Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life. Volume 1

'I should like to have heard your contradiction.'

'I never would whisper, least of all to Lucy Raynor, so I stood up in the midst, and said, as clear as I could, that my grandmother had always earned an honest livelihood by teaching little boys, and that I meant to do the same, for nothing would ever make me have anything to do with girls.'

'That spoilt it,' said Louis—'the first half was dignified.'

'What was the second?'

'Human nature,' said Louis.

'I see,' said Clara. 'Well, they were famously scandalized, and that was all very nice, for they let me alone. But you brought far worse on me, Louis.'

'I!'

'Ay! 'Twas my own fault, though, but I couldn't help it. You must know, they all are ready to bow down to the ninety-ninth part of a Lord's little finger; and Miss Brown—that's the teacher—always reads all the fashionable intelligence as if it were the Arabian Nights, and imparts little bits to Miss Salter and her pets; and so it was that I heard, whispered across the table, the dreadful accident to Viscount Fitzjocelyn!'

'Did nobody write to you?'

'Yes—I had a letter from granny, and another from Jem by the next morning's post, or I don't know what I should have done. Granny was too busy to write at first; I didn't three parts believe it before, but there was no keeping in at that first moment.'

'What did you do?'

'I gave one great scream, and flew at the newspaper. The worst was, that I had to explain, and then—oh! it was enough to make one sick. Why had I not said I was Lord Ormersfield's cousin? I turned into a fine aristocratic-looking girl on the spot! Miss Salter came and fondled, and wanted me to walk with her!'

'Of course; she had compassion on your distress—amiable feeling!'

'She only wanted to ask ridiculous questions, whether you were handsome.'

'What did you reply?'

'I told them not a word, except that my brother was going to be your tutor. When I saw Miss Salter setting off by this line, I made Jem take second-class tickets, that she might be ashamed of me.'

'My dear Giraffe, bend down your neck, and don't take such a commonplace, conventional view of your schoolfellows.'

'Conventional! ay, all agree because they know it by experience,' said Clara—'I'm sure I do!'

'Then take the other side—see the best.'

'Jem says you go too far, and are unreasonable with your theory of making the best of every one.'

'By no means. I always made the worst of Frampton, and now I know what injustice I did him. I never saw greater kindness and unselfishness than he has shown me.'

'I should like to know what best you would make of these girls!'

'You have to try that!'

'Can I get any possible good by staying?'

'A vast deal.'

'I'm sure Italian, and music, and drawing, are not a good compared with truth, and honour, and kindness.'

'All those things only grow by staying wherever we may happen to be, unless it is by our own fault.'

'Tell me what good you mean!'

'Learning not to hate, learning to mend your gloves. Don't jerk the reins, Clara, or you'll get me into a scrape.'

Clara could extract no more, nor did she wish it, for having relieved her mind by the overflow, she only wanted to forget her misfortunes. Her cousin Louis was her chief companion, they had always felt themselves on the same level of nonsense, and had unreservedly shared each other's confidences and projects; and ten thousand bits of intelligence were discussed with mutual ardour, while Clara's ecstasy became uncontrollable as she felt herself coming nearer to her grandmother. She finally descended with a bound almost as distressing to her brother as her ascent had been, and leapt at once to the embrace of Mrs. Frost, who stood there, petting, kissing her, and playfully threatening all sorts of means to stop her growth. Clara reared up her giraffe figure, boasting of having overtopped all the world present, except Louis! She made but a cold, abrupt response to her cousin Mary's greeting, and presently rushed upstairs in search of dear old Jane, with an impetus that made Mrs. Frost sigh, and say, 'Poor child! how happy she is;' and follow her, smiling, while James looked annoyed.

'Never mind, Jem,' said Louis, who had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, 'she deserves compensation. Let it fizz.'

'And undo everything! What do you say to that, Mary?'

'Mary is to say nothing,' said Louis, 'I mean that poor child to have her swing.'

'I shall leave you and James to settle that,' said Mary, quitting them.

'I am very anxious that Clara should form a friendship with Mary,' said James, gravely.

'Friendships can't be crammed down people's throats,' said Louis, in a weary indifferent tone.

'You who have been three months with Mary—!'

'Mary and I did not meet with labels round our necks that here were a pair of friends. Pray do you mean to send that victim of yours back to school?'

'Don't set her against it. I have been telling her of the necessity all the way home.'

'Is it not to be taken into consideration that a bad—not to say a base-style of girl seems to prevail there?'

'I can't help it, Fitzjocelyn,' cried Jem, ruffling up his hair, as he always did when vexed. 'Girls fit to be her companions don't go to school—or to no school within my means. This place has sound superiors, and she must be provided with a marketable stock of accomplishments, so there's no choice. I can trust her not to forget that she is a Dynevor.'

'Query as to the benefit of that recollection.'

'What do you mean?'

'That I never saw evils lessened by private self-exaltation.'

'Very philosophical! but as a matter of fact, what was it but the sense of my birth that kept me out of all the mischief I was exposed to at the Grammar School!'

'I always thought it had been something more respectable,' said Louis, his voice growing more sleepy.

'Pshaw! Primary motives being understood, secondary stand common wear the best.'

'As long as they don't eat into the primary.'

'The long and short of it is,' exclaimed James, impatiently, 'that we must have no nonsense about Clara. It is pain enough to me to inflict all this on her, but I would not do it, if I thought it were more than mere discomfort. Her principles are fixed, she is above these trumperies. But you have the sense to see that her whole welfare may depend on whether she gets fitted to be a valuable accomplished governess or a mere bonne, tossed about among nursery-maids. There's where poverty galls! Don't go and set my grandmother on! If she grew wretched and took Clara away, it would be mere condemning of her to rudeness and struggling!'

'Very well,' said Louis, as James concluded the brief sentences, uttered in the bitterness of his heart, 'one bargain I make. If I am to hold my tongue about school, I will have my own way with her in the holidays.'

'I tell you, Louis, that it is time to have done with childishness. Clara is growing up—I won't have you encourage her in all that wild flightiness—I didn't want to have had her here at all! If she is ever to be a reasonable, conformable woman, it is high time to begin. I can't have you undoing the work of six months! when Mary might make some hand of her, too—'

James stopped. Louis's eyes were shut, and he appeared to be completely asleep. If silence were acquiescence, it was at least gained; and so he went away, and on returning, intended to impress his lessons of reserve on Clara and her grandmother, but was prevented by finding Mrs. Ponsonby and her daughter already in the library, consulting over some letters, while Clara sat at her grandmother's knee in the full felicity of hearing all the Northwold news.

The tea was brought in, and there was an inquiry for Louis. He came slowly forward from the sofa at the dark end of the room, but disclaimed, of course, the accusation of fatigue.

'A very bad sign,' said James, 'that you have been there all this time without our finding it out. Decidedly, you have taken me in. You don't look half as well as you promised. You are not the same colour ten minutes together, just now white, and now—how you redden!'

'Don't, Jem!' cried Louis, as each observation renewed the tide of burning crimson in his cheek. 'It is like whistling to a turkey-cock. If I had but the blue variety, it might be more comfortable, as well as more interesting.'

Clara went into a choking paroxysm of laughter, which her brother tried to moderate by a look, and Louis rendered more convulsive by quoting

'Marked you his cheek of heavenly blue,'

and looked with a mischievous amusement at James's ill-suppressed displeasure at the merriment that knew no bounds, till even Mrs. Frost, who had laughed at first as much at James's distress as at Louis's travestie or Clara's fun, thought it time to check it by saying, 'You are right, Jem, he is not half so strong as he thinks himself. You must keep him in good order.'

'Take care, Aunt Kitty,' said Louis; 'you'll make me restive. A tutor and governess both! I appeal! Shall we endure it, Clara?'

'Britons never shall be slaves!' was the eager response.

'Worthy of the daughter of the Pendragons,' said Louis; 'but it lost half its effect from being stifled with laughing. You should command yourself, Clara, when you utter a sentiment. I beg to repeat Miss Frost Dynevor's novel and striking speech, and declare my adhesion, 'Britons never shall be slaves!' Liberty, fraternity, and equality! Tyrants, beware!'

'You ungrateful boy!' said Mrs. Frost; 'that's the way you use your good governess!'

'Only the way the nineteenth century treats all its good governesses,' said Louis.

'When it gets past them,' said Mary, smiling. 'I hope you did not think I was not ready to give you up to your tutor?'

Mary found the renunciation more complete than perhaps she had expected. The return of his cousins had made Fitzjocelyn a different creature. He did indeed read with James for two hours every morning, but this was his whole concession to discipline; otherwise he was more wayward and desultory than ever, and seemed bent on teazing James, and amusing himself by making Clara extravagantly wild and idle. Tired of his long confinement, he threw off all prudence with regard to health, as well as all struggle with his volatile habits; and the more he was scolded, the more he seemed to delight in making meekly ridiculous answers and going his own way. Sometimes he and Clara would make an appointment, at some unearthly hour, to see Mrs. Morris make cheese, or to find the sun-dew blossom open, or to sketch some effect of morning sun. Louis would afterwards be tired and unhinged the whole day, but never convinced, only capable of promoting Clara's chatter; and ready the next day to stand about with her in the sun at the cottages, to the increase of her freckles, and the detriment of his ankle. Their frolics would have been more comprehensible had she been more attractive; but her boisterous spirits were not engaging to any one but Louis, who seemed to enjoy them in proportion to her brother's annoyance, and to let himself down into nearly equal folly.

He gave some slight explanation to Mary, one day when he had been reminded of one of their former occupations—'Ah! I have no time for that now. You see there's nobody else to protect that poor Giraffe from being too rational.'

'Is that her great danger?' said Mary.

'Take my advice, Mary, let her alone. Follow your own judgment, and not poor Jem's fidgets. He wants to be 'father, mother both, and uncle, all in one,' and so he misses his natural vocation of elder brother. He wants to make a woman of her before her time; and now he has his way with her at school, he shall let her have a little compensation at home.'

'Is this good for her? Is it the only way she can be happy?'

'It is her way, at least; and if you knew the penance she undergoes at school, you would not grudge it to her. She is under his orders not to disclose the secrets of her prison-house, lest they should disquiet Aunt Catharine; and she will not turn to you, because—I beg your pardon, Mary—she has imbibed a distrust of all school-girls; and besides, Jem has gone and insisted on your being her friend more than human nature can stand.'

'It is a great pity,' said Mary, smiling, but grieved; 'I should not have been able to do her much good—but if I could only try!'

'I'll tell you,' said Louis, coming near, with a look between confidence and embarrassment; 'is it in the power of woman to make her dress look rather more like other people's without inflaming the blood of the Dynevors—cautiously, you know? Even my father does not dare to give her half-a-sovereign for pocket-money; but do ask your mother if she could not be made such that those girls should not make her their laughingstock.'

'You don't mean it!'

'Aye, I do; and she has not even told James, lest he should wish to spend more upon her. She glories in it, but that is hardly wholesome.'

'Then she told you?'

'Oh, yes! We always were brothers! It is great fun to have her here! I always wished it, and I'm glad it has come before they have made her get out of the boy. He will be father to the woman some day; and that will be soon enough, without teasing her.'

Mary wished to ask whether all this were for Clara's good, but she could not very well put such a question to him; and, after all, it was noticeable that, noisy and unguarded as Clara's chatter was, there never was anything that in itself should not have been said: though her manner with Louis was unceremonious, it was never flirting; and refinement of mind was as evident in her rough-and-ready manner as in his high-bred quietness. This seemed to account for Mrs. Frost's non-interference, which at first amazed her niece; but Aunt Catharine's element was chiefly with boys, and her love for Clara, though very great, showed itself chiefly in still regarding her as a mere child, petting her to atone for the privations of school, and while she might assent to the propriety of James's restrictions, always laughing or looking aside when they were eluded.

James argued and remonstrated. He said a great deal, always had the advantage in vehemence, and appeared to reduce Louis to a condition of quaint debonnaire indifference; and warfare seemed the normal state of the cousins, the one fiery and sensitive, the other cool and impassive, and yet as appropriate to each other as the pepper and the cucumber, to borrow a bon mot from their neighbour, Sydney Calcott.

If Jem came to Mary brimful of annoyance with Louis's folly, a mild word of assent was sufficient to make him turn round and do battle with the imaginary enemy who was always depreciating Fitzjocelyn. To make up for Clara's avoidance of Mary, he rendered her his prime counsellor, and many an hour was spent in pacing up and down the garden in the summer twilight; while she did her best to pacify him by suggesting that thorough relaxation would give spirits and patience for Clara's next half year, and that it might be wiser not to overstrain his own undefined authority, while the lawful power, Aunt Catharine, did not interfere. Surely she might safely be trusted to watch over her own granddaughter; and while Clara was so perfectly simple, and Louis such as he was, more evil than good might result from inculcating reserve. At any rate, it was hard to meddle with the poor child's few weeks of happiness, and to this James always agreed; and then he came the next day to relieve himself by fighting the battle over again. So constantly did this occur, that Aunt Kitty, in her love of mischief, whispered to Mrs. Ponsonby that she only hoped the two viziers would not quarrel about the three thousand sequins, three landed estates, and three slaves.

Still, Louis's desertion had left unoccupied so many of the hours of Mary's time that he had previously absorbed, that her mother watched anxiously to see whether she would feel the blank. But she treated it as a matter of course. She had attended to her cousin when he needed her, and now that he had regained his former companion, Clara, she resigned him without effort or mortification, as far as could be seen. She was forced to fall back on other duties, furnishing the house, working for every one, and reading some books that Louis had brought before her. The impulse of self-improvement had not expired with his attention, and without any shadow of pique she was always ready to play the friend and elder sister whenever he needed her, and to be grateful when he shared her interests or pursuits. So the world went till Lord Ormersfield's return caused Clara's noise to subside so entirely, that her brother was sufficiently at ease to be exceedingly vivacious and entertaining, and Mrs. Ponsonby hoped for a great improvement in the state of affairs.

CHAPTER X

THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR

For who is he, whose chin is but enrichedWith one appearing hair, that will not followThese culled and choice-drawn cavaliers 'gainst France?Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege.King Henry V.

The next forenoon, Mary met James in the park, wandering in search of his pupil, whom he had not seen since they had finished their morning's work in the study. Some wild freak with Clara was apprehended, but while they were conferring, Mary exclaimed, 'What's that?' as a clatter and clank met her ear.

'Only the men going out to join old Brewster's ridiculous yeomanry,' said Jem.

'Oh, I should like to see them,' cried Mary, running to the top of a bank, whence she could see into the hollow road leading from the stables to the lodge. Four horsemen, the sun glancing on their helmets, were descending the road, and a fifth, at some distance ahead, was nearly out of sight. 'Ah,' she said, 'Louis must have been seeing them off. How disappointed he must be not to go!'

'I wish I was sure—' said James, with a start. 'I declare his folly is capable of anything! Why did I not think of it sooner?'

Clara here rushed upon them with her cameleopard gallop, sending her voice before her, 'Can you see them?'

'Scarcely,' said Mary, making room for her.

'Where's Louis'!' hastily demanded her brother.

'Gone to the yeomanry meeting,' said Clara, looking in their faces in the exultation of producing a sensation.

James was setting off with a run to intercept him, but it was too late; and Clara loudly laughed as she said, 'You can't catch him.'

'I've done with him!' cried James. 'Can madness go further?'

'James! I am ashamed of you,' cried the Giraffe, with great stateliness. 'Here are the enemy threatening our coasts, and our towns full of disaffection and sedition; and when our yeomanry are lukewarm enough to go off grouse-shooting instead of attending to their duty, what is to become of the whole country if somebody does not make an exertion? The tranquillity of all England may depend on the face our yeomanry show.'

'On Lieutenant Fitzjocelyn's yellow moustache! Pray how long have you been in the secret of these heroic intentions?'

'Ever since I came home.'

'We all knew that he meant to go out if he could,' said Mary, in a tone calculated to soothe Jem, and diminish Clara's glory in being sole confidante, 'but we did not think him well enough. I hope it will do him no harm.'

'Exertions in a good cause can do no harm!' boldly declared Clara; then, with sudden loss of confidence, 'do you really think it will?'

'Just cripple him for life,' said James.

'Mr. Walby wished him not to attempt riding,' said Mary. 'He thinks any strain on the ankle just now might hurt him very much; but it may be over caution.'

'Mr. Walby is an old woman,' said Clara. 'Now, Jem, you said so yourself. Besides, it is all for his duty! Of course, he would risk anything for the good of his country.'

'Don't say another word, Clara,' exclaimed James, 'or you will drive me distracted with your folly. One grain of sense, and even you would have stopped it; but neither you nor he could miss a chance of his figuring in that masquerade dress! Look at the sun, exactly like a red-hot oven! We shall have him come home as ill as ever!'

Clara had another milder and more sorrowful version of the scolding from her grandmother, but Lord Ormersfield escaped the day's anxiety by being so busy with Richardson, that he never emerged from the study, and did not miss his son.

It was an exceedingly sultry day, and the hopeful trusted that Louis would be forced to give in, before much harm could be done; but it was not till five o'clock that the hoofs were heard on the gravel; and Jem went out to revenge himself with irony for his uneasiness.

'I hope you are satisfied,' he said, 'dulce est pro patria mori.'

Louis was slowly dismounting, and as he touched the ground gave a slight cry of pain, and caught at the servant's arm for support.

'No more than I expected,' said James, coming to help him; and at the same moment Lord Ormersfield was heard exclaiming—

'Fitzjocelyn—! what imprudence!'

'Take care,' hastily interrupted James, finding Louis leaning helplessly against him, unable to speak or stand, and his flushed cheek rapidly changing to deadly white.

They lifted him up the steps into the hall, where he signed to be laid down on the seat of the cool north window, and trying to smile, said 'it was only the hot sun, and his foot aching rather; it would soon go off.' And when, with much pain and difficulty, Frampton had released his swollen foot from the regulation-boot, into which he had foolishly thrust it, he went on more fluently. 'He had thought it his duty, especially when Mr. Shaw, the captain of his troop, had chosen to go away—he had believed it could do no harm—he was sure it was only a little present discomfort, and in the present crisis—'

He addressed his aunt, but his eyes were on his father; and when he heard not a single word from him, he suddenly ceased, and presently, laying his head down on the window-sill, he begged that no one would stand and watch him, he should come into the library in a few minutes.

The few minutes lasted, however, till near dinnertime, when he called to Mary, as she was coming downstairs, and asked her to help him into the library; he could remain no longer exposed to Frampton's pity, as dinner went in.

He dragged himself along with more difficulty than he had found for weeks, and sank down on the sofa with a sigh of exhaustion; while Clara, who was alone in the room, reared herself up from an easy-chair, where she had been sitting in an attitude that would have been despair to her mistress.

'Ha, Clara!' said Louis, presently; 'you look as if you had been the object of invective?'

'I don't care,' exclaimed Clara, 'I know you were in the good old cause.'

'Conde at Jarnac, Charles XII. at Pultowa—which?' said Louis. 'I thought of both myself—only, unluckily, I made such frightful blunders. I was thankful to my men for bringing me off, like other great commanders.'

'Oh, Louis! but at least you were in your place—you set the example.'

'Unluckily, these things descend from the sublime to the other thing, when one is done up, and beginning to doubt whether self-will cannot sometimes wear a mask.'

'I'm sure they are all quite cross enough to you already, without your being cross to yourself.'

'An ingenious and elegant impersonal,' said Louis.

Clara rushed out into the garden to tell the stiff old rose-trees that if Lord Ormersfield were savage now, he would be more horrid than ever.

Meanwhile, Louis drew a long sigh, murmuring, 'Have I gone and vexed him again? Mary, have I been very silly?'

The half-piteous doubt and compunction had something childish, which made her smile as she answered: 'You had better have done as you were told.'

'The surest road to silliness,' said Louis, whose tendency was to moralize the more, the more tired he was, 'is to think one is going to do something fine! It is dismal work to come out at the other end of an illusion.'

'With a foot aching as, I am afraid, yours does.'

'I should not mind that, but that I made such horrid mistakes!'

These weighed upon his mind so much, that he went on, half aloud, rehearsing the manoeuvres and orders in which he had failed, from the difficulty of taking the command of his troop for the first time, when bewildered with pain and discomfort. The others came in, and James looked rabid; Louis stole a glance now and then at his father, who preserved a grave silence, while Clara stood aloof, comparing the prostrate figure in blue and silver to all the wounded knights in history or fiction.