‘I congratulate you,’ quietly said Tom; and somehow Ethel felt that those three words were a satire on her ‘capable of great things;’ while Leonard drew up, and Averil coloured, deferring the exhibition of Mab’s accomplishments till ‘another time,’ evidently meaning out of Tom’s presence.
‘Aubrey is gone to the Grange with papa,’ Ethel said, glad to lead away from Mab.
‘He told me he was going,’ said Leonard, ‘but he said you would be at home.’
Ethel knew that the intonation of that ‘you’ had curled Tom’s lip with mischief, and dreading that Leonard should discover and resent his mood, she said, ‘We think one of your sea eggs has got among ours; will you come to the schoolroom and see?’
And leaving Tom to tease and be bored by the young ladies, she led the way to the schoolroom, where Aubrey’s fossils, each in its private twist of paper, lay in confusion on the floor, whence they were in course of being transferred to the shelf of a cupboard.
Leonard looked at the disorder with astonished admiration.
‘Yes,’ said Ethel, ‘it is a great mess, but they are to have a regular cabinet, when Richard has time, or Aubrey has money, two equally unlikely chances.’
‘How much does a cabinet cost?’
‘Jones would make a plain deal one for about five-and-twenty shillings.’
‘I can’t unpack mine properly,’ said Leonard, disconsolately. ‘Ave is going to make a place for them, but Henry votes them rubbish.’
‘They are dreadful rubbish,’ said Ethel. ‘It goes against my conscience to guard them from the house-maid, and if my sister Flora came in here, I should be annihilated.’
‘Of course one expects that in women.’
‘Oh, Richard would be as much distracted! It is a provision of Nature that there should be some tidy ones, or what would the world come to?’
‘It would be a great deal less of a bore.’
‘Not at all; we should stifle ourselves at last if we had our own way. Never mind, Leonard, we make them go through quite as much as they make us.’
‘I am sure I hope so.’
‘No, no, Leonard,’ she said, becoming less playful, ‘we must not do it on purpose. Even unconsciously, we plague the spirits of order quite enough, and they have the right on their side after all.’
‘I think a lady is the person to say what one may do or not in the drawing-room; don’t you?’ said Leonard.
‘That depends.’
‘And you let your brother spread his things all over yours!’
‘So I do; but I would not if papa minded it, or even if this were Richard’s house, and he did not like it. Don’t begin with worries about trifles, pray, Leonard.’
‘It is not I that care about trifles,’ returned the boy. ‘How was one to reckon on a man setting up a monomania about dogs’ paws in the hall?’
‘I have feared we were rather foolish; I ought to have reminded you to ask whether Mab would be welcome.’
‘I was not going to ask leave, I have no one whose leave to ask,’ said Leonard, in tones at first proud, then sad.
‘That’s a bad beginning,’ returned Ethel. ‘As master of the house, your brother has a right to your compliance, and if you do not all give way to each other, you will have nothing but dissension and misery.’
‘All to each other; yes, that is fair.’
‘He must have given way to you in letting you keep the dog at all in the house’ said Ethel. ‘It is a real instance of kindness, and you are bound to let her be as little in his way as possible.’
‘He does mean well, I suppose,’ said Leonard; ‘but he is an awful bother, and poor Ave gets the worst of it. One has no patience with finikin ways in a man.’
‘There’s no telling how much I owe to my finikin brother Richard,’ said Ethel; ‘and if you teach Ave to be loyal to the head of your family, you will do her as much good as you will do harm by chafing against his ordinances.’
‘Don’t you hate such nonsense, Miss May?’
‘I can’t love order as much as I honour it. Set tastes aside. The point is, that if you are to hold together, Leonard, it must be by bearing and forbearing, and above all, to your elder brother.’
‘Well, it is a blessing that I shall be in school on Monday.’
‘So it is,’ said Ethel; ‘but, barring these fidgets, Leonard, tell me,’ and she looked kindly at him, ‘how is it at home? Better than you expected, I hope.’
‘Blank enough’ said Leonard; ‘I didn’t think I should have minded the sound of the surgery door so much.’
‘You will have Sunday to help you.’
‘Yes, Ave and I have been down to the churchyard; Ave does care, poor girl. She knows better what it is now, and she was glad to have me to talk to again, though Miss Mary has been so kind to her.’
‘Oh, nobody can be so much to her as you.’
‘Poor Ave!’ said Leonard, tenderly. ‘And look here, this is my father’s watch, and she made me this chain of my mother’s hair. And they have given me a photograph of my mother’s picture; Henry had it done long ago, but thought it would upset me to give it before I went away. If he could but have guessed how I lay and wished for one!’
‘Those are the things one never can guess, even when one would give worlds to do so.’
‘You—O, Miss May, you always know the thing that is comfortable.’
‘Well,’ said Ethel, ‘what will be comfortable now is that you should be the man above being affronted by other people’s nonsense—the only way to show we did not all spoil each other at Coombe. Now, here is Woodstock for you, and tell me if this be not your Cidaris. Oh, and we have found out the name of your funny spiked shell.’
Ten minutes of palaeontology ensued; and she was leading the way back to the drawing-room, when he exclaimed, ‘Have you heard about the match, Miss May?’
‘Match? Oh, the cricket match?’
‘Stoneborough against All England, on St. Matthew’s Day, so I shall have got my hand in.’
‘All England meaning every one that can be scraped up that is not Stoneborough,’ returned Ethel. ‘George Larkins has been over here canvassing Tom and Aubrey. But you can’t be going to play, Leonard; papa does not half like it for Aubrey.’
‘Perhaps not for Aubrey,’ said Leonard; ‘but I am as well as ever, and luckily they can’t make up a decent eleven without me. You will come and see us, Miss May? I’ll find you the jolliest place between the old lime and the cloister door.’
‘As if I had not known the meads ages before your time!’ said Ethel.
‘I thought you never came to the matches?’
‘Ah! you don’t remember my brothers’ Stoneborough days, when Norman was cricket mad, and Harry after him, and my father was the best cricketer in Stoneborough till his accident.
‘Yes, Dr. May always comes to see the matches,’ said Leonard. ‘You will, won’t you now, Miss May? I didn’t think you knew anything about cricket, but it will be all the better now.’
Ethel laughed, and half promised.
Cocksmoor existed without Ethel on that holiday; and indeed she was self-reproachful, though pleased, at finding her presence so great a treat to her father. Leonard might do the honours of the lime-tree nook, but she spent but little time there, for Dr. May made her walk about with him as he exchanged greetings with each and all, while Gertrude led Richard about at her will, and Mary consorted with the Ward girls. With no one on her mind, Ethel could give free attention to the smoothly-shaven battle-field, where, within the gray walls shaded by the overhanging elms, the young champions were throwing all the ardour and even the chivalry of their nature into the contest.
The annual game had been delayed by the illness in the spring, and the school had lost several good players at the end of the half year; but, on the other hand, the holidays being over, George Larkins had been unable to collect an eleven either in full practice or with public school training; and the veteran spectators were mourning the decay of cricket, and talking of past triumphs. The school had the first innings, which resulted in the discomfiture of Fielder, one of their crack champions, and with no great honour to any one except Folliot, the Dux, and Leonard Ward, who both acquitted themselves so creditably, that it was allowed that if others had done as well, Stoneborough might have had a chance.