"Aren't they lady-like?"
"Oh! they are quite that. Rose says it is all the pink of fashion- only coming it strong-I declare they are infectious!"
"I believe so. I never heard so many nibbles at slang from any of you five, as from the Rector of Compton in the last five minutes. I gather that he is slightly bothered."
"There's so much of it. We are forced to have them to all the meals on Sunday, and their lectures on functions have nearly scared poor Anne to the Pilgrim level again. They have set upon me to get up a choir-concert and a harvest-feast; but happily no one has time for the first at this season, and as to the other, I doubted whether to make this first start after such a rainy summer, and they decide me against it. To have them decorating the church!"
"Awfully jolly," suggested Jenny.
"Even so. They are, if you understand me, technically reverent; they have startled the whole place with their curtsies and crossings in church; but they gabble up to the very porch; and the familiarity with which they discuss High Mass, as they are pleased to call it! I was obliged to silence them, and I must say they took it nicely."
"How do they suit Lena?"
"She likes them. Lady Susan was a great help to her in London, and she feels the comfort of their honesty. They brought her to church with them one or two mornings, but it knocked her up to walk so early. Insensibly, I think they do Lady Tyrrell's work in shutting her up from any of us."
"Spite of croquet, which seems perpetual."
"Chronic and sporadic parties make it so. There are few days without that or something else. Cricket or the band at the barracks."
"People say the neighbourhood has never been so gay since Camilla Vivian's marriage. I sometimes wonder whether anything can be going to happen," said Jenny with a sigh, not guessing at what Julius was thinking of; then changing her tone: "Surely Herbert does not go to it all, and leave you alone? O, Julius! you should not let him."
"Never mind, Jenny, there's no more work now in the holidays than I am sufficient for; and for him, it is quite as guileless play as ever he had twenty years ago. It will soon be over, or I should take it more seriously."
"But it is at such a time!"
"Yes, that is the worst of it. I have thought it over; but while he is in this mood, the making him feel victimized and interfered with has a worse effect than the letting him have his swing."
"What is he doing now, I wonder? Here's his sermon-paper on the table, and a Greek Testament, and Hints on Decorating Churches, with 'Constance Strangeways' on the first leaf-no other book. How long will this saturnalia last?"
"Up to the Ordination, I fear. You know the good people have contrived to put bazaar, races, and ball, all into the Ember Week, and they are the great object of the young ladies' visit. Could you have him home for a quiet week first?"
"It would not be a quiet week; Edith is in the way of most of these affairs; besides, to open fire about these young ladies might just be putting nonsense into an innocent head. Now, I've not seen your Rectory!"
The said Rectory was in a decided state of fresh, not to say raw, novelty outside, though the old trees and garden a little softened its hard grays and strong reds; but it promised to look well when crumbling and weather-stain had done their work. At the door they met the pretty young nurse, with a delicate sea-green embroidered cashmere bundle in her arms.
"Little Lady Green Mantle," exclaimed Jenny.
"Erin-go-bragh," said Julius. "Rose clung to her colours in spite of all predictions about 'the good people.' Asleep of course," as Jenny took her and uncovered her face. "She won't exhibit her eyes, but they are quite proper coloured."
"Yes, I see she is like Raymond!"
"Do you? They all say she is a perfect Charnock, though how they know I can't guess. There," after a little more baby-worship, "you may take her Emma."
"Is that the under-nurse?" asked Jenny, rather surprised by her juvenility.
"The sole one. My mother and Susan are rather concerned, but Rose asserts that experience in that department is always associated with gin; and she fell in love with this girl-a daughter of John Gadley's, who is much more respectable than he of the 'Three Pigeons.' I suppose it is not in the nature of things for two women to have the same view of nursery matters, unless one have brought up the other."
"Or even if she have. Witness mamma's sighs over Mary's nurses."
"I thought it was the common lot. You've not seen the dining-room." And the full honours were done. They were pleasant rooms, still unpapered, and the furniture chiefly of amber-coloured varnished deal; the drawing-room, chiefly with green furniture, with only a few brighter dashes here and there, and a sociable amount of comfortable litter already. The study was full of new shelves and old books, and across the window-sill lay a gray figure, with a book and a sheet of paper.
"You here, Terry! I thought you were gone with Rose," said Julius, as the boy rose to greet Miss Bowater.
"She said I need not, and I hate those garden-parties," said Terry; and they relieved him of their presence as soon as Jenny had paid her respects to the favourite prints and photographs on the walls.
"He has a passion for the history of Poland just now," said Julius. "Sobieski is better company than he would meet at Duddingstone, I suspect-poor fellow! Lord Rathforlane has been so much excited by hearing of Driver's successes as a coach, as to desire Terry to read with him for the Royal Engineers. The boys must get off his hands as soon as possible, he says, and Terry, being cleverest, must do so soonest; but the boy has seen the dullest side of soldiering, and hates it. His whole soul is set on scholarship. I am afraid it is a great mistake."
"Can't you persuade him?"
"We have both written; but Rose has no great hopes of the result. I wish he could follow his bent."
"Yes," said Jenny, lingering as she looked towards Church-house, "the young instinct ought not to be repressed."
Julius knew that she was recollecting how Archie Douglas had entreated to go to sea, and the desire had been quashed because he was an only son. His inclination to speak was as perilous as if he had been Rosamond herself, and he did not feel it unfortunate that Jenny found she must no longer stay away from home.
CHAPTER XXII. Times Out of Joint
Alte der Meere, Komm und hore; Meine Frau, die Ilsebill, Will nicht als ich will!
Life at Compton Poynsett was different from what it had been when the two youngest sons had been at home, and Julius and Rosamond in the house. The family circle had grown much more stiff and quiet, and the chief difference caused by Mrs. Poynsett's presence was that Raymond was deprived of his refuge in her room. Cecil had taken a line of polite contempt. There was always a certain languid amount of indifferent conversation, 'from the teeth outward,' as Rosamond said. Every home engagement was submitted to the elder lady with elaborate scrupulousness, almost like irony. Visitors in the house or invitations out of it, were welcome breaks, and the whirl of society which vaguely alarmed Joanna Bowater was a relief to the inhabitants of the Hall.
Anne's companionship was not lively for her mother-in-law, but she was brightening in the near prospect of Miles's return, and they had established habits that carried them well through the evening. Anne covered screens and made scrap-books, and did other work for the bazaar; and Mrs. Poynsett cut out pictures, made suggestions, and had associations of her own with the combinations of which Anne had little notion. Or she dictated letters which Anne wrote, and through all these was a kindly, peaceful spirit, most unlike the dreary alienation in which Cecil persevered.
To Cecil this seemed the anxious desire for her lawful rights. She had been used to spend the greater part of the evening at the piano, but her awakened eyes perceived that this was a cover to Raymond's conversations at his mother's sofa; so she sat tying knots in stiff thread at her macrame lace pillow, making the bazaar a plea for nothing but work. Raymond used to arm himself with the newspapers as the safest point d'appui, and the talk was happiest when it only languished, for it could do much worse.