Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

Armine really looked quite healthy, nothing remaining of his former ethereal air, but a certain expansiveness of brow and dreaminess of eye.

He greatly scrupled at halving the £15 when it was paid, but Barbara insisted that he must take his share, and he then said—

“After all it does not signify, for we can do things together with it, as we have always done.”

“What things?”

“Well, I am afraid I do want a few books.”

“So do I, terribly.”

“And there are some Christmas gifts I want to send to Woodside.”

“Woodside! oh!”

“And wouldn’t it be pleasant to put the choir at the iron Church into surplices and cassocks for Christmas?”

“Oh, Armie, I do think we might have a little fun out of our own money.”

“What fun do you mean?” said Armine.

“I want to subscribe to Rolandi’s, and to take in the ‘Contemporary,’ and to have one real good Christmas party with tableaux vivants, and charades. Mother says we can’t make it a mere surprise party, for people must have real food, and I think it would be more pleasure to all of us than presents and knicknacks.”

“Of course you can do it,” said Armine, rather disappointed. “And if we had in Percy Stagg, and the pupil teachers, and the mission people—”

“It would be awfully edifying and good-booky! Oh yes, to be sure, nearly as good as hiding your little sooty shoe-blacks in surplices! But, my dear Armie, I am so tired of edifying! Why should I never have any fun? Come, don’t look so dismal. I’ll spare five shillings for a gown for old Betty Grey, and if there’s anything left out after the party, you shall have it for the surplices, and you’ll be Roland Graeme in my tableau?”

The next day Mother Carey found Armine with an elbow on each side of his book and his hands in his hair, looking so dreamily mournful that she apprehended a fresh attack of Petronella, but made her approaches warily.

“What have you there?” she asked.

“Dean Church’s lectures,” he said.

“Ah! I want to make time to read them! But why have they sent you into doleful dumps?”

“Not they,” said Armine; “but I wanted to read Babie a passage just now, and she said she had no notion of making Sundays of week days, and ran away. It is not only that, mother, but what is the matter with Babie? She is quite different.”

“Have you only just seen it?”

“No, I have felt something indefinable between us, though I never could bear to speak of it, ever since Bobus went. Do you think he did her any harm?”

“A little, but not much. Shall I tell you the truth, Armine; can you bear it?”

“What! did I disgust her when I was so selfish and discontented?”

“Not so much you, my boy, as the overdoing at Woodside! I can venture to speak of it now, for I fancy you have got over the trance.”

“Well, mother,” said Armine, smiling back to her in spite of himself, “I have not liked to say so, it seemed a shame; but staying at the Vicarage made me wonder at my being such an egregious ass last year! Do you know, I couldn’t help it; but that good lady would seem to me quite mawkish in her flattery! And how she does domineer over that poor brother of hers! Then the fuss she makes about details, never seeming to know which are accessories and which are principles. I don’t wonder that I was an absurdity in the eyes of all beholders. But it is very sad if it has really alienated my dear Infanta from all deeper and higher things!”

“Not so bad as that, my dear; my Babie is a good little girl.”

“Oh yes, mother, I did not mean—”

“But it did break that unity between you, and prevent your leading her insensibly. I fancy your two characters would have grown apart anyhow, but this was the moving cause. Now I fancy, so far as I can see, that she is more afraid of being wearied and restrained than of anything else. It is just what I felt for many years of my life.”

“No, mother?”

“Yes, my boy; till the time of your illness, serious thought, religion and all the rest, seemed to me a tedious tax; and though I always, I believe, made it a rule to my conscience in practical matters, it has only very, very lately been anything like the real joy I believe it has always been to you. Believe that, and be patient with your little sister, for indeed she is an unselfish, true, faithful little being, and some day she will go deeper.”

Armine looked up to his mother, and his eyes were full of tears, as she kissed him, and said—

“You will do her much more good if you sympathise with her in her innocent pleasures than if you insist on dragging her into what she feels like privations.”

“Very well, mother,” he said. “It is due to her.”

And so, though the choir did have at least half Armine’s share of the price of “Marco’s Felucca,” he threw himself most heartily into the Christmas party, was the poet of the versified charade, acted the strong-minded woman who was the chief character in “Blue Bell;” and he and Jock gained universal applause.

Allen hardly appeared at the party. He had a fresh attack of sleepless headache and palpitation, brought on by the departure of Miss Menella for the Continent, and perhaps by the failure of “A Single Eye” with some of the magazines. He dabbled a little with his mother’s clay, and produced a nymph, who, as he persuaded her and himself, was a much nobler performance than Andromache, but unfortunately she did not prove equally marketable. And he said it was quite plain that he could not succeed in anything imaginative till his health and spirits had recovered from the blow; but he was ready to do anything.

So Dr. Medlicott brought in one day a medical lecture that he wanted to have translated from the German, and told Allen that it would be well paid for. He began, but it made his head ache; it was not a subject that he could well turn over to Babie; and when Jock brought a message to say the translation must be ready the next day, only a quarter had been attempted. Jock sat up till three o’clock in the morning and finished it, but he could not pain his mother by letting her know that her son had again failed, so Allen had the money, and really believed, as he said, that all Jock had done was to put the extreme end to it, and correct the medical lingo of which he could not be expected to know anything. Allen was always so gentle, courteous, and melancholy, that every one was getting out of the habit of expecting him to do anything but bring home news, discover anything worth going to see, sit at the foot of the table, and give his verdict on the cookery. Babie indeed was sometimes provoked into snapping at him, but he bore it with the amiable magnanimity of one who could forgive a petulant child, ignorant of what he suffered.

Jock was borne up by a great pleasure that winter. One day at dinner, his mother watched his eyes dancing, and heard the old boyish ring of mirth in his laugh, and as she went up stairs at night, he came after and said—

“Fancy, I met Evelyn on the ice to-day. He wants to know if he may call.”

“What prevents him?”

“Well, I believe the poor old chap is heartily ashamed of his airs. Indeed he as good as said so. He has been longing to make a fresh start, only he didn’t know how.”

“I think he used you very ill, Jock; but if you wish to be on the old terms, I will do as you like.”

“Well,” said Jock, in an odd apologetic voice, “you see the old beggar had got into a pig-headed sort of pet last year. He said he would cut me if I left the service, and so he felt bound to be as good as his word; but he seems to have felt lost without us, and to have been looking out for a chance of meeting. He was horribly humiliated by the Friar looking over his head last week.”

“Very well. If he chooses to call, here we are.”

“Yes, and don’t put on your cold shell, mother mine. After all, Evelyn is Evelyn. There are wiser fellows, but I shall never warm to any one again like him. Why, he was the first fellow who came into my room at Eton! I am to meet him to-morrow after the lecture. May I bring him home?”

“If he likes. His mother’s son must have a welcome.”

She could not feel cordial, and she so much expected that the young gentleman might be seized with a fresh fit of exclusive disdain, that she would not mention the possibility, and it was an amazement to all save herself when Jock appeared with the familiar figure in his wake. Guardsman as he was, Cecil had the grace to look bashful, not to say shamefaced, and more so at Mrs. Brownlow’s kindly reception, than at Barbara’s freezing dignity. The young lady was hotly resentful on Jock’s behalf, and showed it by a stiff courtesy, elevated eyebrows, and the merest tips of her fingers.

Allen took it easily. He had been too much occupied with his own troubles to have entered into all the complications with the Evelyn family; and though he had never greatly cared for them, and had viewed Cecil chiefly as an obnoxious boy, he was, in his mournful way, gratified by any reminder of his former surroundings. So without malice prepense he stung poor Cecil by observing that it was long since they had met; but no one could be expected to find the way to the other end of nowhere. Cecil blushed and stammered something about Hounslow, but Allen, who prided himself on being the conversational man of the world, carried off the talk into safe channels.

As Cecil was handing Mrs. Brownlow down to the dining-room, wicked Barbara whispered to her cousin John—

“We’ve such a nice vulgar dinner. It couldn’t have been better if I’d known it!”

John, whose wrath had evaporated in his “cut,” shook his head at her, but partook of her diversion at her brother’s resignation at sight of a large dish of boiled beef, with a suet pudding opposite to it, Allen was too well bred to apologise, but he carved in the dainty and delicate style befitting the single slice of meat interspersed between countless entrees.

Barbara began to relent as soon as Cecil, after making four mouthfuls of Allen’s help, sent his plate with a request for something more substantial. And before the meal was over, his evident sense of bien-etre and happiness had won back her kindness; she remembered that he was Sydney’s brother, and took no more trouble to show her indignation.

Thenceforth, Cecil was as much as ever Jock’s friend, and a frequenter of the family, finding that the loss of their wealth and place in the great world made wonderfully little difference to them, and rather enhanced the pleasant freedom and life of their house. The rest of the family were seen once or twice, when passing through London, but only in calls, which, as Babie said, were as good as nothing, except, as she forgot to add, that they broke through the constraint on her correspondence with Sydney.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE PHANTOM BLACKCOCK OF KILNAUGHT

     And we alike must shun regard     From painter, player, sportsman, bard,     Wasp, blue-bottle, or butterfly,     Insects that swim in fashion’s sky.                                          Scott.

“At home? Then take these. There’s a lot more. I’ll run up,” said Cecil Evelyn one October evening nearly two years later, as he thrust into the arms of the parlour-maid a whole bouquet of game, while his servant extracted a hamper from his cab, and he himself dashed up stairs with a great basket of hot-house flowers.

But in the drawing-room he stood aghast, glancing round in the firelit dusk to ascertain that he had not mistaken the number, for though the maid at the door had a well-known face, and though tables, chairs, and pictures were familiar, the two occupants of the room were utter strangers, and at least as much startled as himself.

A little pale child was hurriedly put down from the lap of a tall maiden who rose from a low chair by the fire, and stood uncertain.

“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I came to see Mrs. Brownlow.”

“My aunt. She will be here in a moment. Will you run and call her, Lina?”

“You may tell her Cecil Evelyn is here,” said he; “but there is no hurry,” he added, seeing that the child clung to her protector, too shy even to move. “You are John Brownlow’s little sister, eh?” he added, bending towards her; but as she crept round in terror, still clinging, he addressed the elder one: “I am so glad; I thought I had rushed into a strange house, and should have to beat a retreat.”

The young lady gave a little shy laugh which made her sweet oval glowing face and soft brown eyes light up charmingly, and there was a fresh graceful roundness of outline about her tall slender figure, as she stood holding the shy child, which made her a wondrously pleasant sight. “Are you staying here?” he asked.

“Yes; we came for advice for my little sister, who is not strong.”

“I’m so glad. I mean I hope there is only enough amiss to make you stay a long time. Were you ever in town before?”

“Only for a few hours on our way to school.”

Here a voice reached them—

          “Fee, fa, fum,           I smell the breath of geranium.”

And through the back drawing-room door came Babie, in walking attire, declaiming—

          “‘Tis Cecil, by the jingling steel,           ‘Tis Cecil, by the pawing bay,           ‘Tis Cecil, by the tall two-wheel,           ‘Tis Cecil, by the fragrant spray.”

“O Cecil, how lovely! Oh, the maiden-hair. You’ve been making acquaintance with Essie and Lina?”

“I did not know you were out, Babie,” said Essie. “Was my aunt with you?”

“Yes. We just ran over to see Mrs. Lucas, and as we were coming home, a poor woman besought us to buy two toasting-forks and a mousetrap, by way of ornament to brandish in the streets. She looked so frightfully wretched, that mother let her follow, and is having it out with her at the door. So you are from Fordham, Cecil; I see and I smell. How are they?”

“Duke is rather brisk. I actually got him out shooting yesterday, but he didn’t half like it, and was thankful when I let him go home again. See, Sydney said I was to tell you that passion-flower came from the plant she brought from Algiers.”

“The beauty! It must go into Mrs. Evelyn’s Venice glass,” said Babie, bustling about to collect her vases.

Lina, with a cry of delight, clutched at a spray of butterfly-like mauve and white orchids, in spite of her sister’s gentle “No, no, Lina, you must not touch.”

Babie offered some China asters in its stead, Cecil muttered “Let her have it;” but Esther was firm in making her relinquish it, and when she began to cry, led her away with pretty tender gestures of mingled comfort and reproof.

“Poor little thing,” said Babie, “she is sadly fretful. Nobody but Essie can manage her.”

“I should think not!” said Cecil, looking after the vision, as if he did not know what he was saying. “You never told me you had any one like that in the family?”

“O yes; there are two of them, as much alike as two peas.”

“What! the Monk’s sisters?”

“To be sure. They are a comely family; all but poor little Lina.”

“Will they be long here?”

“That depends. That poor little mite is the youngest but one, and the nurse likes boys best. So she peaked and pined, and was bullied by Edmund above and Harry below, and was always in trouble. Nobody but Johnny and Essie ever had a good word for her. This autumn it came to a crisis. You know we had a great meeting of the two families at Walmer, and there, the shock of bathing nearly took out of her all the little life there was. I believe she would have gone into fits if mother had not heard her screams, and dashed on the nurse like a vindictive mermaid, and then made uncle Robert believe her. My aunt trusts the nurse, you must know, and lets her ride rough-shod over every one in the nursery. The poor little thing was always whining and fretting whenever she was not in Essie’s arms or the Monk’s, till the Monk declared she had a spine, and he and mother gave uncle and aunt no peace till they brought her here for advice, and sure enough her poor little spine is all wrong, and will never be good for anything without a regular course of watching and treatment. So we have her here with Essie to look after her for as long as Sir Edward Fane wants to keep her under him, and you can’t think what a nice little mortal she turns out to be now she is rescued from nurse and those little ruffians of brothers.”

“That’s first-rate,” remarked Cecil.

“The eucharis and maiden-hair, is it not? I must keep some sprays for our hairs to-night.”

“Is any one coming to-night?”

“The promiscuous herd. Oh, didn’t you know? Our Johns told mother it would be no end of kindness to let them bring in a sprinkling of their fellow-students—poor lads that live poked up in lodgings, and never see a lady or any civilisation all through the term. So she took to having them on Thursday once a fortnight, and Dr. Medlicott was perfectly delighted, and said she could not do a better work; and it is such fun! We don’t have them unmitigated, we get other people to enliven them. The Actons are coming, and I hope Mr. Esdale is coming to-night to show us his photographs of the lost cities in Central America. You’ll stay, won’t you?”

“If Mrs. Brownlow will let me. I hope your toasting-fork woman has not spirited her away?”

“Under the eyes of your horse and man.”

“Are you all at home? And has Allen finished his novel?”

Babie laughed, and said—

“Poor Ali! You see there comes a fresh blight whenever it begins to bud.”

“What has that wretched girl been doing now?”

“Oh, don’t you know? The yacht had to be overhauled, so they went to Florence instead, and have been wandering about in all the resorts of rather shady people, where Lisette can cut a figure. Mr. Wakefield is terribly afraid that even poor Mr. Gould himself is taking to gambling for want of something to do. There are always reports coming of Elfie taking up with some count or baron. It was a Russian prince last time, and then Ali goes down into the very lowest depths, and can’t do anything but smoke. You know that’s good for blighted beings. I cure my plants by putting them into his room surreptitiously.”

“You are a hard-hearted little mortal, Babie. Ah, there’s the bell!”

Mrs. Brownlow came in with the two Johns, who had joined her just as she had finished talking to the poor woman; Jock carried off his friend to dress, and Babie, after finishing her arrangements and making the most of every fragment of flower or leaf, repaired with a selection of delicate sprays, to the room where Esther, having put her little sister to bed, was dressing for dinner. She was eager to tell of her alarm at the invasion, and of Captain Evelyn’s good nature when she had expected him to be proud and disagreeable.

“He wanted to be,” said Babie, “but honest nature was too strong for him.”

“Johnny was so angry at the way he treated Jock.”

“O, we quite forget all that. Poor fellow! it was a mistaken reading of noblesse oblige, and he is very much ashamed of it. There, let me put this fern and fuchsia into your hair. I’ll try to do it as well as Ellie would.”

She did so, and better, being more dainty-fingered, and having more taste. It really was an artistic pleasure to deal with such beautiful hair, and such a lovely lay figure as Esther’s. With all her queenly beauty and grace, the girl had that simplicity and sedateness which often goes with regularity of feature, and was hardly conscious of the admiration she excited. Her good looks were those of the family, and Kenminster was used to them. This was her first evening of company, for on the only previous occasion her little sister had been unwell, sleepless and miserable in the strange house, and she had begged off. She was very shy now, and could not go down without Barbara’s protection, so, at the last moment before dinner, the little brown fairy led in the tall, stately maiden, all in white, with the bright fuchsias and delicate fern in her dark hair, and a creamy rose, set off by a few more in her bosom.

Babie exulted in her work, and as her mother beheld Cecil’s raptured glance and the incarnadine glow it called up, she guessed all that would follow in one rapid prevision, accompanied by a sharp pang for her son in Japan. It was not in her maternal heart not to hope almost against her will that some fibre had been touched by Bobus that would be irresponsive to others, but duty and loyalty alike forbade the slightest attempt to revive the thought of the poor absentee, and she must steel herself to see things take their course, and own it for the best.

Esther was a silent damsel. The clash of keen wits and exchange of family repartee were quite beyond her. She had often wondered whether her cousins were quarrelling, and had been only reassured by seeing them so merry and friendly, and her own brother bearing his part as naturally as the rest. She was more scandalised than ever to-day, for it absolutely seemed to her that they were all treating Captain Evelyn, long moustache and all, like a mere family butt, certainly worse than they would have treated one of her own brothers, for Rob would have sulked, and Joe, or any of the younger ones, might have been dangerous, whereas this distinguished-looking personage bore all as angelically as befitted one called by such a charming appellation as the Honourable Cecil Evelyn.

“How about the shooting, Cecil? Sydney said you had not very good sport.”

“Why—no, not till I joined Rainsforth’s party.”

“Where was your moor?”

“In Lanarkshire,” rather unwillingly.

“Eh,” said Allen, in a peculiar soft languid tone, that meant diversion. “Near L–?”

“Yes.”

Then Jock burst out into laughter inexplicable at first, but Allen made his voice gentler and graver, as he said, “You don’t mean Kilnaught?” and then he too joined Jock in laughter, as the latter cried—

“Another victim to McNab of Kilnaught! He certainly is the canniest of Scots.”

“He revenges the wrongs of Scotland on innocent young Guardsmen.”

“Well, I’m sure there could not be a more promising advertisement.”

“That’s just it!” said Jock. “Moor and moss. How many acres of heather?”

“How was I to expect a man of family to be a regular swindler?”

“Hush! hush, my dear fellow! Roderick Dhu was a man of family. It is the modern form.”

“But I saw his keeper.”

“Oh!” cried Allen. “I know! Old Rory! Tells you a long story in broad Scotch, of which you understand one word here and there about his Grace the Deuke, and how many miles—miles Scots—he walked.”

“I can see Evelyn listening, and saying ‘yes,’ at polite intervals!”

“How many birds did you actually see?”

“Well, I killed two brace and a half the first day.”

“Hatched under a hen, and let out for a foretaste.”

“And there was one old blackcock.”

“That blackcock! There are serious doubts whether it is a phantom bird, or whether Rory keeps it tame as a decoy. You didn’t kill it?”

“No.”

“If you had, you might have boasted of an achievement,” said Allen.

“The spell would have been destroyed,” added Jock. “But you did not let him finish. Did you say you saw the blackcock?”

“I am not sure; I think I heard it rise once, but the keeper was always seeing it.”

Everybody but Essie was in fits of laughing at Cecil’s frank air of good-humoured, self-defensive simplicity, and Armine observed—

“There’s a fine subject for a ballad for the ‘Traveller’s Joy,’ Babie. ‘The Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught!’”

Babie extemporised at once, amid great applause—

          “The hills are high, the laird’s purse dry,             Come out in the morning early;           McNabs are keen, the Guards are green,             The blackcock’s tail is curly.          “The Southron’s spoil ‘tis worthy toil,             Come out in the morning early;           Come take my house and kill my grouse,             The blackcock’s tail is curly.          “Come out, come out, quoth Rory stout,             Come out in the morning early,           Sir Captain mark, he rises! hark,            The blackcock’s tail is curly.”

“Repetition, Babie,” said her mother; “too like the Montjoie S. Denis poem.”

“It saves so much trouble, mother.”

“And a recall to the freshness and innocence of childhood is so pleasing,” added Jock.

“How much did the man of family let his moor for?” asked Allen.

There Cecil saw the pitiful and indignant face opposite to him, would have sulked, and began looking at her for sympathy, exclaiming at last—

“Haven’t you a word to say for me, Miss Brownlow?”

“I don’t like it at all. I don’t think it is fair,” broke from Essie, as she coloured crimson at the laugh.