The Two Sides of the Shield

Aunt Jane varied her voice in the most comical way, and the girls, as well as all her audience, laughed heartily.

‘Bravo, Jenny!’ said a voice close to her, and a gentleman with a rather bald head, a fluffy, light beard touched with white, dancing eyes, and a slim, youthful figure, was seen standing in the group.

Lady Merrifield and her sisters cried with one glad voice, ‘Oh! Rotherwood!’ holding out their hands.

‘Yes. I found I’d a few hours between the trains, so I ran down to look you up. I met Harry at the house, and he told me I should find Jane qualifying for the female parliament.’

‘It’s such a pity you should fall on all this turmoil,’ said Aunt Ada.

‘Pity! I wouldn’t have missed Jenny’s wisdom for the world. What is it, Lily? Temperance, or have you set up a Salvation Army?

‘G.F.S., of course, you Rotherwood of old! And now you are come, you shall save me from what has been my bugbear for the last week. You shall give the premiums.’

‘Come, it’s no use making faces and pretending you know nothing about it,’ added Miss Mohun. ‘I know very well that Florence is deep in it!’

‘Ay, they’ll have you over to repeat that splendid harangue about pots and pans!’ said he, bowing at Lady Merrifield’s introductions of him to the bystanders, and obediently accepting the sheaf of envelopes, while Mr. Leadbitter made it known that the premiums would be given by the Marquess of Rotherwood. Certainly it was a much more lively business than if Lady Merrifield had performed it, for he had something droll to observe to each girl. One he pretended to envy, telling her he had worked hard for may a year, and never got such a card as that for it—far less five shillings. Another he was sure kept her pans bright, and always knew which was which; a very little one was asked if she had gone from her cradle, and so on, always sending them away with a broad smile, and professing great respect for the three seven-year-card maidens who came up last. Then in a concluding speech he demanded—where were the premiums for the mistresses, who, he was quite sure, deserved them quite as much or more than the maids!

While everybody was still laughing, Lady Merrifield asked Mr. Leadbitter to explain that as it was still raining hard, she must ask all to adjourn to the great loft over the stable, where they could enjoy themselves. Each associate was to gather her own flock and bring them in order. Lady Merrifield said she would lead the way, Lord Rotherwood coming with her, picking up little Primrose in his arms to carry her upstairs to the loft.

Every one was moving. Dolores was among a crowd of strangers. She heard them saying how delightful Lord Rotherwood was, and charming and handsome and graceful Lady Merrifield, with her beautiful eyes. It worried Dolores, who thought it rather foolish to be pretty, except in the case of persecuted orphan, and, moreover, admiration of her aunt always seemed to her disparagement of her mother. And where was Constance?

She followed the stream, and, climbing some stairs, came out into a large, long, empty hay-loft, over what had once been hunting stables—the children’s wet-day play-place. The deputation dispatched to the house had managed to get up there the schoolroom piano, and one of the curates sat down to it, and began playing dance music, while Miss Mohun, Miss Hacket, and the other ladies began arranging couples for a country dance—all girls, of course, except that Lord Rotherwood danced with the tiny premium girl, and Harry with Primrose. Wilfred and Fergus could not be incited to make the attempt; Mysie offered herself to Dolores, but in vain. ‘I hate dancing,’ was all the answer she got, and she went off to persuade Lois, the nursery girl. Constance Hacket arranged herself on a chair, and looked out from between two curates; there was no getting at her.

Then there came a pause; Lord Rotherwood spoke to Gillian, and must have asked her to point Dolores out, for presently he made his way to the little dark figure in the window, and, kindly laying his hand on her shoulder, asked whether she had heard from her father yet.

‘No, I suppose you can’t,’ he added. ‘It is a great break-up for you; but you are a lucky girl to be taken in here! It reminds me of what Beechcroft used to be to me when I was a stray fish, though not quite so lonely as you are. Make the most of it, for there aren’t many in these days like Aunt Lily there!’

‘He little knows,’ thought Dolores, as a waltz began to be played.

‘They want an example,’ he said. ‘Come along. You know how, I’m sure—a Londoner like you!’

Pairs were whirling about the floor in full career in a short time, to the astonishment of other maidens who had never seen dancing in their lives. Dolores, afraid to refuse, and certainly flattered, really was wonderfully exhilarated and brightened by her career wither good-natured cousin.

‘I do believe Cousin Rotherwood has shaken her out of the dumps,’ observed Gillian to Aunt Jane, who returned—

‘He can do it if any one can.’

The funny thing was the effect upon Constance, who, in the next pause, shook off her curates, advanced to Dolores, who was recovering her breath under the window, called her a dear thing whom she had not been able to get to all this time, sat rather forward with an arm round her waist for the next half-hour, and, when Sir Roger de Coverley was getting up, proposed that they should be partners, but not till she had seen Lord Rotherwood pair himself off with Mysie.

‘I must,’ said he to Lady Merrifield, ‘it’s so like dancing with honest Phyl.’

‘The greatest compliment you could have, Mysie,’ said her mother, looking very much pleased.

The last yellow patches of evening sunshine on the sloping roof faded; watches were looked at, the music turned to the National Anthem, everybody stood up, or stood still, and sung it. Then at the close, Mr. Leadbitter stood by the piano and said—

‘One word more, my young friends. Some of you may have been surprised at this evening’s amusement, but we want you to understand that there is no harm in dancing itself, provided that the place, the manner, and the companions are fit. I hope that you will all prove the truth of my words, by not taking this pleasant evening as an excuse for running into places of temptation. Now, good night, with many thanks to Lady Merrifield for the happy day she has given us.’

A voice added, ‘Three cheers for Lady Merrifield!’ and the G.F.S. showed itself by no means backward in the matter of cheering. There was a hunting up of ulsters and umbrellas; one associate after another got her flock together, and clattered downstairs, either to get into vans, to walk to the station, or to disperse to their homes in the town.

Meantime Lord Rotherwood had time to explain that he was on his way to fetch his wife home from some German baths, where she had gone to recruit after the season; and, as he meant to cross at night, had come to spend a few hours with his cousin. There was still an hour to spare, during which Lady Merrifield insisted that he must have more solid food than G.F.S. provided.

‘Lily,’ said Miss Mohun, as the elders walked to the house together, ‘it strikes me that Rotherwood could satisfy your mind about that letter. He would know the handwriting. You remember a certain brother—very much in law—of Maurice’s?’

‘I have reason to do so,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘You don’t mean that he has been troubling Lily?’

‘No; but from the nature of the animal it is much to be apprehended that he will,’ said Miss Mohun, ‘if he knows that the child is here.’

‘In fact,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘Jane has made me suppress, till examination, a letter to her, in case it should be from him. It is a horrid thing to do. What do you think, Rotherwood?’

‘There should be no correspondence. Did not Maurice warn you? Then he ought. Look here, Lily. His wife—under strong compulsion from the fellow, I should think—begged me to find some employment for him. I got him a secretaryship to our Board of—what d’ye call it? I’ll do Maurice the justice to say that he was considerably cool about it; but the end of it was that there was an unaccountable deficit, and my lady said it served me right. I was a fool, as I always am, and gave way to the poor woman about not bringing it home to him. And she insisted on making it up to me by degrees—out of her literary work, I fancy—for I don’t think Maurice knew the extent of the peculation. Ever since I’ve been getting begging letters from the fellow at intervals. If he had the impertinence to molest you, Lily, simply refer him to me.’

‘And if he writes to the child?’

‘Return him the letter. Say she can have no such thing without her father’s consent.’

‘Is this a case in point?’ said Lady Merrifield, producing the letter.

‘No,’ said he, holding it up in the waning light. ‘I know the fellow’s fist too well! This is a gentleman’s hand.’

‘What a relief!’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘Nay, don’t be in a hurry,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Don’t give it to her unopened. Your only safety is in maintaining your right to see all the child’s letters, except what her father specified.’

‘Don’t you wish it was you, Brownie?’ asked her cousin.

‘I hate it!’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘but I suppose I ought! However, there’s no harm in this, that’s a comfort; it is simply that the gentleman that the house is let to has found this note to her somewhere about, and thinks she would wish to have it. I think it is her mother’s hand. How nice of him!’

‘Now, Lily, don’t go and be too apologetic,’ said Jane. ‘Assert your right, or you’ll have it all over again.’

‘Without Jenny to do prudence,’ said Lord Rotherwood, while Lady Merrifield, hardly hearing either of them, hurried on in search of her niece, but they would have been satisfied if they could have heard her.

‘My dear, here’s your letter. I am so sorry to have been too much hindered to look at it before. You must not mind, Dolly. I know it is very disagreeable; but every one who has the care of precious articles like young ladies is bound to look after them.’

Dolores took the letter with a kind of acknowledgement, but no more, for its detention offended her, and she was aggrieved at the prospect of future inspection, as another cruel stroke inflicted upon her.

Aunt Adeline was found in the drawing-room, where she had entertained such ladies as were afraid of the damp, or who did not approve of the dancing, and would not look on at it. Thence all went off to a merry meal, where the elders plunged into old stories, and went on capping each others’ recollections and making fun, to the extreme delight of the young folk, who had often been entertained with tales of Beechcroft. Aunt Ada declared that she had not laughed so much for ten years, and Aunt Jane declared that it was too bad to lower their dignity and be so absurd before all these young things.

‘It’s having four of the old set together!’ said Lord Rotherwood; ‘a chance one doesn’t get every day. I wonder how soon Maurice and Phyllis will meet.’

‘It depends on whether the Zenobia touches at Auckland before going to the Fijis,’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘There is at least a sort of neighbourhood between them,’ said Miss Mohun, ‘though it may be about as close as between us and Sicily.’

‘She is looking out for Maurice,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘She wrote, only it was too late, to propose his bringing Dolores to be at least nearer to him.’

‘Just like Phyllis!’ ejaculated the marquess. ‘You have one of your flock with something of her countenance, Lily.’

‘I am so glad you see it, Rotherwood. It is what I am always trying to believe in, and I hope the likeness is a little within as well as without—but we poor creatures who have been tumbled about the world get sophisticated, and can’t attain to the sweet, blundering freshness of “Honest Simplicity.”’

‘It is a plant that must be spontaneous—can’t be grown to order.’

‘His lordship’s carriage at the door,’ announced Macrae.

‘Ah, well! Trains must be caught, I suppose. I’m glad you’re settled here, Lilias. I feel as if a sort of reflex of old Beechcroft were attainable now.’

‘I hope it won’t be a G.F.S. day next time you come!’

‘Oh, it was very jolly. I shall bring my child next time, if I can get her out of the clutches of the governesses for a day, but it is a hard matter. They look daggers at me if I put my head into the schoolroom.’

‘You always were a dangerous element there, you know.’

‘Poor dear Eleanor! What did I not make her go through! But she never went the length of one of my lady’s governesses, who declared that she had as much call to interfere in my stable, as I had with her schoolroom.’

‘What mischief were you doing there?’

‘Well, if you must know, I was enlivening a very dry and Cromwellian abridgement with some of Lily’s old cavalier anecdotes, so Lily was at the bottom of it, you see.’

‘But did she fall on you then and there?’

‘No, no. I trust my beard is too grey for that. But she looked at me with impressive dignity such as neither poor little Fly nor I could stand, and afterwards betook herself to Victoria, who, I am happy to say, sent her to the right about.’

‘As I am about to do,’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘for if you don’t miss your train, it will be by cruelty to animals. No, you’ve not got time to shake hands with all that rabble. Be off with you.’

‘Ah! I shall tell Victoria that if she sees me tomorrow it’s all owing to your unpitying punctuality,’ said he, shaking himself into his overcoat.

‘Dear old fellow!’ said Lady Merrifield, as she turned from the front door, while he drove off. ‘He is like a gust of old Beechcroft air! But I should think Victoria had a handful.’

‘She knew what she was doing,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘I always thought she married him for the sake of breaking him in.’

‘And very well she has done it, too,’ returned Aunt Jane. ‘Only now and then he gets a holiday, and then the real creature breaks out again. But it is much better so. He would not have been of half so much good otherwise.’

Lady Merrifield looked from one to the other, but said no more, for all the young folks were round her; but every one was so much tired, children, servants, and all, that prayers were read early, and all went to their rooms. Yet, tired as she was, Lady Merrifield sat on in her sister Jane’s room, in her dressing-gown, talking according to another revival of olden time.

‘What did Ada mean about Rotherwood? Isn’t he happy?’

‘Oh yes, very happy; and it is much the best thing that could have happened. It is only another of the proofs that life is very long, especially for men.’

‘Come, now, tell me all about it. You don’t know how often I feel as if I had been buried and dug up again.’

‘There are things one can’t write about. Poor fellow! he never really wanted to marry anybody but Phyllis.’

‘No! you don’t mean it! I never knew it.’

‘No, for you were in the utmost parts of the earth; and he was very good, so that I don’t believe honest Phyl herself, or any one without eyes, guessed it; but he had it all out with our father, who begged him, almost on that allegiance he had always shown, to abstain from beginning about it. You see, not only are they first cousins, but our mother and his father both were consumptive, and there was dear Claude even then regularly breaking down every winter, and Ada needing to be looked after like a hothouse plan. I’m sure, when I think of the last generation of Devereuxes, I wonder so many of us have been tough enough to weather the dangerous age; and there had been an alarm or two about Rotherwood himself. Well, he was very good, half from obedience, half from being convinced that it would be a selfish thing, and especially from being wholly convinced that Phyl’s feelings were not stirred. That was the way I came to know about it, for papa took me out for a drive in the old gig to ask what I thought about her heart, and I could truly and honestly say she had never found it, cared for Rotherwood just as she did for Reggie, and was not the sort to think whether a man was attentive to her. Besides, she was eighteen, and he thirty-one, and she thought him venerable. I believe, if he had asked her then, she might have taken him (because Cousin Rotherwood wished it), but she would have had to fall in love in the second place instead of the first. Well, he was very good, poor old fellow, except that by way of taking himself off, and diverting his mind, he went dear-stalking with such unnecessary vehemence that a Scotch mist was very nearly the death of him, and he discovered that he had as many lungs as other people. If you could only have seen our dear old father then, how distressed and how guilty he felt, and how he used to watch Phyllis, and examine Alethea and me as to whether she seemed more than reasonably concerned for Rotherwood had come and hit the right nail on the head he might have carried her off.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘No; for, you see, he was ill enough to convince himself, as well as other people, that he was a consumptive Devereux after all.’

‘Oh yes! I remember the shock with which I heard like a doom that he was going the way of the others; and hen he and the dear Claude came out in his yacht to us at Gibraltar, and were so bright! We had a wonderful little journey into Spain together, and how Jasper enjoyed it! Little did I think I was never to see Claude here again. But it was true, was it not, that all Rotherwood’s care gave the dear fellow much more comfort—perhaps kept him longer?’

‘I am sure it was so. Rotherwood soon got over his own attachment—the missing an English winter was all he needed; but he would hear of nothing but devoting himself to Claude. Papa and Claude were both uneasy at his going off from all his cares and duties, but I believe—and Claude knew it—that he actually could not settle down quietly while Phyllis remained unmarried, and that having Claude to nurse and carry about from climate was the comfort of his life. Or, I believe, dear Claude would have been glad to have been left in peace to do what he could. Well, then Phyllis and Ada went to stay in the Close with Emily, and Ada wrote conscious letters and came home bridling and blushing about Captain May, so that we were quite prepared for his turning up at Beechcroft, but not at all for what I saw before he had been ten minutes in the house, that it was Phyllis that he meant, and had meant all along! Dear Harry! it almost made up for its not being Rotherwood. Well, poor Ada! It hadn’t gone too deep, happily, and I opened her eyes in time to hinder any demonstration that could have left pain and shame—at least, I think so; but poor Ada has had too many little fits for one to have told much more than another. I believe Phyl did tell Harry that he meant Ada, but she let herself be convinced to the contrary; and the only objection I have to it is his having taken that appointment at Auckland, and carried her out of reach of any of us. However, it was better for Rotherwood, and when she was gone, and his occupation over with our dear Claude, his mother was always at him to let her see him married before she died. And so he let her have her way. No, don’t look concerned. Lady Rotherwood is an excellent, good woman, just the wife for him, and he knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy. But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis—Fly he calls her. She is a little skittish elf—Rotherwood himself all over; and doesn’t he worship her! and doesn’t he think it a holiday to carry her off to play pranks with! and isn’t he happy to get amongst a good lot of us, and be his old self again!’

CHAPTER VIII. – MY PERSECUTED UNCLE

Dolores was allowed to go to Casement Cottage on Sunday. It was always rather an awful thing to her to get through the paddock when the farmer’s cattle turned out there. She did not mind it so much in the broad road and in the midst of a large party, with Hal among them, and no dogs; but alone with only one companion, and in the easy path which was the shortest way to the cottage, she winced and trembled at the little black, shaggy Scotch oxen, with white horns and faces that looked to her very wild and fierce.

‘Oh, Gillian, those creatures! Can’t we go the other way?’

‘No; it is a great deal further round, and there’s no time. They won’t hurt. The farmer engaged not to turn out anything vicious here.’

‘But how can he be sure?’

‘Well, don’t come if you don’t like it,’ said Gillian, impatiently. ‘It is your own concern. I must go.’

Dolores did not like the notion of Constance being told that she would not come because she was afraid of the oxen. She thought it very unkind of Gillian, but she came, and kept carefully on the side furthest from the formidable animals. And Gillian really was forbearing. She did make allowances for the London-bred girl’s fears; and the only thing she did was, that when one of the animals lifted up its head and looked, and Dolores made a spring as if to run away, she caught the girl’s arm, crying, ‘Don’t! That’s the very way to make him run after you.’

They got safe out of the paddock at last, and rang at the door. They were both kissed, Dolores with especial affectionateness, because the good ladies pitied her so much; and then while Miss Hacket and Gillian went off to their class, Constance took Dolores up into her own room, and began to tell her how disappointed she was not to have seen more of her at the Festival.

‘But those curates would not let me alone. I was obliged to attend to them.’

And then she was very eager to know all about Lord Rotherwood, which rather amazed Dolores, who had been in the habit of hearing her father mention him as ‘that mad fellow Rotherwood,’ while her mother always spoke with contempt of people who ran after lords and ladies, and had been heard to say that Lord Rotherwood himself was well enough, but his wife was a mere fine lady.

But Dolores had a matter on which she was very anxious.

‘Connie, do they always read one’s letters first? I mean the old people, like Aunt Lily.’

‘What! has she been reading your letters?’

‘She says she always shall, except father’s and Maude Sefton’s, because papa spoke to her about that. She took a letter of mine the other day, and never let me have it till the evening, and I am sure Aunt Jane put her up to it.’

‘You poor darling!’ exclaimed Constance. ‘Was it anything you cared about?’

‘Oh no—not that—but there might be. And I want to know whether she has the right.’

‘I should not have thought Lady Merrifield would have been so like an old schoolmistress. Miss Dormer always did, the old cat! where I went to school,’ said Constance. ‘We did hate it so! She looked over every one’s letters, except parents’, so that we never could have anything nice, except by a chance or so.’

‘It is tyranny,’ said Dolores, solemnly. ‘I do not see why one should submit to it.’

‘We had dodges,’ continued Constance, warming with the history of her school-days, and far too eager to talk to think of the harm she might be doing to the younger girl. ‘Sometimes, when a lot of us went to a shop with one of the governesses, one would slip out and post a letter. Fraulein was so short-sighted, she never guessed. We used to call her the jolly old Kafer. But Mademoiselle was very sharp. She once caught Alice Bell, so that she had to make an excuse and say she had dropped something. You see, she really had—the letter into the slit.’

‘But that was an equivocation.’

‘Oh, you darling scrupulous, long-worded child! You aren’t like the girls at Miss Dormer’s, only she drove us to it, you know. You’ll be horribly shocked, but I’ll tell you what Louie Preston did. There was a young man in the town whom she had met at a picnic in the holidays—a clerk, he was, at the bank—and he used to put notes to her under the cushions at church; but one unlucky Sunday, Louie had a cold and didn’t go, and she told Mabel Blisset to bring it, and Mabel didn’t understand the right place, and went poking about, so that Miss Dormer found it out, and there was such a row!’

‘Wasn’t that rather vulgar?’ said Dolores.

‘Well, he was only a clerk, but he was a duck of a man, with regular auburn hair, you know. And he sang! We used to go to the Choral Society concerts, and he sang ballads so beautifully, and always looked at Louie!’

‘I should not care for anything of that sort,’ said Dolores. ‘I think it is bad form.’