"I have seriously made up my mind never to marry a man who has anything to do with the turf," said Eleonora.
"Ah, my poor dear, I can understand that," said Lady Susan, aware how ill this told for her Lory. "May I ask, does he know it?"
"It would insult him to say it. None of the Charnocks ever meddle with those things. Ah! I know your son saw him on the Derby-day; but he went down with his eldest brother and his wife-and that is a very different thing! I stayed at home, you remember-papa had a fit of the gout."
"My dear, I don't want to accuse him. Don't bristle up; only I am sorry, both for my own little plan of having you for my very own, and because I fear there is trouble in store for you. It can't be palatable." Here Eleonora shook her head, and her worn, wearied look went to the good-natured heart. "Dear child, you have gone through a great deal. You shan't be worried or fretted about anybody or anything at Revelrig."
"I should be very glad," said Lenore, who had no fears of Lory personally, though she could not be invited on false pretences.
"You had better come when Bee and Conny meet me. Let me see-will the retreat be over by that time? Are you going to it? You are an associate of St. Faith."
"Yes, but I don't see how I could go to the retreat. Oh, what a relief it would be to have such a week!"
"Exactly what I feel," said Lady Susan, somewhat to her surprise. "It strengthens and sets me right for the year. Dr. Easterby conducts this one. Do you not know him? Is not Rood House near Backsworth?"
"Yes on the other side, but he is utterly out of my reach. Julius Charnock looks up to him so much; but his name-even more than St. Faith's-would horrify my father."
"You could not go direct there," said Lady Susan; "but when once you are with me you are my charge, and I could take you."
She considered a little. Both she and her friend knew that all her religious habits were alien to Sir Harry, and that what he had freely permitted, sometimes shared at Rockpier, was now only winked at, and that if he had guessed the full extent of her observances he would have stormily issued a prohibition. Could it be wrong to spend part of her visit to Lady Susan with her hostess in a sisterhood, when she had no doubt as to attending services which he absolutely never dreamt of, and therefore did not forbid? The sacred atmosphere and holy meditations, without external strife and constant watchfulness, seemed to the poor girl like water to the thirsty; and she thought, after all the harass and whirl of the bazaar and race week, she might thus recruit her much-needed strength for the decisive conflicts her majority would bring.
Lady Susan had no doubts. The 'grand old wreck' was in his present aspect a hoary old persecutor, and charming Lady Tyrrell a worldly, scheming elder sister. It was as much an act of charity to give their victim an opportunity of devotion and support as if she had been the child of abandoned parents in a back court in East London. Reserve to prevent a prohibition was not in such cases treachery or disobedience; and she felt herself doing a mother's part, as she told her daughters, with some enjoyment of the mystery. Eleonora made no promise, hoping to clear her mind by consideration, or to get Julius's opinion. He and his wife dined at Sirenwood, and found Joe Reynolds's drawings laid out for inspection, while Lady Susan was advising that, instead of selling them, there should be an industrial exhibition of all curiosities of art and nature to be collected in the neighbourhood, and promising her own set of foreign photographs and coloured costumes, which had served such purposes many and many a time.
After dinner the good dame tried to talk to Rosamond on what she deemed the most congenial subjects; but my Lady Rose had no notion of 'shop' at a dinner-party, so she made languid answer that she 'left all that to the curates,' and escaped to a frivolous young matron on the other side of the room, looking on while her husband was penned in and examined on his services, and his choir, and his system, and his decorations, and his classes, and his schools, for all or any of which Lady Susan pressed on him the aid of the two daughters she was leaving at Sirenwood; and on his hint that this was beyond his parish, she repeated her strong disapproval of the Vicar of Wil'sbro', whom she had met at dinner the night before, and besides, the school there had numerous Sunday teachers.
Julius assented, for he had no redundance of the article, and his senior curate had just started on a vacation ramble with a brother; but a sort of misgiving crossed him as he heard Herbert Bowater's last comic song pealing out, and beheld the pleasingly plain face of a Miss Strangeways on either side of him. Had he not fought the Eton and Harrow match over again with one of them at dinner? and had not a lawn tennis challenge already passed?
For Lady Tyrrell and Mrs. Charnock Poynsett were to have garden-parties on alternate Wednesdays, and the whole neighbourhood soon followed suit.
"You'll find nobody at home, Jenny," said Julius, coming out of a cottage opposite, as she rode up to Mrs. Hornblower's, on one of the last days of August. "Nobody-that is, but my mother. Can you come up and see her?"
"With all my heart; but I must get down here; I'm sent for one of Herbert's shirts. The good boy lets mamma and aunty manage them still! I believe their hearts would break outright if he took to shop ones, like the rest of them. Hush, Tartar, for shame! don't you know me? Where's your master?"
"At a garden-party at Duddingstone. Your mother is better, I see."
"Yes, thank you-out driving with papa. Good Rollo!" as the dignified animal rose from the hearthrug to greet her, waving his handsome tail, and calmly expelled a large tabby cat from the easy-chair, to make room for his friends. "Well done, old Roll! Fancy a cat in such company."
"Herbert's dogs partake his good-nature."
"Mungo seems to be absent too."
"Gone with him no doubt. He is the great favourite with one of the Miss Strangeways."
"Which-Herbert or Mungo?"
"Both! I might say, I know the young ladies best by one being rapturous about Tartar and the other about Mungo. Rollo treats both with equally sublime and indifferent politeness, rather as Raymond does."
"What sort of girls are they? Herbert calls them 'awfully jolly.'"
"I'm sorry to say I never can think of any other epithet for them. For once it is really descriptive."
"Is it either of them in particular?"
"Confess, Joan, that's what brought you over."
"Perhaps so. Edith heard some nonsense at Backsworth, and mamma could not rest till she had sent me over to see about it; but would there be any great harm in it if it were true? Is not Lady Susan a super-excellent woman?"
"You've hit it again, Jenny. Couple the two descriptions."
"I gather that you don't think the danger great."
"Not at present. The fascination is dual, and is at least a counteraction to the great enchantress."
"That is well! It was not wholesome!"
"Whereas, these two are hearty, honest, well-principled girls, quite genuine."
"Yet you don't say it with all your heart."
"I own I should like to find something they had left undone."
"What, to reduce them to human nature's daily food?"
"Daily indeed! There's just no escaping them. There they are at matins and evensong."
"How shocking! What, gossip afterwards?"
"Ask Rollo whether Mungo and Tartar don't stand at the lych-gate, and if he finds it easy to put an end to the game at play."
"Oh! and he said they never missed a Sunday service, or the school. Do they distract him?"
"Whom would it not distract to see two figures walking in with hunches on their backs like camels, and high-heeled shoes, and hats on the back of their heads, and chains and things clattering all over them?"