The Long Vacation - Charlotte Yonge 3 стр.

Two doctors! and not Tom, said Gertrude.

Both Brownlows. Tom knows them well, and wrote. One lives at the East-end, and is sheet anchor to Whittingtonia. He began with Clement, but made the case over to the cousin, the fashionable one, when we made the great removal.

So they consulted?

And fairly see the way out of the wood, though not by any means quit of it, poor Tina; but theres a great deal to be thankful for, said Lance, with a long breath.

Indeed there is! said the wife, with a squeeze of the hand. But is there any more to be feared?

Everything, Lance answered; heart chiefly, but the lungs are not safe. He has been whirling his unfortunate machine faster and faster, till no wonder the mainspring has all but broken down. His ideal always was working himself to death, and only Felix could withhold him, so now he has fairly run himself down. No rest from that tremendous parish work, with the bothers about curates, school boards and board schools, and the threatened ritual prosecution, which came to nothing, but worried him almost as much as if it had gone on, besides all the trouble about poor Alda, and the loss of Fulbert took a great deal out of him. When Somers got a living, there was no one to look after him, and he never took warning. So when in that Stinksmeech Mission he breathed pestiferous air and drank pestiferous water, he was finished up. Theyve got typhus down therea very good thing too, he added vindictively.

I put it further back than Mr. Somers going, said Gertrude. He never was properly looked after since Cherry married. What is he to do now?

Just nothing. If he wishes to live or have a chance of working again, he must go to the seaside and vegetate, attempt nothing for the next six months, nor even think about St. Matthews for a year, and, as they told me afterwards, be only able to go on cautiously even then.

How did he take it?

He laid his head against Cherry, who was standing by his chair, put an arm round her, and said, There! and she gave him such a smile as I would not have missed seeing on any account. Mine now, she said. Best! he said. He is too much tired and worn out to vex himself about anything.

Where are they to go? Not to Ewmouth, or all the family worries would come upon them. Alda would give him no peace.

Certainly not there. Brownlow advises Rockquay. His delicate brother is a curate there, and it agrees with him better than any other place. So I am to go and see for a house for them. It is the very best thing for Cherry.

Indeed it is. Was not she like herself last night? Anna says she has never brightened up so much before! I do believe that if Clement goes on mending, the dear person will have a good time yet; nay, all the better now that she is free to be a thorough-going Underwood again.

You Underwooder than Underwood!

Exactly! I never did likeYes, Lance, I am going to have it out. I do think Clement would have done better to let her alone.

He did let her alone. He told me so.

Yes, but she let out to me the difference between that time and the one of the first offer when dear Felix could not keep back his delight at keeping her; whereas she could not help seeing that she was a burthen on Clements soul, between fear of neglecting her and that whirl of parish work, and that St. Wulstans Hall was wanted for the girls school. Besides, Wilmet persuaded her.

She did. But it turned out well. The old man worshipped her, and she was very fond of him.

Oh! very well in a way, but you know better, Lance.

Well, perhaps he did not begin young enough. He was a good, religious man, but Pro Ecclesia Dei had not been his war-cry from his youth, and he did not understand, and thought it clerical; good, but outside his life. Still, she was happy.

Petting, Society, Art, travels! I had rather have had our two first years of tiffs than all that sort of happiness.

Tiffs! I thought we might have gone in for the Dunmow flitch.

You might! Do you mean that you forget how fractious and nasty and abominable I was, and how many headaches I gave you?

Only what you had to put up with.

You dont recollect that first visit of my fathers, when I was so frightfully cross because you said we must ask the Lambs and Bruces to dinner? You came down in the morning white as a ghost, an owl in its blinkers, and though I know you would rather have died than have uttered a word, no sooner were you off than he fell upon me with, Mrs. Daisy, I give you to understand that you havent a husband made of such tough commodity as you are used to at home, and if you worry him you will have to rue it.

What an ass I must have looked! Did I really go playing the martyr?

A very smiling martyr, pretending to be awfully jolly. I believe I requited papa by being very cross.

At his interfering, eh? No wonder.

Chiefly to conceal my fright, but I did begin trying not to fly out as I used to do, and I was frightened whenever I did so.

Poor Daisy! That is why you always seemed to think every headache your fault.

The final effectI wont say curewas from that book on education which said that a child should never know a cross word or look between father and mother. So you really have forgotten how horrid I could be?

Or never felt it! But to return to our muttons. I cant believe otherwise than that Cherry liked her old man, and if their parallel lines did not meet, she never found it out.

That is true. She liked him and leant on him, and was constantly pleased and amused as well as idolized, but I dont think the deep places in her heart were stirred. Then there were constraints. He could not stand Angelas freaks. And his politics

He was not so very much advanced.

Enough not to like the Pursuivant to lie about, nor her writing for it, even about art or books; nor did his old bones enjoy the rivers at Vale Leston. Now you will see a rebound.

Or will she be too tender of him to do what he disliked?

That will be the test. Now she has Clement, I expect an article will come on the first book they read together.

Lance laughed, but returned to defend his sister.

Indeed she was attached to him. She was altogether drooping and crushed at Vale Leston in the autumn.

It was too soon. She was overdone with the multitudes, and in fact it was more the renewal of the old sorrow than the new one. Anna tells me that when they returned there was the same objectless depression. She would not take up her painting again, she said it was of no use, there was no one to care. I remember her being asked once to do something for the Kyrle Society, and Mr. Grinstead did not like it, but now Clements illness has made a break, and in a new place, with him to occupy her instead of only that dawdling boy, you will see what you shall see!

Ah! Gerald! was the answer, in a doubtful, wistful tone, just as they arrived.

CHAPTER IV. SLUM, SEA, OR SEASON

Mr. and Mrs. Lancelot Underwood had not long been gone to their meeting when there ran into the drawing-room a girl a year older than Anna, with a taller, better figure, but a less clear complexion, namely Emilia, the adopted child of Mr. Travis Underwood. She found Anna freshening up the flowers, and Gerald in an arm-chair reading a weekly paper.

I knew I should find you, she cried, kissing Anna, while Gerald held out a finger or two without rising. I thought you would not be gone primrosing.

A perspicacity that does you credit, said Gerald, still behind his paper.

Are the cousins gone? asked Anna.

Of course they are; Cousin Marilda, in a bonnet like a primrose bank, is to pick up Fernan somewhere, but I told her I was too true to my principles to let wild horses drag me there.

Let alone fat tame ones, ejaculated Gerald.

What did she say? asked Anna.

Oh, she opened her eyes, and said she never should ask any one to act against principles, but principles in her time were for Church and State. Is Aunt Cherry in the vortex?

No, she is reading to Uncle Clem, or about the house somewhere. I dont think she would go now at least.

Uncle Grins memory would forbid, muttered Gerald. He saw a good many things, though he was a regular old-fashioned Whig, an Edinburgh Review man.

Youve got the Censor there! Oh, let me see it. My respected cousins dont think it good for little girls. What are you going to do?

I believe the doctors want Uncle Clem to get a long leave of absence, and that we shall go to the seaside, replied Anna.

Oh! then you will come to us for the season! We reckon on it.

No, indeed, Emmie, I dont see how I can. Those two are not in the least fit to go without some one.

But then mother is reckoning on our having a season together. You lost the last.

Gerald laughed a little and hummed

Dont be so disgusting, Gerald! My friends have too much sense, cried Anna.

But it is true enough as regards my minnie, said Emilia.

Well, eight daughters are seriousbaronets daughters! observed Gerald in his teasing voice.

Tocherless lasses without even the long pedigree, laughed Anna. Poor mother.

The pedigree is long enough to make her keep poor Vale Leston suitors at arms length, mumbled Gerald; but the sisters did not hear him, for Emilia was exclaiming

I mean to be a worker. I shall make Marilda let me have hospital training, and either go out to Aunt Angela or have a hospital here. Come and help me, Annie.

I have a hospital here, laughed Anna.

But, Nan dear, do come! You know such lots of swells. You would get one into real society if one is to have it; Lady Rotherwood, Lady Caergwent, besides all your delightful artist friends; and that would pacify mother, and make it so much pleasanter for me. Oh, if you knew what the evenings are!

What an inducement!

It would not be so if Annie were there. We should go out, and miss the horrid aldermanic kind of dinners; and at home, when we had played the two old dears to sleep, as I have to do every night, while they nod over their piquet or backgammon, we could have some fun together! Now, Annie, you would like it. You do care for good society, now dont you?

I did enjoy it very much when Aunt Cherry went with me, but

No buts, no buts. You would come to the laundry girls, and the cooking-class, and all the rest with me, and we should not have a dreary moment. Have you done fiddling over those flowers?

Not yet; Vale Leston flowers, you know. Besides, Aunt Cherry cant bear them not artistic.

Tidy is enough for Marilda. She does them herself, or the housekeeper; I cant waste time worrying over them.

Thats the reason they always look like a gardeners prize bouquet at a country horticultural show, said Gerald.

What does it signify? They are only a testimony to Sir Gorgias Midas riches. I do hate orchids.

I wish them on their native rocks, poor things, said Gerald. But poor Fernan, you do him an injustice.

Oh, yes, he does quantities of good works, and so does Marilda, till I am quite sick of hearing of them! The piles of begging letters they get! And then they want them read and explained, and answered sometimes.

A means of good works, observed Gerald.

How would you like it? Docketing the crumbs from Dives table, exclaimed Emilia.

A clerk or secretary could do it, said Anna.

Of course. Now if you have finished those flowers, do come out with me. I want to go into Ponters Court, and Fernan wont let me go alone.

Have you any special object? said Gerald lazily, or is it to refresh yourself with the atmosphere?

That dear boythat Silkyhas been taken up, and theyve sent him to a reformatory.

What a good thing!

Yes, only I dont believe he did it! It was that nasty little Bill Nosey. I am sure that he got hold of the ladys parcel, and stuffed it into Silkys cap.

Emilia spoke with a vehemence that made them both laugh, and Gerald said

But if he is in a reformatory, what then? Are we to condole with his afflicted family, or bring Bill Nosey to confess?

I thought I would see about it, said Emilia vaguely.

Well, I decline to walk in the steps of the police as an amateur! How about the Dicksons?

Drifted away no one knows where. Thats the worst of it. Those poor things do shift about so.

Yes. I thought we had got hold of those boys with the gymnasium. But work wants regulating.

Oh, Gerald, I am glad you are coming. Now I am free! Just fancy, they had a horrid, stupid, slow dinner-party on Easter Monday, of all the burgomasters and great One-eyers, and would not let me go down and sing to the match-girls!

You had the pleasure of a study of the follies of wealth instead of the follies of poverty.

Oh, to hear Mrs. Brown discourse on her troubles with her first, second, and third coachman!

Was the irresistible Ferdinand Brown there?

Yes, indeed, with diamond beetle studs and a fresh twist to his moustache. It has grown long enough to be waxed.

How happy that fellow would be if he were obliged to dig! I should like to scatter his wardrobe over Ponters Court.

There, Nan, have you finished? as Anna swept the scattered leaves into a basket. Are you coming?

I dont think I shall. You would only talk treasonwellsocial treason all the way, and you dont want me, and Aunt Cherry would have to lunch alone, unless you wait till after.

Oh no, I know a scrumptious place for lunch, said Gerald. You are right, Annie, one lady is quite enough on ones hands in such regions. You have no jewellery, Emmie?

Do you see any verdure about me? she retorted.

So when Geralds tardy movements had been overcome, off they started to their beloved slum, Emilia looking as if she were setting forth for Elysium, and they were seen no more, even when five oclock tea was spread, and Anna making it for her Uncle Lance and his wife, who had just returned, full of political news; and likewise Lance said that he had picked up some intelligence for his sister. He had met General Mohun and Sir Jasper Merrifield, both connections of the Underwoods.

General Mohun lived with his sister at Rockstone, Sir Jasper, his brother-in-law, at Clipstone, not far off, and they both recommended Rockquay and its bay with as much praise, said Lance, as the inhabitants ever give of a sea place.

Very good, except for the visitors, said Geraldine.