The Long Vacation - Charlotte Yonge 4 стр.

Very good, except for the visitors, said Geraldine.

Exactly so. Over-built, over-everythinged, but still tolerable. The General lives there with his sister, and promises to write to me about houses, and Sir Jasper in a house a few miles off.

He is Bernards father-in-law?

Yes, said Gertrude; and my brother Harry married a sister of Lady Merrifield, a most delightful person as ever I saw. We tell my father that if she were not out in New Zealand we should all begin to be jealous, he is so enthusiastic about Phyllis.

You have never told us how Dr. May is.

It is not easy to persuade him that he is not as young as he was, said Gertrude.

I should say he was, observed Lance.

In heartthats true, said Gertrude; but he does get tired, and goes to sleep a good deal, but he likes to go and see his old patients, as much as they like to have him, and Ethel is always looking after him. It is just her life now that Cocksmoor has grown so big and wants her less. Things do settle themselves. If any one had told her twenty years ago that Richard would have a great woollen factory living, and Cocksmoor and Stoneborough meet, and a separate parish be made, with a disgusting paper-mill, two churches, and a clergymans wife(whats the female of whipper-snapper, Lance?)who treats her as

As an extinct volcano, murmured Lance.

She would have thought her heart would be broken, pursued Gertrude. Whereas now she owns that it is the best thing, and a great relief, for she could not attend to Cocksmoor and my father both. We want her to take a holiday, but she never will. Once she did when Blanche and Hector came to stay, but he was not happy, hardly well, and I dont think she will ever leave him again.

Mrs. Rivers is working still in London?

Oh yes; I dont know what the charities of all kinds and descriptions would do without her.

No, said Clement from his easy-chair. She is a most valuable person. She has such good judgment.

It has been her whole life ever since poor George Rivers fatal accident, said Gertrude. I hardly remember her before she was married, except a sense that I was naughty with her, and then she was terribly sad. But since she gave up Abbotstoke to young Dickie May she has been much brighter, and she can do more than any one at Cocksmoor. She manages Cocksmoor and London affairs in her own way, and has two houses and young Mrs. Dickie on her hands to boot.

How many societies is she chairwoman of? said Lance. I counted twenty-four pigeon-holes in her cabinet one day, and I believe there was a society for each of them; but I must say she is quiet about them.

It is fine to see the little hen-of-the-walk of Cocksmoor lower her crest to her! said Gertrude, when Ethel has not thought it worth while to assert herself, being conscious of being an old fogey.

And your Bishop?

Norman? I do believe he is coming home next year. I think he really would if papa begged him, but that hemy father, I meansaid he would never do so; though I believe nothing would be such happiness to him as to have Norman and Meta at home again. You know they came home on Georges death, but then those New Somersetas went and chose him Bishop, and there he is for good.

For good indeed, said Clement; he is a great power there.

So are his books, added Geraldine. Will Harewood sets great store by them. Ah! I hear our young folksor is that a carriage?

Emilia and Gerald came in simultaneously with Marilda, expanded into a portly matron, as good-humoured as ever, and better-looking than long ago.

She was already insisting on Geralds coming to a party of hers and bringing his violin, and only interrupted her persuasions to greet and congratulate Clement.

Gerald, lying back on a sofa, and looking tired, only replied in a bantering, lazy manner.

Ah! if I asked you to play to the chimney-sweeps, she said, you would come fast enough, you idle boy. And you, Annie, do you know you are coming to me for the season when your uncle and aunt go out of town?

Indeed, Cousin Marilda, thank you, I dont know it, and I dont believe it.

Ah, well see! You havent thought of the dresses you two are to have for the Drawing-Room from Worths, and Lady Caergwent to present you.

Anna shook her head laughingly, while Gerald muttered

Salmon are caught with gay flies.

They closed round the tea-table while Marilda sighed

Aldas daughters are not like herself.

A different generation, said Geraldine.

See the Beggars Opera, said Lance

Ah! your time has not come yet, Lance. Your little girls are at a comfortable age.

There are different ways of throwing oneself away, said Clement. Perhaps each generation says it of the next.

Emmie is not throwing herself away, except her chances, said Marilda. If she would only think of poor Ferdy Brown, who is as good a fellow as ever lived!

Not much chance of that, said Geraldine.

Their eyes all met as each had glanced at the tea-table, where Emilia and Gerald were looking over a report together, but Geraldine shook her head. She was sure that Gerald did not think of his cousins otherwise than as sisters, but she was by no means equally sure of Emilia, to whom he was certainly a hero.

Anna had not heard the last of the season. Her mother wrote to her, and also to Geraldine, whom she piteously entreated not to let Anna lose another chance, in the midst of her bloom, when she could get good introductions, and Marilda would do all she could for her.

But Anna was obdurate. She should never see any one in society like Uncle Clem. She had had a taste two years ago, and she wished for no more. She should see the best pictures at the studios before leaving town, and she neither could nor would leave her uncle and aunt to themselves. So the matter remained in abeyance till the place of sojourn had been selected and tried; and meantime Gerald spent what remained of the Easter vacation in a little of exhibitions with Anna, a little of slumming with Emilia, a little of society impartially with swells and artists, and a good deal of amiable lounging and of modern reading of all kinds. His aunt watched, enjoyed, yet could not understand, his uncle said, that he was an undeveloped creature.

CHAPTER V. A HAPPY SPRITE

A retired soldier, living with his sister in a watering-place, is apt to form to himself regular habits, of which one of the most regular is the walking to the station in quest of his newspaper. Here, then, it was that the tall, grey-haired, white-moustached General Mohun beheld, emerging on the platform, a slight figure in a grey suit, bag in hand, accompanied by a pretty pink-cheeked, fair-haired, knicker-bockered little boy, whose air of content and elation at being fathers companion made his sapphire eyes goodly to behold.

Mr. Underwood! I am glad to see you.

I thought I would run down and look at the house you were so good as to mention for my sister, and let this chap have a smell of the sea.

I thought I would run down and look at the house you were so good as to mention for my sister, and let this chap have a smell of the sea.

There was a contention between General Mohuns hospitality and Lancelots intention of leaving his bag at the railway hotel, but the former gained the day, the more easily because there was an assurance that the nephew who slept at Miss Mohuns for the sake of his day-school would take little Felix Underwood under his protection, and show him his curiosities. The boys eyes grew round, and he exclaimed

Foolish guillemots eggs?

He is in the egg stage, said his father, smiling.

I wont answer for guillemots, said the General, but nothing seems to come amiss to Fergus, though his chief turn is for stones.

There was a connection between the families, Bernard Underwood, the youngest brother of Lance, having married the elder sister of the aforesaid Fergus Merrifield. Miss Mohun, the sister who made a home for the General, had looked out the house that Lance had come to inspect. As it was nearly half-past twelve oclock, the party went round by the school, where, in the rear of the other rushing boys, came Fergus, in all the dignity of the senior form.

Look at him, said the General, those are honours one only gets once or twice in ones life, before beginning at the bottom again.

Fergus graciously received the introduction; and the next sound that was heard was, Have you any good fossils about you? in a tone as if he doubted whether so small a boy knew what a fossil meant; but little Felix was equal to the occasion.

I once found a shepherds crown, and father said it was a fossil sea-urchin, and that they are alive sometimes.

Echini. Oh yesrecent, you mean. There are lots of them here. I dont go in for those mere recent things, said Fergus, in a pre-Adamite tone, but my sister does. I can take you down to a fisherman who has always got some.

Father, may I? Ive got my eighteenpence, asked the boy, turning up his animated face, while Fergus, with an air of patronage, vouched for the honesty of Jacob Green, and undertook to bring his charge back in time for luncheon.

Lancelot Underwood had entirely got over that sense of being in a false position which had once rendered society distasteful to him. Many more men of family were in the like position with himself than had been the case when his brother had begun life; moreover, he had personally achieved some standing and distinction through the Pursuivant.

General Mohun was delighted with his companion, whom he presented to his sister as the speedy consequence of her recommendation. She was rather surprised at the choice of an emissary, but her heart was won when she found Mr. Underwood as deep in the voluntary school struggle as she could be. Her brother held up his hands, and warned her that it was quite enough to be in the fray without going over it again, and that the breath of parish troubles would frighten away the invalid.

Ill promise not to molest him, she said.

Besides, said Lance, one can look at other peoples parishes more philosophically than at ones own.

He had begun to grow a little anxious about his boy, but presently from the garden, up from the cliff-path, the two bounded inlittle Felix with the brightest of eyes and rosiest of cheeks, and a great ruddy, white-beaded sea-urchin held in triumph in his hands.

Oh, please, he cried, my hands are too dirty to shake; weve been digging in the sand. Its too splendid! And they ought to have spines. When they are alive they walk on them. Theres a bay! Oh, do come down and look for them.

And pray what would become of Aunt Cherrys house, sir? Miss Mohun, may I take him to make his paws presentable?

A jolly little kid, pronounced Fergus, lingering before performing the same operation, but he has not got his mind opened to stratification, and only cares for recent rubbish. I wish it was a half-holiday, I would show him something!

The General, who had a great turn for children, and for the chase in any form, was sufficiently pleased with little Felixs good manners and bright intelligence about bird, beast, and fish, as to volunteer to conduct him to the region most favourable to spouting razor-fish and ambulatory sea-urchins. The boy turned crimson and gasped

Oh, thank you!

Thank you indeed, said his father, when he had been carried off to inspect Ferguss museum in the lumber-room. To see a real General out of the wars was one great delight in coming here, though I believe he would have been no more surprised to hear that you had been at Agincourt than in Afghanistan. Its in history, he said with an awe-stricken voice.

When Fergus, after some shouting, was torn from his beloved museum, Felix came down in suppressed ecstasy, declaring it the loveliest and most delicious of places, all bones and stones, where his father must come and see what Fergus thought was a megatheriums tooth. The long word was pronounced with a triumphant delicacy of utterance, amid dancing bounds of the dainty, tightly-hosed little legs.

The General and his companion went their way, while the other two had a more weary search, resulting in the choice of not the most inviting of the houses, but the one soonest available within convenient distance of church and sea. When it came to practical details, Miss Mohun was struck by the contrast between her companions business promptness and the rapt, musing look she had seen when she came on him listening to the measured cadence of the waves upon the cliffs, and the reverberations in the hollows beneath. And when he went to hire a piano she, albeit unmusical, was struck by what her ears told her, yet far more by the look of reverent admiration and wonder that his touch and his technical remarks brought out on the dealers face.

Has that man, a bookseller and journalist, missed his vocation? she said to herself. Yet he looks too strong and happy for that. Has he conquered something, and been the better for it?

He made so many inquiries about Fergus and his school, that she began to think it must be with a view to his own pretty boy, who came back all sea-water and ecstasy, with a store of limpets, sea-weeds, scales, purses, and cuttle-fishs backbones for the delectation of his sisters. Above all, he was eloquent on the shell of a lacemaker crab, all over prickles, which he had seen hanging in the window of a little tobacconist. He had been so much fascinated by it that General Mohun regretted not having taken him to buy it, though it appeared to be displayed more for ornament than for sale.

It is a disgusting den, added the General, with Ici on parle Francais in the window, and people hanging about among whom I did not fancy taking the boy.

I know the place, said Miss Mohun. Strange to say, it produces rather a nice girl, under the compulsion of the school officer. She is plainly half a foreigner, and when Mr. Flight got up those theatricals last winter she sung most sweetly, and showed such talent that I thought it quite dangerous.

I remember, said her brother. She was a fairy among the clods.

The next morning, to the amazement of Miss Mohun, who thought herself one of the earliest of risers, she not only met the father and son at early matins, but found that they had been out for two hours enjoying sea-side felicity, watching the boats come in, and delighting in the beauty of the fresh mackerel.

If they had not all been dead! sighed the tender-hearted little fellow. But Ive got my lacemaker for Audrey.