Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

Bobus was brief with Allen, and ironical on Jock’s folly in having given the summons. For his own part he was much engrossed with his appointment, going backwards and forwards between Oxford and London, with little time for the concerns of any one else; but the evening after this unfortunate garden party, when Jock had accompanied his eldest brother back to his rooms, and was endeavouring, by the help of a pipe, to endure the reiteration of mournful vituperations of destiny in the shape of Lady Flora and Mrs. Gould, the door suddenly opened and Bobus stood before them with his peculiarly brisk, self-satisfied air, in itself an aggravation to any one out of spirits.

“All right,” he said, “I didn’t expect to find you in, but I thought I would leave a note for the chance. I’ve heard of the very identical thing to suit you, Ali, my boy.”

“Indeed,” said Allen, not prepared with gratitude for his younger brother’s patronage.

“I met Bulstrode at Balliol last night, and he asked if I knew of any one (a perfect gentleman he must be, that matters more than scholarship) who would take a tutorship in a Hungarian count’s family. Two little boys, who live like princes, tutor the same, salary anything you like to ask. It is somewhere in the mountains, a feudal castle, with capital sport.”

“Wolves and bears,” cried Jock, starting up with his old boyish animation. “If I wasn’t going pig-sticking in India, what wouldn’t I give for such a chance. The tutor will teach the young ideas how to shoot, of course.”

“Of course,” said Bobus. “The Count is a diplomate, and there’s not a bad chance of making oneself useful, and getting on in that line. I should have jumped at it, if I hadn’t got the Japs on my hands.”

“Yes, you,” said Allen languidly.

“Well, you can do quite as well for a thing like this,” said Bobus, “or better, as far as looking the gentleman goes. In fact, I suspect as much classics as Mother Carey taught us at home would serve their countships’ turn. Here’s the address. You had better write by the first post to-morrow, for one or two others are rising at it; but Bulstrode said he would wait to hear from you. Here’s the letter with all the details.”

“Thank you. You seem to take a good deal for granted,” said Allen, not moving a finger towards the letter.

“You won’t have it?”

“I have neither spirits nor inclination for turning bear-leader, and it is not a position I wish to undertake.”

“What position would you like?” cried Jock. “You could take that rifle you got for Algeria, and make the Magyars open their eyes. Seriously, Allen, it is the right thing at the right time. You know Miss Ogilvie always said the position was quite different for an English person among these foreigners.”

“Who, like natives, are all the same nation,” quietly observed Allen.

“For that matter,” said Jock, “wasn’t it in Hungarie that the beggar of low degree married the king’s daughter? There’s precedent for you, Ali!”

Allen had taken up the letter, and after glancing it slightly over, said—

“Thanks, Vice-principal, but I won’t stand in the light of your other aspirants.”

“What can you want better than this?” cried Jock. “By the time the law business is over, one may look in vain for such a chance. It is a new country too, and you always said you wanted to know how those fellows with long-tailed names lived in private life.”

Both brothers talked for an hour, till they hoped they had persuaded him that even for the most miserable and disappointed being on earth the Hungarian castle might prove an interesting variety, and they left him at last with the letter before him, undertaking to write and make further inquiries.

The next day, however, just as Jock was about to set forth, intending, as far as might be, to keep him up to the point, Bobus made his appearance, and scornfully held out an envelope. There was the letter, and therewith these words:—

“On consideration, I recur to my first conclusion, that this situation is out of the question. To say nothing of the injury to my health and nerves from agitation and suspense, rendering me totally unfit for drudgery and annoyance, I cannot feel it right to place myself in a situation equivalent to the abandonment of all hope. It is absurd to act as if we were reduced to abject poverty, and I will never place myself in the condition of a dependent. This season has so entirely knocked me up that I must at once have sea air, and by the time you receive this I shall be on my way to Ryde for a cruise in the Petrel.”

“His health!” cried Bobus, his tone implying three notes, scarcely of admiration.

“Well, poor old Turk, he is rather seedy,” said Jock. “Can’t sleep, and has headaches! But ‘tis a regular case of having put him to flight!”

“Well, I’ve done with him,” said Bobus, “since there’s a popular prejudice against flogging, especially one’s elder brother. This is a delicate form of intimation that he intends doing the dolce at mother’s expense.”

“The poor old chap has been an ornamental appendage so long that he can’t make up his mind to anything else,” said Jock.

“He is no worse off than the rest of us,” said Bobus.

“In age, if in nothing else.”

“The more reason against throwing away a chance. The yacht, too! I thought there was a Quixotic notion of not dipping into that Elf’s money. I’m sure poor mother is pinching herself enough.”

“I don’t think Ali knows when he spends money more than when he spends air,” returned Jock. “The Petrel can hardly cost as much in a month as I have seen him get through in a week, protesting all the while that he was living on absolutely nothing.”

“I know. You may be proud to get him down Oxford Street under thirty shillings, and he never goes out in the evening much under half that.”

“Yes, he told me selling my horses was shocking bad economy.”

“Well, it was your own doing, having him up here,” said Bobus.

“I wonder how he will go on when the money is really not there.”

“Precisely the same,” said Bobus; “there’s no cure for that sort of complaint. The only satisfaction is that we shall be out of sight of it.”

“And a very poor one,” sighed Jock, “when mother is left to bear the brunt.”

“Mother can manage him much better than we can,” said Bobus; “besides, she is still a youngish woman, neither helpless nor destitute; and as I always tell you, the greatest kindness we can do her is to look out for ourselves.”

Bobus himself had done so effectually, for he was secure of a handsome salary, and his travelling expenses were to be paid, when, early in the next year, he was to go out with his Principal to confer on the Japanese the highest possible culture in science and literature without any bias in favour of Christianity, Buddhism, or any other sublime religion.

Meantime he was going home to make his preparations, and pack such portions of his museum as he thought would be unexampled in Japan. He had fulfilled his intention of only informing his mother after his application had been accepted; and as it had been done by letter, he had avoided the sight of the pain it gave her and the hearing of her remonstrances, all of which he had referred to her maternal dislike of his absence, rather than to his association with the Principal, a writer whose articles she kept out of reach of Armine and Barbara.

The matter had become irrevocable and beyond discussion, as he intended, before his return to Belforest, which he only notified by the post of the morning before he walked into luncheon. By that time it was a fait accompli, and there was nothing to be done but to enter on a lively discussion on the polite manners and customs of the two-sworded nation and the wonderful volcanoes he hoped to explore.

Perhaps one reason that his notice was so short was that there might be the less time for Kencroft to be put on its guard. Thus, when, by accident of course, he strolled towards the lodge, he found his cousin Esther in the wood, with no guardians but the three youngest children, who had coaxed her, in spite of the heat, to bring them to the slopes of wood strawberries on their weekly half-holiday.

He had seen nothing, but had only been guided by the sound of voices to the top of the sloping wooded bank, where, under the shade of the oak-trees, looking over the tall spreading brackens, he beheld Essie in her pretty gipsy hat and holland dress, with all her bird-like daintiness, kneeling on the moss far below him, threading the scarlet beads on bents of grass, with the little ones round her.

“I heard a chattering,” he said, as, descending through the fern, he met her dark eyes looking up like those of a startled fawn; “so I came to see whether the rabbits had found tongues. How many more are there? No, thank you,” as Edmund and Lina answered his greeting with an offer of very moist-looking fruit, and an ungrammatical “Only us.”

“Then us run away. They grow thick up that bank, and I’ve got a prize here for whoever keeps away longest. No, you shan’t see what it is. Any one who comes asking questions will lose it. Run away, Lina, you’ll miss your chance. No, no, Essie, you are not a competitor.”

“I must, Robert; indeed I must.”

“Can’t you spare me a moment when I am come down for my last farewell visit?”

“But you are not going for a good while yet.”

“So you call it, but it will seem short enough. Did you ever hear of minutes seeming like diamond drops meted out, Essie?”

“But, you know, it is your own doing,” said Essie.

“Yes, and why, Essie? Because misfortune has made such an exile as this the readiest mode of ceasing to be a burden to my mother.”

“Papa said he was glad of it,” said Esther, “and that you were quite right. But it is a terrible way off!”

“True! but there is one consideration that will make up to me for everything.”

“That it is for Aunt Caroline!”

“Partly, but do you not know the hope which makes all work sweet to me?” And the look of his eyes, and his hand seeking hers, made her say,

“Oh don’t, Robert, I mustn’t.”

“Nay, my queen, you were too duteous to hearken to me when I was rich and prosperous. I would not torment you then, I meant to be patient; but now I am poor and going into banishment, you will be generous and compassionate, and let me hear the one word that will make my exile sweet.”

“I don’t think I ought,” said the poor child under her breath. “O, Robert, don’t you know I ought not.”

“Would you if that ugly cypher of an ought did not stand in the way?”

“Oh don’t ask me, Robert; I don’t know.”

“But I do know, my queen,” said he. “I know my little Essie better than she knows herself. I know her true heart is mine, only she dares not avow it to herself; and when hearts have so met, Esther, they owe one another a higher duty than the filial tie can impose.”

“I never heard that before,” she said, puzzled, but not angered.

“No, it is not a doctrine taught in schoolrooms, but it is true and universal for all that, and our fathers and mothers acted on it in their day, and will give way to it now.”

Esther had never been told all her father’s objections to her cousin. Simple prohibition had seemed to her parents sufficient for the gentle, dutiful child. Bobus had always been very kind to her, and her heart went out enough to him in his trouble to make coldness impossible to her. Tears welled into her eyes with perplexity at the new theory, and she could only falter out—

“That doesn’t seem right for me.”

“Say one word and trust to me, and it shall be right. Yes, Esther, say the word, and in it I shall be strong to overcome everything, and win the consent you desire. Say only that, with it, you would love me.”

“If?” said Esther.

It was an interrogative if, and she did not mean it for “the one word,” but Bobus caught at it as all he wanted. He meant it for the fulcrum on which to rest the strong lever of his will, and before Esther could add any qualification, he was overwhelming her with thanks and assurances so fervent that she could interpose no more doubts, and yielded to the sweetness of being able to make any one so happy, above all the cousin whom most people thought so formidably clever.

Edmund interrupted them by rushing up, thus losing the prize, which was won by the last comer, and proved to be a splendid bonbon; but there was consolation for the others, since Bobus had laid in a supply as a means of securing peace.

He would fain have waited to rivet his chains before manifesting them, but he knew Essie too well to expect her to keep the interview a secret; and he had no time to lose if, as he intended, though he had not told her so, he was to take her to Japan with him.

So he stormed the castle without delay, walked to Kencroft with the strawberry gatherers, found the Colonel superintending the watering of his garden, and, with effrontery of which Essie was unconscious, led her up, and announced their mutual love, as though secure of an ardent welcome.

He did, mayhap, expect to surprise something of the kind out of his slowly-moving uncle, but the only answer was a strongly accentuated “Indeed! I thought I had told you both that I would have none of this foolery. Esther, I am ashamed of you. Go in directly.”

The girl repaired to her own room to weep floods of tears over her father’s anger, and the disobedience that made itself apparent as soon as she was beyond the spell of that specious tongue. There were a few fears too for his disappointment; but when her mother came up in great displeasure, the first words were—

“O, mamma, I could not help it!”

“You could not prevent his accosting you, but you might have prevented his giving all this trouble to papa. You know we should never allow it.”

“Indeed I only said if!”

“You had no right to say anything. When a young lady knows a man is not to be encouraged, she should say nothing to give him an advantage. You could never expect us to let you go to a barbarous place at the other end of the world with a man of as good as no religion at all.”

“He goes to church,” said Essie, too simple to look beyond.

“Only here, to please his mother. My dear, you must put this out of your head. Even if he were very different, we should never let you marry a first cousin, and he knows it. It was very wrong in him to have spoken to you.”

“Please don’t let him do it again,” said Esther, faintly.

“That’s right, my dear,” with a kiss of forgiveness. “I am sure you are too good a girl really to care for him.”

“I wish he would not care for me,” sighed poor Essie, wearily. “He always was so kind, and now they are in trouble I couldn’t vex him.”

“Oh, my dear, young men get over things of this sort half a dozen times in their lives.”

Essie was not delighted with this mode of consolation, and when her mother tenderly smoothed back her hair, and bade her bathe her face and dress for dinner, she clung to her and said—

“Don’t let me see him again.”

It was a wholesome dread, which Mrs. Brownlow encouraged, for both she and her husband were annoyed and perplexed by Robert’s cool reception of their refusal. He quietly declared that he could allow for their prejudices, and that it was merely a matter of time, and he was provokingly calm and secure, showing neither anger nor disappointment. He did not argue, but having once shown that his salary warranted his offer, that the climate was excellent, and that European civilisation prevailed, he treated his uncle and aunt as unreasonably prejudiced mortals, who would in time yield to his patient determination.

His mother was as much annoyed as they were, all the more because her sister-in-law could hardly credit her perfect innocence of Robert’s intentions, and was vexed at her wish to ascertain Esther’s feelings. This was not easy! the poor child was so unhappy and shamefaced, so shocked at her involuntary disobedience, and so grieved at the pain she had given. If Robert had been set before her with full consent of friends, she would have let her whole heart go out to him, loved him, and trusted him for ever, treating whatever opinions were unlike hers as manly idiosyncrasies beyond her power to fathom. But she was no Lydia Languish to need opposition as a stimulus. It rather gave her tender and dutiful spirit a sense of shame, terror, and disobedience; and she thankfully accepted the mandate that sent her on a visit to her married sister for as long as Bobus should remain at Belforest.

He did not show himself downcast, but was quietly assured that he should win her at last, only smiling at the useless precaution, and declaring himself willing to wait, and make a home for her.

But this matter had not tended to make his mother more at ease in her enforced stay at Belforest, which was becoming a kind of gilded prison.

CHAPTER XXXI. – SLACK TIDE

     If…     Thou hide thine eyes and make thy peevish moan     Over some broken reed of earth beneath,     Some darling of blind fancy dead and gone.                                                Keble.

There is such a thing as slack tide in the affairs of men, when a crisis seems as if it would never come, and all things stagnate. The Law Courts had as yet not concerned themselves about the will, vacation time had come and all was at a standstill, nor could any steps be taken for Lucas’s exchange till it was certain into what part of India Sir Philip Cameron was going. In the meantime his regiment had gone into camp, and he could not get away until the middle of September, and then only for a few days. Arriving very late on a Friday night, he saw nobody but his mother over his supper, and thought her looking very tired. When he met her in the morning, there was the same weary, harassed countenance, there were worn marks round the dark wistful eyes, and the hair, whitened at Schwarenbach, did not look as incongruous with the face as hitherto.

No one else except Barbara had come down to prayers, so Jock’s first inquiry was for Armine.

“He is pretty well,” said his mother; “but he is apt to be late. He gets overtired between his beloved parish work and his reading with Bobus.”

“He is lucky to get such a coach,” said Jock. “Bob taught me more mathematics in a week than I had learnt in seven years before.”

“He is terribly accurate,” said Babie.

“Which Armie does not appreciate?” said Jock.

“I’m afraid not,” said his mother. “They do worry each other a good deal, and this Infanta most of all, I’m afraid.”

“O no, mother,” said Babie. “Only it is hard for poor Armie to have two taskmasters.”

“What! the Reverend Petronella continues in the ascendant?”

Bobus here entered, with a face that lightened, as did everyone’s, at sight of Lucas.

“Good morning. Ah! Jock! I didn’t sit up, for I had had a long day out on the moors; we kept the birds nearer home for you. There are plenty, but Grimes says he has heard shots towards River Hollow, and thinks some one must have been trespassing there.”

“Have you heard anything of Elvira? apropos to River Hollow,” said his mother.

“Yes,” said Jock. “One of our fellows has been on a moor not far from where she was astonishing the natives, conjointly with Lady Anne Macnalty. There were bets which of three men she may be engaged to.”

“Pending which,” said his mother, “I suppose poor Allen will continue to hover on the wings of the Petrel?”

“And send home mournful madrigals by the ream,” said Bobus. “Never was petrel so tuneful a bird!”

“For shame, Bobus; I never meant you to see them!”

“‘Twas quite involuntary! I have trouble enough with my own pupil’s effusions. I leave him a bit of Latin composition, and what do I find but an endless doggerel ballad on What’s his name?—who hid under his father’s staircase as a beggar, eating the dogs’ meat, while his afflicted family were searching for him in vain;—his favourite example.”

“St. Alexis,” said Babie; “he was asked to versify it.”

“As a wholesome incentive to filial duty and industry,” said Bobus. “Does the Parsoness mean to have it sung in the school?”

“It might be less dangerous than ‘the fox went out one moonshiny night,’” said their mother, anxious to turn the conversation. “Mr. Parsons brought Mr. Todd of Wrexham in to see the school just as the children were singing the final catastrophe when the old farmer ‘shot the old fox right through the head.’ He was so horrified that he declared the schools should never have a penny of his while they taught such murder and heresy.”

“Served them right,” said Jock, “for spoiling that picture of domestic felicity when ‘the little ones picked the bones, oh!’ How many guns shall we be, Bobus?”

“Only three. My uncle has a touch of gout, the Monk has got a tutorship, Joe has gone back to his ship, but the mighty Bob has a week’s leave, and does not mean a bird to survive the change of owners.”

“Doesn’t Armine come?”

“Not he!” said Bobus. “Says he doesn’t want to acquire the taste, and he would knock up with half a day.”

“But you’ll all come and bring us luncheon?” entreated Jock. “You will, mother! Now, won’t you? We’ll eat it on a bank like old times when we lived at the Folly, and all were jolly. I beg your pardon, Bob; I didn’t mean to turn into another poetical brother on your hands, but enthusiasm was too strong for me! Come, Mother Carey, do!”

“Where is it to be?” she asked, smiling.

“Out by the Long Hanger would be a good place,” said Bobus, “where we found the Epipactis grandiflora.”

“Or the heathery knoll where poor little mother got into a scrape for singing profane songs by moonlight,” laughed Jock.

“Ah! that was when hearts were light,” she said; “but at any rate we’ll make a holiday of it, for Jock’s sake.”

“Ha! what do I see?” exclaimed Jock, who was opposite the open window. “Is that Armine, or a Jack-in-the-Green?”

“Oh!” half sighed Barbara. “It’s that harvest decoration!” And Armine, casting down armfuls of great ferns, and beautiful trailing plants, made his entrance through the open window, exchanging greetings, and making a semi-apology for his late appearance as he said—

“Mother, please desire Macrae to cut me the great white orchids. He won’t do it unless you tell him, and I promised them for the Altar vases.”

“You know, Armie, he said cutting them would be the ruin of the plant, and I don’t feel justified in destroying it.”

“Macrae’s fancy,” muttered Armine. “It is only that he hates the whole thing.”

“Unhappy Macrae! I go and condole with him sometimes,” said Bobus. “I don’t know which are most outraged—his Freekirk or his horticultural feelings!”

“Babie,” ordered Armine, who was devouring his breakfast at double speed, “if you’ll put on your things, I’ve the garden donkey-cart ready to take down the flowers. You won’t expect us to luncheon, mother?”

Barbara, though obedient, looked blank, and her mother said—

“My dear, if I went down and helped at the Church till half past twelve, could not we all be set free? Your brothers want us to bring their luncheon to them at the Hanger.”

“That’s right, mother,” cried Jock; “I’ve half a mind to come and expedite matters.”

“No, no, Skipjack!” cried Bobus; “I had that twenty stone of solid flesh whom I see walking up to the house to myself all yesterday, and I can’t stand another day of it unmitigated!”

Entered the tall heavy figure of Rob. He reported his father as much the same and not yet up, delivered a note to his aunt, and made no objection to devouring several slices of tongue and a cup of cocoa to recruit nature after his walk; while Bobus reclaimed the reluctant Armine from cutting scarlet geraniums in the ribbon beds to show him the scene in the Greek play which he was to prepare, and Babie tried to store up all the directions, perceiving from the pupil’s roving eye that she should have to be his memory.

Jock saw that the note had brought an additional line of care to his mother’s brow, and therefore still more gaily and eagerly adjured her not to fail in the Long Hanger, and as the shooting party started, he turned back to wave his cap, and shout, “Sharp two!”

Two o’clock found three hungry youths and numerous dead birds on the pleasant thymy bank beneath the edge of the beach wood, but gaze as they might through the clear September air, neither mother, brother, nor sister was visible. Presently, however, the pony-carriage appeared, and in it a hamper, but driven only by the stable-boy. He said a gentleman was at the house, and Mrs. Brownlow was very sorry that she could not come, but had sent him with the luncheon.