Beechcroft at Rockstone

‘We will try to make Mr. White come to a better understanding,’ said Miss Mohun kindly.

‘Thank you’ said Kalliope, pushing back her hair with a half-bewildered look. ‘I remember my poor mother was very anxious about that. But it seems a little thing now.’

‘May God bless and help you, my dear,’ said Miss Mohun, with a parting kiss.

Gillian had not spoken all the time; but outside she said—‘Oh, aunt! is this my doing?’

‘Not quite,’ said Aunt Jane kindly. ‘There were other causes.’

‘Oh, if I could do anything!’

‘Alas! it is easier to do than to undo.’

Aunt Jane was really kind, and Gillian was grateful, but oh, how she longed for her mother!

There was no better news the next morning. Nothing had been heard of Alexis, and nothing would persuade his mother in her half-delirious and wholly unreasonable state that he had not been sent to prison, and that they were not keeping it from her. She was exceedingly ill, and Kalliope had been up all night with her.

Such was the report in a note sent up by Mrs. Lee by one of the little boys early in the morning, and, as soon as she could reasonably do so, Miss Mohun carried the report to Lord Rotherwood, whom she found much better, and anxious to renew the tour of inspection which had been interrupted.

Before long, Mr. White was shown in, intending to resume the business discussion, and Miss Mohun was about to retreat with Lady Rotherwood, when her cousin, taking pity on her anxiety, said—

‘If you will excuse me for speaking about your family matters, Mr. White, my cousin knows these young people well, and I should like you to hear what she has been telling me.’

‘A gentleman has just been calling on me about them,’ said Mr. White, not over-graciously.

‘Mr. Flight?’ asked Jane anxiously.

‘Yes; a young clergyman, just what we used to call Puseyite when I left England; but that name seems to be gone out now.’

‘Anyway,’ said Jane, ‘I am sure he had nothing but good to say of Miss White, or indeed of her brother; and I am afraid the poor mother is very ill.’

‘That’s true, Miss Mohun; but you see there may be one side to a lady or a parson, and another to a practical man like my partner. Not but that I should be willing enough to do anything in reason for poor Dick’s widow and children, but not to keep them in idleness, or letting them think themselves too good to work.’

‘That I am sure these two do not. Their earnings quite keep the family. I know no one who works harder than Miss White, between her business, her lodgers, the children, and her helpless mother.’

‘I saw her mosaics—very fair, very clever, some of them; but I’m afraid she is a sad little flirt, Miss Mohun.’

‘Mr. White,’ said Lord Rotherwood, ‘did ever you hear of a poor girl beset by an importunate youth, but his family thought it was all her fault?’

‘If Mr. White would see her,’ said Jane, ‘he would understand at a glance that the attraction is perfectly involuntary; and I know from other sources how persistently she has avoided young Stebbing; giving up Sunday walks to prevent meeting him, accepting nothing from him, always avoiding tete-a-tetes.’

‘Hum! But tell me this, madam,’ said Mr. White eagerly, ‘how is it that, if these young folks are so steady and diligent as you would make out, that eldest brother writes to me every few months for help to support them?’

‘Oh!’ Jane breathed out, then, rallying, ‘I know nothing about that eldest. Yes, I do though! His sister told my niece that all the rents of the three houses went to enable Richard to appear as he ought at the solicitor’s office at Leeds.’

‘There’s a screw loose somewhere plainly,’ said Lord Rotherwood.

‘The question is, where it is,’ said Mr. White.

‘And all I hope, said Jane, ‘is that Mr. White will judge for himself when he has seen Kalliope and made inquiries all round. I do not say anything for the mother, poor thing, except that she is exceedingly ill just now, but I do thoroughly believe in the daughter.’

‘And this runaway scamp, Miss Mohun?’

‘I am afraid he is a runaway; but I am quite sure he is no scamp,’ said Jane.

‘Only so clever as to be foolish, eh?’ said the Marquis, rather provokingly.

‘Exactly so,’ she answered; ‘and I am certain that if Mr. White will trust to his own eyes and his own inquiries, he will find that I am right.’

She knew she ought to go, and Lord Rotherwood told her afterwards, ‘That was not an ill-aimed shaft, Jane. Stebbing got more than one snub over the survey. I see that White is getting the notion that there’s a system of hoodwinking going on, and of not letting him alone, and he is not the man to stand that.’

‘If he only would call on Kalliope!’

‘I suspect he is afraid of being beguiled by such a fascinating young woman.’

It was a grievous feature in the case to Gillian that she could really do nothing. Mrs. White was so ill that going to see Kalliope was of no use, and Maura was of an age to be made useful at home; and there were features in the affair that rendered it inexpedient for Gillian to speak of it except in the strictest confidence to Aunt Jane or Mysie. It was as if she had touched a great engine, and it was grinding and clashing away above her while she could do nothing to stay its course.

CHAPTER XVII. – ‘THEY COME, THEY COME’

Dr. Dagger examined Mrs. White and pronounced that there had been mortal disease of long standing, and that she had nearly, if not quite, reached the last stage. While people had thought her selfish, weak, and exacting, she must really have concealed severe suffering, foolishly perhaps, but with great fortitude.

And from hearing this sentence, Kalliope had turned to find at last tidings of her brother in a letter written from Avoncester, the nearest garrison town. He told his sister that, heart-broken already at the result of what he knew to be his own presumption, and horrified at the fatal consequences of his unhappy neglect, he felt incapable of facing any of those whom he had once called his friends, and the letter of dismissal had removed all scruples. Had it not been for his faith and fear, he would have put an end to his life, but she need have no alarms on that score. He had rushed away, scarce knowing what he was doing, till he had found himself on the road to Avoncester and then had walked on thither and enlisted in the regiment quartered there, where he hoped to do his duty, having no other hope left in life!

Part of this letter Kalliope read to Miss Mohun, who had come down to hear the doctor’s verdict. It was no time to smile at the heart being broken by the return of a valentine, or all hope in life being over before twenty. Kalliope, who knew what the life of a private was, felt wretched over it, and her poor mother was in despair; but Miss Mohun tried to persuade her that it was by no means an unfortunate thing, since Alexis would be thus detained safely and within reach till Sir Jasper arrived to take up the matter, and Mr. White had been able to understand it.

‘Yes; but he cannot come to my poor mother. And Richard will be so angry—think it such a degradation.’

‘He ought not. Your father—’

‘Oh! but he will. And I must write to him. Mother has been asking for him.’

‘Tell me, my dear, has Richard ever helped you?’

‘Oh no, poor fellow, he could not. He wants all we can send him, or we would have put the little boys to a better school.’

‘I would not write before it is absolutely necessary,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘A young man hanging about with nothing to do, even under these circumstances, might make things harder.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Kalliope, with a trembling lip. ‘And if it was urgent, even Alexis might come. Indeed, I ought to be thankful that he is safe, after all my dreadful fears, and not far off.’

Miss Mohun refrained from grieving the poor girl by blaming Alexis for the impetuous selfish folly that had so greatly added to the general distress of his family, and rendered it so much more difficult to plead his cause. In fact, she felt bound to stand up as his champion against all his enemies, though he was less easy of defence than his sister; and Mr. Flight, the first person she met afterwards, was excessively angry and disappointed, speaking of such a step as utter ruin.

‘The lad was capable of so much better things,’ said he. ‘I had hoped so much of him, and had so many plans for him, that it is a grievous pity; but he had no patience, and now he has thrown himself away. I told him it was his first duty to maintain his mother, and if he had stuck to that, I would have done more for him as soon as he was old enough, and I could see what was to be done for the rest of them; but he grew unsettled and impatient, and this is the end of it!’

‘Not the end, I hope,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘It is not exactly slavery without redemption.’

‘He does not deserve it.’

‘Who does? Besides, remember what his father was.’

‘His father must have been of the high-spirited, dare-devil sort. This lad was made for a scholar—for the priesthood, in fact, and the army will be more uncongenial than these marble works! Foolish fellow, he will soon have had enough of it, with his refinement, among such associates.’

Jane wondered that the young clergyman did not regret that he had sufficiently tried the youth’s patience to give the sense of neglect and oblivion. There had been many factors in the catastrophe, and this had certainly been one, since the loan of a few books, and an hour a week of direction of study, would have kept Alexis contented, and have obviated all the perilous intercourse with Gillian; but she scarcely did the Rev. Augustine Flight injustice in thinking that in the aesthetic and the emotional side of religion he somewhat lost sight of the daily drudgery that works on character chiefly as a preventive. ‘He was at the bottom of it, little as he knows it,’ she said to herself as she walked up the hill. ‘How much harm is done by good beginnings of a skein left to tangle.’

Lady Flight provided a trained nurse to help Kalliope, and sent hosts of delicacies; and plenty of abuse was bestowed on Mr. James White for his neglect. Meanwhile Mrs. White, though manifestly in a hopeless state, seemed likely to linger on for some weeks longer.

In the meantime, Miss Mohun at last found an available house, and was gratified by the young people’s murmur that ‘Il Lido’ was too far off from Beechcroft. But then their mother would be glad to be so near St. Andrew’s, for she belonged to the generation that loved and valued daily services.

Lord Rotherwood, perhaps owing to his exertions, felt the accident more than he had done at first, and had to be kept very quiet, which he averred to be best accomplished by having the children in to play with him; and as he always insisted on sending for Valetta to make up the party, the edict of separation fell to the ground, when Lady Rotherwood, having written his letters for him, went out for a drive, taking sometimes Miss Elbury, but more often Adeline Mohun, who flattered herself that her representations had done much to subdue prejudice and smooth matters.

‘Which always were smooth,’ said Jane; ‘smooth and polished as a mahogany table, and as easy to get into.’

However, she was quite content that Ada should be the preferred one, and perhaps no one less acute than herself would have felt that the treatment as intimates and as part of the family was part of the duty of a model wife. Both sisters were in request to enliven the captive, and Jane forebore to worry him with her own anxieties about the present disgrace of the Whites. Nothing could be done for Kalliope in her mother’s present state, Alexis must drink of his own brewst, and Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield were past Brindisi! As to Mr. White, he seemed to be immersed in business, and made no sign of relenting; Jane had made one or two attempts to see him, but had not succeeded. Only one of her G.F.S. maidens, who was an enthusiastic admirer of Kalliope, and in perfect despair at her absence, mentioned that Mr. White had looked over all their work and had been immensely struck with Miss White’s designs, and especially with the table inlaid with autumn leaves, which had been set aside as expensive, unprofitable, and not according to the public taste, and not shown to him on his first visit to the works with Mr. Stebbing. There were rumours in the air that he was not contented with the state of things, and might remain for some time to set them on a different footing.

Miss Adeline had been driving with Lady Rotherwood, and on coming in with her for the afternoon cup of tea, found Mr. White conversing with Lord Rotherwood, evidently just finishing the subject—a reading-room or institute of some sort for the men at the works.

‘All these things are since my time,’ said Mr. White. ‘We were left pretty much to ourselves in those days.’

‘And what do you think? Should you have been much the better for them?’ asked the Marquis.

‘Some of us would,’ was the answer.

‘You would not have thought them a bore!’

‘There were some who would, as plenty will now; but we were a rough set—we had not so much to start with as the lads, willy nilly, have now. But I should have been glad of books, and diversion free from lawlessness might have prevented poor Dick’s scrapes. By the bye, that daughter of his can do good work.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Miss Adeline, ‘she is a very good girl, and in great trouble. I was much pleased with her, and I think, she has behaved remarkably well under very trying circumstances.’

‘I observed that the young women in the mosaic department seemed to be much attached to her,’ said Mr. White.

‘My sister thinks she has been an excellent influence there.’

‘She was not there,’ said Mr. White.

‘No; her mother is too ill to be left—dying, I should think, from what I hear.’

‘From the shock of that foolish lad’s evasion?’ asked Lord Rotherwood.

‘She was very ill before, I believe, though that brought it to a crisis. No one would believe how much that poor girl has had depending on her. I wish she had been at the works—I am sure you would have been struck with her.’

‘Have you any reason to think they are in any distress, Miss Mohun?’

‘Not actually at present; but I do not know what they are to do in future, with the loss of the salaries those two have had,’ said Adeline, exceedingly anxious to say neither too much nor too little.

‘There is the elder brother.’

‘Oh! he is no help, only an expense.’

‘Miss Mohun, may I ask, are you sure of that?’

‘As sure as I can be of anything. I have always heard that the rents of their two or three small houses went to support Richard, and that they entirely live on the earnings of the brother and sister, except that you are so good as to educate the younger girl. It has come out casually—they never ask for anything.’

Mr. White looked very thoughtful. Adeline considered whether importunity would do most harm or good; but thought her words might work. When she rose to take leave, Mr. White did the same, ‘evidently,’ thought she, ‘for the sake of escorting her home,’ and she might perhaps say another word in confidence for the poor young people. She had much reliance, and not unjustly, on her powers of persuasion, and she would make the most of those few steps to her own door.

‘Indeed, Mr. White,’ she began, ‘excuse me, but I cannot help being very much interested in those young people we were speaking of.’

‘That is your goodness, Miss Mohun. I have no doubt they are attractive—there’s no end to the attractiveness of those Southern folk they belong to—on one side of the house at least, but unfortunately you never know where to have them—there’s no truth in them; and though I don’t want to speak of anything I may have done for them, I can’t get over their professing never to have had anything from me.’

‘May I ask whether you sent it through that eldest brother?’

‘Certainly; he always wrote to me.’

‘Then, Mr. White, I cannot help believing that the family here never heard of it. Do you know anything of that young man?’

‘No; I will write to his firm and inquire. Thank you for the hint, Miss Mohun.’

They were at Beechcroft Cottage gate, and he seemed about to see her even to the door. At that instant a little girlish figure advanced and was about to draw back on perceiving that Miss Adeline was not alone, when she exclaimed, ‘Maura, is it you, out so late! How is your mother?’

‘Much the same, thank you, Miss Adeline!’

‘Here is one of the very young folks we were mentioning,’ said Ada, seeing her opportunity and glad that there was light enough to show the lady-like little figure. ‘This is Maura, Mr. White, whom you are kindly educating.’

Mr. White took the hand, which was given with a pretty respectful gesture, and said something kind about her mother’s illness, while Adeline took the girl into the house and asked if she had come on any message.

‘Yes, if you please,’ said Maura, blushing; ‘Miss Mohun was so kind as to offer to lend us an air-cushion, and poor mamma is so restless and uncomfortable that Kally thought it might ease her a little.’

‘By all means, my dear. Come in, and I will have it brought,’ said Adeline, whose property the cushion was, and who was well pleased that Mr. White came in likewise, and thus had a full view of Maura’s great wistful, long-lashed eyes, and delicate refined features, under a little old brown velvet cap, and the slight figure in a gray ulster. He did not speak while Maura answered Miss Adeline’s inquiries, but when the cushion had been brought down, and she had taken it under her arm, he exclaimed—

‘Is she going back alone?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Maura cheerfully; ‘it is not really dark out of doors yet.’

‘I suppose it could not be helped,’ said Miss Adeline.

‘No; Theodore is at the school. They keep him late to get things ready for the inspection, and Petros had to go to the doctor’s to fetch something; but he will meet me if he is not kept waiting.’

‘It is not fit for a child like that to go alone so late,’ said Mr. White, who perhaps had imbibed Italian notions of the respectability of an escort. ‘I will walk down with her.’

Maura looked as if darkness were highly preferable to such a cavalier; but Miss Adeline was charmed to see them walk off together, and when her sister presently came in with Gillian and Fergus, she could not but plume herself a little on her achievement.

‘Then it was those two!’ exclaimed Jane. ‘I thought so from the other side of the street, but it was too dark to be certain; and besides, there was no believing it.’

‘Did not they acknowledge you?’

‘Oh no; they were much too busy.’

‘Talking. Oh, what fun!’ Adeline could not help observing in such glee that she looked more like ‘our youngest girl’ than the handsome middle-aged aunt.

‘But,’ suggested Fergus, somewhat astonished, ‘Stebbing says he is no end of a horrid brute of a screw.’

‘Indeed. What has he been doing?’

‘He only tipped him a coach wheel.’

‘Well, to tip over as a coach wheel is the last thing I should have expected of Mr. White,’ said Aunt Jane, misunderstanding on purpose.

‘A crown piece then,’ growled Fergus; ‘and of course he thought it would be a sovereign, and so he can’t pay me my two ten—shillings, I mean, that I lent him, and so I can’t get the lovely ammonite I saw at Nott’s.’

‘How could you be so silly as to lend him any money?’

‘I didn’t want to; but he said he would treat us all round if I wouldn’t be mean, and after all I only got half a goody, with all the liqueur out of it.’

‘It served you right,’ said Gillian. ‘I doubt whether you would see the two shillings again, even if he had the sovereign.’

‘He faithfully promised I should,’ said Fergus, whose allegiance was only half broken. ‘And old White is a beast, and no mistake. He was perfectly savage to Stebbing’s major, and he said he wouldn’t be under him, at no price.’

‘Perhaps Mr. White might say the same,’ put in Aunt Ada.

‘He is a downright old screw and a bear, I tell you,’ persisted Fergus. ‘He jawed Frank Stebbing like a pickpocket for just having a cigar in the quarry.’

‘Close to the blasting powder, eh?’ said Miss Mohun.

‘And he is boring and worrying them all out of their lives over the books,’ added Fergus. ‘Poking his nose into everything, so that Stebbing says his governor vows he can’t stand it, and shall cut the concern it the old brute does not take himself off to Italy before long.’

‘What a good thing!’ thought both sisters, looking into each other’s eyes and auguring well for the future.

All were anxious to hear the result of Maura’s walk, and Gillian set out in the morning on a voyage of discovery with a glass of jelly for Mrs. White; but all she could learn was that the great man had been very kind to Maura, though he had not come in, at which Gillian was indignant.

‘Men are often shy of going near sickness and sorrow,’ said her aunt Ada. ‘You did not hear what they talked about?’

‘No; Maura was at school, and Kally is a bad person to pump.’

‘I should like to pump Mr. White,’ was Aunt Jane’s comment.

‘If I could meet him again,’ said Aunt Ada, ‘I feel sure he would tell me.’

Her sister laughed a little, so well did she know that little half-conscious, half-gratified tone of assumption of power over the other sex; but Miss Adeline proved to be right. Nay, Mr. White actually called in the raw cold afternoon, which kept her in when every one else was out. He came for the sake of telling her that he was much pleased with the little girl—a pretty creature, and simple and true, he really believed. Quite artlessly, in answer to his inquiries, she had betrayed that her eldest brother never helped them. ‘Oh no! Mamma was always getting all the money she could to send to him, because he must keep up appearances at his office at Leeds, and live like a gentleman, and it did not signify about Kalliope and Alexis doing common work.’

‘That’s one matter cleared up,’ rejoiced Jane. ‘It won’t be brought up against them now.’

‘And then it seems he asked the child about her sister’s lovers.’

‘Oh!’

‘It was for a purpose. Don’t be old maidish, Jenny!’

‘Well, he isn’t a gentleman.’

‘Now, Jane, I’m sure—’

‘Never mind. I want to hear; only I should have thought you would have been the first to cry out.’

‘Little Maura seems to have risen to the occasion, and made a full explanation as far as she knew—and that was more than the child ought to have known, by the bye—of how Mr. Frank was always after Kally, and how she could not bear him, and gave up the Sunday walk to avoid him, and how he had tried to get her to marry him, and go to Italy with him; but she would not hear of it.’

‘Just the thing the little chatterbox would be proud of, but it is no harm that “Mon oncle des iles Philippines” should know.’

‘“I see his little game” was what Mr. White said,’ repeated Adeline. ‘“The young dog expected to come over me with this pretty young wife—my relation, too; but he would have found himself out in his reckoning.”’

‘So far so good; but it is not fair.’

‘However, the ice is broken. What’s that? Is the house coming down?’

No; but Gillian and Valetta came rushing in, almost tumbling over one another, and each waving a sheet of a letter. Papa and mamma would land in three days’ time if all went well; but the pity was that they must go to London before coming to Rockquay, since Sir Jasper must present himself to the military and medical authorities, and likewise see his mother, who was in a very failing state.

The children looked and felt as if the meeting were deferred for years; but Miss Mohun, remembering the condition of ‘Il Lido,’ alike as to the presence of workmen and absence of servants, felt relieved at the respite, proceeded to send a telegram to Macrae, and became busier than ever before in her life.

The Rotherwoods were just going to London. The Marquis was wanted for a division, and though both he and Dr. Dagger declared his collar-bone quite repaired, his wife could not be satisfied without hearing for herself a verdict to the same effect from the higher authorities, being pretty sure that whatever their report might be, his abstract would be ‘All right. Never mind.’

Fly had gained so much in flesh and strength, and was so much more like her real self, that she was to remain at the hotel with Miss Elbury, the rooms being kept for her parents till Easter. Mysie was, however, to go with them to satisfy her mother, ‘with a first mouthful of children,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘Gillian had better come too; and we will write to the Merrifields to come to us, unless they are bound to the old lady.’