As she entered, the old lady came to meet her, held out both arms, and drew her into her bosom, with the fond words, 'My dear child!'
Isabel rested in her embrace, as if she had found her own mother again.
'My dear child,' again said Mrs. Frost, 'I am glad you like my Jem, for he has always been a good boy to his granny.'
The homeliness of the words made them particularly endearing, and Isabel ventured to put her arm round the slender waist.
'Yes, darling,' continued the grandmother; 'you will make him good and happy, and you must teach him to be patient, for I am afraid you will both want a great deal of patience and submission.'
'He will teach me,' whispered Isabel.
Lady Conway was fairly crying.
'I am glad to know that he has you to look to, when his old grandmother is gone.'
'Oh, don't say-'
'I shall make way for you some day,' said Mrs. Frost, caressing her. 'You are leaving us, my dear. It is quite right, and we will not murmur; but would not your mamma spare you to us for one evening? Could you not come and drink tea with us, that we may know each other a little better?'
The stepmother's affectionate assent, and even emotion, were a great surprise to Isabel; and James began to imagine that nothing was beyond Mrs. Frost's power.
Louis saved James the trouble of driving him away by going to dine with Mr. Calcott, and the evening was happy, even beyond anticipation; the grandmother all affection, James all restless bliss, Isabel serene amid her blushes; and yet the conversation would not thrive, till Mrs. Frost took them out walking, and, when in the loneliest lane, conceived a wish to inquire the price of poultry at the nearest farm, and sent the others to walk on. Long did she talk of the crops, discourse of the French and Bohemian enormities, and smilingly contradict reports that the young lord was to marry the young lady, before the lovers reappeared, without the most distant idea where they had been.
After that, they could not leave off talking; they took granny into their counsels, and she heard Isabel confess how the day-dream of her life had been to live among the 'very good.' She smiled with humble self-conviction of falling far beneath the standard, as she discovered that the enthusiastic girl had found all her aspirations for 'goodness' realized by Dynevor Terrace; and regarding it as peace, joy, and honour, to be linked with it. The newly-found happiness, and the effort to be worthy of it, were to bear her through all uncongenial scenes; she had such a secret of joy that she should never repine again.
'Ah! Isabel, and what am I to do?' said James.
'You ask?' she said, smiling. 'You, who have Northwold for your home, and live in the atmosphere I only breathe now and then?'
'Your presence is my atmosphere of life.'
'Mrs. Frost, tell him he must not talk so wrongly, so extravagantly, I mean.'
'It may be wrong; it is not extravagant. It falls only too far short of my feeling! What will the Terrace be without you?'
'It will not be without my thoughts. How often I shall think I see the broad road, and the wide field, and the mountain-ash berries, that were reddening when we came; and the canary in the window! How little my first glance at the houses took in what they would be to me!'
And then they had to settle the haunts she was to revisit at Beauchastel. An invitation thither was the ostensible cause of the rapid break-up from the House Beautiful; but the truth was not so veiled but that there were many surmises among the uninitiated. Jane had caught something from my young Lord's demeanour which certified her, and made her so exceedingly proud and grand, that, though she was too honourable to breathe a word of her discovery, she walked with her kind old head three inches higher; and, as a great favour, showed Charlotte a piece of poor dear Master Henry's bridecake, kept for luck, and a little roll of treasured real Brussels lace, that she had saved to adorn her cap whenever Mr. James should marry.
Charlotte was not absolutely as attentive as she might have been to such interesting curiosities. She had one eye towards the window all the time; she wanted to be certified how deeply she had wounded the hero of the barricade, and she had absolutely not seen him since his return! The little damsel missed homage!
'You are not heeding me!' exclaimed Jane at last.
'Yes; I beg your pardon, ma'am-'
'Charlotte, take care. Mind me, one thing at a time,' said Jane, oracularly. 'Not one eye here, the other there!'
'I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Beckett.'
'Come, don't colour up, and say you don't know nothing! Why did you water your lemon plant three times over, but that you wanted to be looking out of window? Why did you never top nor tail the gooseberries for the pudding, but sent them up fit to choke my poor missus? If Master Jem hadn't-Bless me! what was I going to say?- but we should soon have heard of it! No, no, Charlotte; I've been a mother to you ever since you came here, a little starveling thing, and I'll speak plain for your good. If you fancy that genteel butler in there, say so downright; but first sit down, and write away a letter to give up the other young man!'
Charlotte's cheeks were in a flame, and something vehement at the end of her tongue, when, with a gentle knock, and 'By your favour, ladies,' in walked Mr. Delaford.
Jane was very civil, but very stiff at first, till he thawed her by great praise of Lord Fitzjocelyn, the mere prelude to his own magnificent exploits.
Charlotte listened like a very Desdemona. He was very pathetic, and all that was not self-exaltation was aimed at her. Nothing could have been more welcome than the bullets to penetrate his heart, and he turned up his eyes in a feeling manner.
Charlotte's heart was exceedingly touched, and she had tears in her eyes when she moved forward in the attitude of the porcelain shepherdess in the parlour, to return a little volume of selections of tender poetry, bound in crimson silk, that he had lent to her some time since. 'Would she not honour him by accepting a trifling gift?'
She blushed, she accepted; and with needle-like pen, in characters fine as hair, upon a scroll garlanded with forget-me-nots, and borne in mid air by two portly doves, was Charlotte Arnold's name inscribed by the hero of the barricades.
Oh, vanity! vanity! how many garbs dost thou wear!
Delaford went away, satisfied that he had produced an impression such as he could improve if they should ever be thrown together again.
The Lady of Eschalott remained anything but satisfied. She was touchy and fretful, found everything a grievance, left cobwebs in the corners, and finally went into hysterics because the cat jumped at the canary-bird's cage.
CHAPTER XXII. BURGOMASTERS AND GREAT ONE-EYERS.
When full upon his ardent soul The champion feels the influence roll, He swims the lake, he leaps the wall, Heeds not the depth, nor plumbs the fall. Unshielded, mailless, on he goes, Singly against a host of foes! Harold the Dauntless.
'Jem! Jem! have you heard?'
'What should I hear?'
'Mr. Lester is going to retire at Christmas!'
'Does that account for your irrational excitement?'
'And it has not occurred to you that the grammar-school would be the making of you! Endowment, 150 pounds-thirty, forty boys at 10 pounds per annum, 400 pounds at least. That is 550 pounds-say 600 pounds for certain; and it would be doubled under a scholar and a gentleman-1200 pounds a year! And you might throw it open to boarders; set up the houses in the Terrace, and let them at-say 40 pounds? Nine houses, nine times forty-'
'Well done, Fitzjocelyn! At this rate one need not go out to Peru.'
'Exactly so; you would be doubling the value of your own property as a secondary consideration, and doing incalculable good-'