That Stick

‘And it looks so!’

‘I tried, because Lady Adela and Miss Bertha and all do,’ said Ida, ‘and they looked at me!  But it made me faint, as I knew it would,’ and she put her head on one side.

‘Poor dear!  So they were so very religious!  Did that spoil it all?’

‘Well, we had pretty things off the Christmas-tree, and we lived quite as ladies, and drove out in the carriage.’

‘No parties nor dances?  Or were they too religious?’

‘Ma says it is their meanness; but my aunt, Lady Northmoor, did say perhaps it would be livelier another year, and then we should have had some dancing and deportment lessons.  I up and told her I could dance fast enough now, but she said it would not be becoming or right to Lady Adela’s and Miss Morton’s feelings.’

‘Do they live there?’

‘Not in the house.  Lady Adela has a cottage of her own, and Miss Morton stops with her.  Lady Adela is as high and standoffish as the monument,’ said Ida, pausing for a comparison.

‘High and haughty,’ said Sibyl, impressed.  ‘And the other lady?’

‘Oh, she is much more good-natured.  We call her Bertha; at least, she told us that we might call her anything but that horrid Cousin Bertha, as she said.  But she’s old, thirty-six years old, and not a bit pretty, and she says such odd things, one doesn’t know what to do.  She thought I made myself useful and could wash and iron,’ said Ida, as if this were the greatest possible insult, in which Sibyl acquiesced.

‘And she thought I should know the factory girls, just the hands,’ added Ida, greatly disgusted.  ‘As if I should!  But ma says low tastes are in the family, for she is going to live in London, and go and sit with the shop-girls in the evening.  Still I like her better than Lady Adela, who keeps herself to herself.  Mamma says it is pride and spite that her plain little sickly girl hasn’t come to be my Lady.’

‘What, doesn’t she speak to them?’ said Sibyl, quite excited.

‘Oh yes, she calls, and shakes hands, and all that, but one never seems to get on with her.  And Emily Trotman, she’s the doctor’s daughter, such a darling, told me such a history—so interesting!’

‘Tell me, Ida, there’s a dear.’

‘She says they were all frightfully dissipated’ (Ida said it quite with a relish)—‘the old Lord and Mr. Morton, Lady Adela’s husband, you know, and Miss Bertha—always racing and hunting and gambling and in debt.  Then there came a Captain Alder, who was ever so much in love with Miss Bertha, but most awfully in debt to her brother, and very passionate besides.  So he took him out in his dog-cart with a fiery horse that was sure to run away.’

‘Who did?’

‘Captain Alder took Mr. Morton, though they begged and prayed him not, and the horse ran away and Mr. Morton was thrown out and killed.’

‘Oh!’ with extreme zest.  ‘On purpose?’

‘Miss Bertha was sure it was, so that she might have all the fortune, and so she told him, and flung the betrothal ring in his face, and he went right off, and never has been heard of since.’

‘Well, that is interesting.  Do you think he shot himself?’

‘No, he was too mean.  Most likely he married a hideous millionaire: but the Mortons were always dreadful, and did all sorts of wicked things.’

‘I declare it’s as good as any tale—like the sweet one in the Young Ladies’ Friend now—“The Pride of Pedro.”  Have you seen it?’

‘No, indeed, uncle and aunt only have great old stupid books!  They wanted me to read those horrid tiresome things of Scott’s, and Dickens’s too, who is as old as the hills!  Why, they could not think of anything better to do on their wedding tour but to go to all the places in the Waverley novels.’

‘Why, they are as bad as history!  Jim brought one home once, and pa wanted me to read it, but I could not get on with it—all about a stupid king of France.  I’m sure if I married a lord I’d make him do something nicer.’

‘I mean ma to do something more jolly,’ said Ida, ‘when we get more money, and I am come out.  I mean to go to balls and tennis parties, and I shall be sure to marry a lord at some of them.’

‘And you will take me,’ cried Sibyl.

‘Only you must be very genteel,’ said Ida.  ‘Try to learn style, do, dear.  It must be learnt young, you know!  Why, there’s Aunt Mary, when she has got ever so beautiful a satin dress on, she does not look half so stylish as Lady Adela walking up the road in an old felt hat and a shepherd’s-plaid waterproof!  But they all do dress so as I should be ashamed.  Only think what a scrape that got Herbert into.  He was coming back one Saturday from his tutor’s, and he saw walking up to the house an awfully seedy figure of fun, in an old old ulster, and such a hat as you never saw, with a knapsack on her back, and a portfolio under her arm.  So of course he thought it was a tramp with something to sell, and he holloaed out, “You’d better come out of this!  We want none of your sort.”  She just turned round and laughed, which put him in such a rage, that though she began to speak he didn’t wait, but told her to have done with her sauce, or he would call the keepers.  He thinks she said, “You’d better,” and I believe he did move his stick a little.’

‘Ida, have done with that!’ cried Herbert’s voice close to her.  ‘Hold your tongue, or I’ll—’ and his hand was near her hair.

‘Oh, don’t, don’t, Herbert.  Let me hear,’ cried Sibyl.

‘That’s the way girls go on,’ said Herbert fiercely, ‘with their nonsense and stuff.’

‘But who—?’

‘If you go on, Ida—’ he was clutching her braid.

Sibyl sprang to the defence, and there was a general struggle and romp interspersed with screams, which was summarily stopped by Mr. Rollstone explaining severely, ‘If you think that is the deportment of the aristocracy, Miss Ida, you are much mistaken.’

‘Bother the aristocracy!’ broke out Herbert.

Calm was restored by a summons to a round game, but Sibyl’s curiosity was of course insatiable, and as she sat next to Herbert, she employed various blandishments and sympathetic whispers, and after a great deal of fuss, and ‘What will you give me if I tell?’ to extract the end of the story, ‘Did he call the keeper?’

‘Oh yes, the old beast!  His name’s Best, but it ought to be Beast!  He guffawed ever so much worse than she did!’

‘Well, but who was it?’

And after he had tried to make her guess, and teased his fill, he owned, ‘Mrs. Bury—a sort of cousin, staying with Lady Adela.  She isn’t half a bad old party, but she makes a guy of herself, and goes about sketching and painting like a blessed old drawing-master.’

‘A lady? and not a young lady.’

‘Not as old as—as Methuselah, or old Rolypoly there, but I believe she’s a grandmother.  If she’d been a boy, we should have been cut out of it.  Oh yes, she’s a lady—a born Morton; and when it was over she was very jolly about it—no harm done—bears no malice, only Ida makes such an absurd work about every little trifle.’

CHAPTER XV

THE PIED ROOK

Constance Morton was leaning on the rail that divided the gardens at Northmoor from the park, which was still rough and heathery.  Of all the Morton family, perhaps she was the one who had the most profited by the three years that had passed since her uncle’s accession to the title.  She had been at a good boarding-house, attending the High School in Colbeam, and spending Saturday and Sunday at Northmoor.  It had been a happy life, she liked her studies, made friends with her companions, and enjoyed to the very utmost all that Northmoor gave her, in country beauty and liberty, in the kindness of her uncle and aunt, and in the religious training that they were able to give her, satisfying longings of her soul, so that she loved them with all her heart, and felt Northmoor her true home.  The holiday time at Westhaven was always a trial.  Mrs. Morton had tried Brighton and London, but neither place agreed with Ida: and she found herself a much greater personage in her own world than elsewhere, and besides could not always find tenants for her house.  So there she lived at her ease, called by many of her neighbours the Honourable Mrs. Morton, and finding listeners to her alternate accounts of the grandeur of Northmoor, and murmurs at the meanness of its master in only allowing her £300 a year, besides educating her children, and clothing two of them.

Ida considered herself to be quite sufficiently educated, and so she was for the society in which she was, or thought herself, a star, chiefly consisting of the families of the shipowners, coalowners, and the like.  She was pretty, with a hectic prettiness of bright eyes and cheeks, and had a following of the young men of the place; and though she always tried to enforce that to receive attentions from a smart young mate, a clerk in an office, a doctor’s assistant, or the like, was a great condescension on her part, she enjoyed them all the more.  Learning new songs for their benefit, together with extensive novel reading, were her chief employments, and it was the greater pity because her health was not strong.  She dreamt much in a languid way, and had imagination enough to work these tales into her visions of life.  Her temper suffered, and Constance found the atmosphere less and less congenial as she grew older and more accustomed to a different life.

She was a gentle, ladylike girl, with her brown hair still on her shoulders, as on that summer Saturday she stood looking along the path, but with her ears listening for sounds from the house, and an anxious expression on her young face.  Presently she started at the sound of a gun, which caused a mighty cawing among the rooks in the trees on the slopes, and a circling of the black creatures in the sky.  A whistling then was heard, and her brother Herbert came in sight in a few minutes more, a fine tall youth of sixteen, with quite the air and carriage of a gentleman.  He had a gun on his shoulder, and carried by the claws the body of a rook with white wings.

‘Oh, Herbert,’ cried Constance in dismay, ‘did you shoot that by mistake?’

‘No; Stanhope would not believe there was such a crittur, and betted half a sov that it was a cram.’

‘But how could you?  Our uncle and aunt thought so much of that poor dear Whitewing, and Best was told to take care of it.  They will be so vexed.’

‘Nonsense!  He’ll come to more honour stuffed than ever he would flying and howling up there.  When I’ve shown him to Stanhope, I shall make that old fellow at Colbeam come down handsomely for him.  What a row those birds kick up!  I’ll send my other barrel among them.’

‘Oh no, don’t, Bertie.  Uncle Frank has one of his dreadful headaches to-day.’

‘Seems to me he is made of headaches.’

‘Yes, Aunt Mary is very anxious.  Oh, I would have done anything that you had not vexed them now and killed this poor dear pretty thing!’ said Constance, stroking down the glossy feathers of the still warm victim, and laying them against her cheek, almost tearfully.

‘Well, you are not going to tell them.  Perhaps they won’t miss it.  I would not have done it if Stanhope had not been such a beast,’ said Herbert.

‘I shall not tell them, of course,’ said Constance; ‘but, if I were you, I should not be happy till they knew.’

‘Oh, that’s only girl’s way!  I can’t have the old Stick upset now, for I’m in horrid want of tin.’

‘Oh, Bertie, was it true then?’

‘What, you don’t mean that they have heard?’

‘That you were out at those Colbeam races!’

‘To be sure I was, with Stanhope and Hailes and a lot more.  We all went except the little kids and Sisson, who is in regular training for as great a muff as the governor there.  Who told him?’

‘Mr. Hailes, who is very much concerned about his grandson.’

‘Old sneak; I wonder how he ferreted it out.  Is there no end of a jaw coming, Con?’

‘I don’t know.  Uncle Frank seemed quite knocked down and wretched over it.  He said something about feeling hopeless, and the old blood coming out to be your ruin.’

‘Of course it’s the old blood!  How did he miss it, and turn into the intolerable old dry fogey that he is, without a notion of anything fit for a gentleman?’

‘Now, Herbert—’

‘Oh yes.  You should just hear what the other fellows say about him.  Their mothers and their sisters say there is not so stupid a place in the county, he hasn’t a word to say for himself, and they would just as soon go to Portland at once as to a party here.’

‘Then it is a great shame!  I am sure Aunt Mary works hard to make it pleasant for them!’

‘Oh yes, good soul, she does, she can’t help it; but when people have stuck in the mud all their lives, they can’t know any better, and it is abominably hard on a fellow who does, to be under a man who has been an office cad all his life, and doesn’t know what is expected of a gentleman!  Screwing us all up like beggars—’

‘Herbert, for shame! for shame!  As if he was obliged to do anything at all for us!’

‘Oh, isn’t he?  A pretty row my mother would kick up about his ears if he did not, when I must come after him at this place, too!’

‘I think you are very ungrateful,’ said Constance, with tears, ‘when they are so good to us.’

‘Oh, they are as kind as they know how, but they don’t know.  That’s the thing, or old Frank would be ashamed to give me such a dirty little allowance.  He has only himself to thank if I have to come upon him for more.  Found out about the Blackbird colt, has he?  What a bore!  And tin I must have out of him by hook or by crook if he cuts up ever so rough.  I must send off this bird first by the post to confute Stanhope and make him eat dirt, and then see what’s to be done.’

‘Indeed, Bertie, I don’t think you will see him to-night.  His head is dreadful, and Aunt Mary has sent for Mr. Trotman.’

‘Whew!  You have not got anything worth having, I suppose, Conny?’

‘Only fifteen shillings.  I meant it for—  But you shall have it, dear Bertie, if it will only save worrying them.’

‘Fifteen bob!  Fifteen farthings you might as well offer.  No, no, you soft little monkey, I must see what is to be made of him or her ladyship, one or the other, to-day or to-morrow.  If they know I have been at the place it is half the battle.  Consequence was!  Provided they don’t smell out this unlucky piebald!  I wish Stanhope hadn’t been such a beast!’

At that moment, too late to avoid her, Lady Northmoor, pale and anxious, came up the path and was upon them.  ‘Your uncle is asleep,’ she began, but then, starting, ‘Oh, Conny.  Poor Whitewing.  Did you find him?’

Constance hung her head and did not speak.  Then her aunt saw how it was.

‘Herbert! you must have shot him by mistake; your uncle will be so grieved.’

Herbert was not base enough to let this pass.  He muttered, ‘A fellow would not take my word for it, so I had to show him.’

She looked at him very sadly.  ‘Oh, Herbert, I did not think you would have made that a reason for vexing your uncle!’

The boy was more than half sorry under those gentle eyes.  He muttered something about ‘didn’t think he would care.’

She shook her head, instead of saying that she knew this was not the truth; and unable to bear the sting, he flung away from her, carrying the rook with him, and kicking the pebbles, trying to be angry instead of sorry.  And just then came a summons to Lady Northmoor to see the doctor.

Yet Herbert Morton was a better boy than he seemed at that moment; his errors were chiefly caused by understanding noblesse oblige in a different way from his uncle.  Moreover, it would have been better for him if his tutor had lived beyond the neighbourhood of Northmoor, where he heard, losing nothing in the telling, the remarks of the other pupils’ mothers upon his uncle and aunt; more especially as it was not generally the highest order of boy that was to be found there.  If he had heard what the fathers said, he would have learnt that, though shy and devoid of small talk, and of the art of putting guests together, Lord Northmoor was trusted and esteemed.  He might perhaps be too easily talked down; he could not argue, and often gave way to the noisy Squire; but he was certain in due time to see the rights of a question, and he attended thoroughly to the numerous tasks of an active and useful county man, taking all the drudgery that others shirked.  While, if by severe stress he were driven to public speaking, he could acquit himself far better than any one had expected.  The Bishop and the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions alike set him down on their committees, not only for his rank, but for his industry and steadiness of work.  Nor had any one breathed any imputation upon the possession of what used to be known as gentility, before that good word was degraded, to mean something more like what Mrs. Morton aspired to.  Lord and Lady Northmoor might not be lively, nor a great accession to society, but the anticipations of either amusement or annoyance from vulgarity or arrogance were entirely disappointed.  No one could call them underbred, or anything but an ingrain gentleman and lady, while there were a few who could uphold Lady Northmoor as thoroughly kind, sweet, sensible, and helpful to her utmost in all that was good.

All this, however, was achieved not only unconsciously but with severe labour by a man whose powers could only act slowly, and who was not to the manner born.  Conscientiousness is a costly thing, and Strafford’s watchword is not to be adopted for nothing.  The balance of duties, the perplexities of managing an impoverished and involved estate, the disappointment of being unable to carry out the responsibilities of a landlord towards neglected cottagers, the incapacity of doing what would have been desirable for the Church, and the worry and harass that his sister-in-law did not spare, all told as his office work had never done, and in spite of quiet, happy hours with his Mary, and her devoted and efficient aid whenever it was possible, a course of disabling neuralgic headaches had set in, and a general derangement of health, which had become alarming, and called for immediate remedy.

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT IS REST?

‘Rest, there is nothing for it but immediate rest and warm baths,’ said Lady Northmoor to Constance, who was waiting anxiously for the doctor’s verdict some hours later.  ‘It is only being overdone—no, my dear, there is nothing really to fear, if we can only keep business and letters out of his way for a few weeks, my dear child.’

For Constance, who had been dreadfully frightened by the sight of the physician’s carriage, which seemed to her inexperienced eyes the omen of something terrible, fairly burst into tears of relief.

‘Oh, I am so glad!’ she said, as caresses passed—which might have been those of mother and daughter for heartfelt sympathy and affection.

‘You will miss your Saturdays and Sundays, my dear,’ continued the aunt, ‘for we shall have to go abroad, so as to be quite out of the way of everything.’

‘Never mind that, dear aunt, if only Uncle Frank is better.  Will it be long?’

‘I cannot tell.  He says six weeks, Dr. Smith says three months.  It is to be bracing air—Switzerland, most likely.’

‘Oh, how delightful!  How you will enjoy it!’

‘It has always been a dream, and it is strange now to feel so downhearted about it,’ said her aunt, smiling.

‘Uncle Frank is sure to be better there,’ said Constance.  ‘Only think of the snowy mountains—

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;They crown’d him long agoOn a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,With a diadem of snow.’

And the girl’s eyes brightened with an enthusiasm that the elder woman felt for a moment, nor did either of them feel the verse hackneyed.

‘Ah, I wish we could take you, my dear,’ said Lady Northmoor; then, ‘Do you know where Herbert is?’

‘No,’ said Constance.  ‘Oh, aunt, I am so sorry!  I don’t think he would have done it if the other boys had not teased him.’

‘Perhaps not; but, indeed, I am grieved, not only on the poor rook’s account, but that he should have the heart to vex your uncle just now.  However, perhaps he did not understand how ill he has been all this week.  And I am afraid that young Stanhope is not a good companion for him.’

‘I do not think he is,’ said Constance; ‘it seems to me that Stanhope leads him into that betting, and makes him think it does not signify whether he passes or not, and so he does not take pains.’

Herbert was not to be found either then or at dinner-time.  It turned out that he had taken from the stables the horse he was allowed to ride, and had gone over to display his victim to Stanhope, and then on to the bird-stuffer; had got a meal, no one wished to know how, only returning in time to stump upstairs to bed.

He thus avoided an interview with his uncle over the rook, unaware that his aunt had left him the grace of confession, being in hopes that, unless he did speak of his own accord, the vexatious knowledge might be spared to one who did not need an additional annoyance just then.

Lord Northmoor was not, however, to be spared.  He was much better the next day, Sunday, a good deal exhilarated by the doctor’s opinion; and, though concerned at having to break off his work, ready to enjoy what he was told was absolutely essential.

The head-keeper had no notion of sparing him.  Mr. Best regarded him with a kind of patronising toleration as an unfortunate gentleman who had the ill-hap never to have acquired a taste for sport, and was unable to do justice to his preserves; but towards ‘Mr. Morton’ there was a very active dislike.  The awkward introduction might have rankled even had Herbert been wise enough to follow Miss Morton’s advice; but his nature was overbearing, and his self-opinion was fostered by his mother and Ida, while he was edged on by his fellow-pupils to consider Best a mere old woman, who could only be tolerated by the ignorance of ‘a regular Stick.’

With the under-keeper Herbert fraternised enough to make him insubordinate; and the days when Lord Northmoor gave permission for shooting or for inviting his companions for a share in the sport, were days of mutual offence, when the balance of provoking sneer and angry insult would be difficult to cast, though the keeper was the most forbearing, since he never complained of personal ill-behaviour to himself, whereas Herbert’s demonstrations to his uncle of ‘that old fool’ were the louder and more numerous because they never produced the slightest effect.

However, Best felt aggrieved in the matter of the rook, which had been put under his special protection, and being, moreover, something of a naturalist, he had cherished the hope of a special Northmoor breed of pied rooks.

So while, on the way from church, Lady Adela was detaining Lady Northmoor with inquiries as to Dr. Smith, Best waylaid his master with, ‘Your lordship gave me orders about that there rook with white wings, as was not to be mislested.’

‘Has anything happened to it?’ said Frank wearily.

‘Well, my lord, I sees Mr. Morton going up to the rookery with his gun, and I says to him that it weren’t time for shooting of the branchers, and the white rook weren’t to be touched by nobody, and he swears at me for a meddling old leggings, and uses other language as I’ll not repeat to your lordship, and by and by I hears his gun, and I sees him a-picking up of the rook that her ladyship set such store by, so it is due to myself, my lord, to let you know as I were not to blame.’

‘Certainly not, Best,’ was the reply.  ‘I am exceedingly displeased that my nephew has behaved so ill to you, and I shall let him know it.’

‘His lordship will give it to him hot and strong, the young upstart,’ muttered Best to himself with great satisfaction, as he watched the languid pace quicken to overtake the boy, who had gone on with his sister.

Perhaps the irritability of illness had some effect upon the ordinary gentleness of Lord Northmoor’s temper, and besides, he was exceedingly annoyed at such ungrateful slaughter of what was known to be a favourite of his wife; so when he came upon Herbert, sauntering down to the stables, he accosted him sharply with, ‘What is this I hear, Herbert?  I could not have believed that you would have deliberately killed the creature that you knew to be a special delight to your aunt.’

Herbert had reached the state of mind when a third, if not a fourth, reproach on the same subject on which his conscience was already uneasy, was simply exasperating, and without the poor excuse he had offered his aunt and sister, he burst out that it was very hard that such a beastly row should be made about a fellow knocking down mere trumpery vermin.