinted trees around the smooth-shaven dewy lawn, and a bright fire on the hearth, shelves and chiffoniers awaiting her property, and piles of parcels, suggestive of wedding presents, awaiting her hand.  She was standing at the table, turning out her travelling-bag with the comfortable sensation that it was not to be immediately re-packed, and had just disinterred a whole library of note-books, when her husband opened the door.  “I believe Jenkins is waiting for your appearance to bring in the urn, my dear.”

“I’m coming; but surely there ought to be a bell or gong to assemble the family.”

“It might disturb my mother.  What sleep she gets is in the morning.  I never go to her till eleven o’clock, unless I am going out for the day.”

“And what will she want me to do for her?” asked Cecil, glancing at her empty shelves.

“A woman’s tact will soon find out.  All I wish is that she should be your first object.”

It was a much larger all than could be realized by the son whose happiest moments had been spent in devotion to her, and who thought the motherless girl must rejoice doubly in such a mother.

“But I am free till eleven,” said Cecil.

“Free always, I hope,” he returned, with a shade of vexation.  Therewith they descended the broad stairs into the panelled hall, where a great fire was blazing on the hearth, and Rosamond and the two young brothers were standing chatting merrily before it.

Julius, she said, had his primary sermon heavy on his mind, and had risen before day to attack it; and she sped away to summon him from Mrs. Poynsett’s beautiful old dressing-room, where he sat writing amid all the old associations.  Anne was discovered hanging over the dining-room fire, looking whiter and more exhausted than the night before, having indeed been the first to come down-stairs.  She was rebuked for fatiguing herself, and again murmured something about family worship.

“We must begin to-morrow,” said Raymond.  “We have got a chaplain now.”

Julius, however, on entering excused himself, saying that after Sunday he should be at Matins at nine o’clock; whereupon Anne looked at him in mute astonishment.

Raymond, feeling that he ought to cultivate the solitary sister-in-law, began asking about Miles; but unlike the typical colonist, she was very silent, and her replies were monosyllabic, till Rosamond created a diversion by talking to Frank; and then Raymond elicited that Glen Fraser was far up the country—King Williamstown nearer than any other town.  They had sent thither for a doctor for Miles, and he stayed one night, but said that mother’s treatment was quite right; and as it was thirty miles off he did not come again.  Thirty miles! what sort of roads?  Not bad for wagons.  It only took two days to get there if the river was not in flood.  Had she not been married there?  Yes, they all rode in thither for the purpose.  Was it the nearest church, then?  There was one only nine miles off, to which papa went when there was service—one Sunday in three, “for he is an Episcopalian, you know.”

“And not your mother?” asked Cecil.

“I don’t think she was at home,” said Anne.

“Then had you a Presbyterian Kirk?” asked Cecil, remembering that in Scotland gentle blood and Anglicanism did not go together as uniformly as she believed them to do in England.

“There was one at Schneyder’s Kloof, but that was Dutch.”

“Then did you go nowhere?” asked Cecil.

“There was Mr. Pilgrim’s.”

“A clergyman?”

“No, a settler.  He used to pray and expound every Sunday.”

“What does he call himself?” said Cecil, growing more severe.

“I don’t know,” said Anne.  “He gathers together a little flock of all denominations, who only care to hear the word.”

“Such a voice in the wilderness as often does good service,” said Julius, with a perception that the side with which he least agreed best deserved support.

He and Rosamond were bent on a tour of parochial inspection, as were Raymond and Cecil on a more domestic one, beginning with the gardens.

Cecil was the first lady down-stairs, all in claret colour trimmed with gray fur, with a little fur and velvet cap upon her head.

“There! it is a clear morning, and you can see the view,” said Raymond, opening the hall door.

“Very prettily undulating ground,” she said, standing on the steps, and looking over a somewhat rapid slope scattered with trees to the opposite side of the valley, where a park with a red mansion in the midst gleamed out among woods of green, red, orange, and brown tints.  “How you are shut in!  That great Spanish chestnut must be a perfect block when its leaves are out.  My father would never let it stand so near the house.”

“It is too near, but it was planted at the birth of my mother’s brother.”

“Who died?”

“Yes, at seven years old.  It was her first grief.”

“Then it would vex her if you cut it.”

Raymond laughed.  “It is hers, not mine.”

“I forgot.”  There was a good deal in the tone; but she added, “What is that place opposite?”

“Sirenwood.  It belongs to Sir Harry Vivian; but he does not live there.”

“Yes, he does,” said Cecil.  “Your brothers say he has come back with his two daughters.”

“There is only one unmarried.”

“There is a widow come to keep house for him—Lady Tyrrell.”

“Very likely,” said Raymond; “my mother only writes with difficulty, so I hear little when I am from home.”

“Is it true that they are horrid people, very dissipated, and not fit for me to associate with?”

“That is putting it strongly,” said Raymond, quietly.  “They are not likely to be very desirable acquaintances for you, but there is no reason you should not associate with them on ordinary terms of courtesy.”

“Ah!  I understand—as member’s wife.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” said Raymond.  “Ah!  Rosamond!” as she came down in a Galway cloak over her black velveteen, “on the way to view your domain?”

“Yes, and yours,” she said, nodding to Cecil.  “You appreciate such English apple-pie order.  It looks as if you never suffered a stray leaf to dance without an old woman to hunt it down.  And what’s that red house smiling across the valley?”

“Sirenwood,” repeated Raymond; then to Julius he said, “Did you know it was inhabited again?”

“Frank said so,” answered Julius, without further remark, giving his arm to his wife, who clasped both hands on it; while the other couple looked on as if doubtful whether this were a trying duty incumbent on them.

“What is it all about?” said Rosamond, as they walked down the avenue of walnuts leading to the iron gates in the opposite direction from Sirenwood.  “Which of you was that woman’s victim?  Was it a sailor love of Miles’s?  I hope not!  That poor little African might not stand a gay ghost cropping up again.”