The Pillars of the House; Or, Under Wode, Under Rode, Vol. 1 (of 2)

The train seemed hardly to have attained its full speed before it slackened again, and another merry load was disposed of within its joints. Another start, another arrival; and before the motion was over, a flash of sunny looks had glanced before the sisters' eyes. There was Lance, perfectly radiant, under his square trencher cap—hair, eyes, cheeks, blue bow, boots, and all, seeming to sparkle with delight as he snatched open the door. 'Hurrah! there they are. Give her out to me, Wilmet!' (as if she had been a parcel).

'Stay, wait for Felix. You can't–'

Felix rushed up from his colleagues of the choir, and Geraldine was set on her foot and crutch. 'Come along! I've got Ball's chair for you, and Bill Harewood is sitting in it for fear any one should bone it. Where's your ticket?'

'Lance, take care! Don't take her faster than she can go!' as he whisked her over the platform; and Wilmet was impeded by the seeking for Alice's parasol and Angela's cloak. They were quite out of sight when Lance had dragged Cherry through the crowd at the door, and brought her to the wheeled chair just in time to find Bill Harewood glaring out of it like the red planet Mars, and asseverating that he was the lame young lady it was hired for.

In went Geraldine, imploring to wait for Wilmet, but all in vain; off went the chair, owner and escort alike in haste, and she was swept along, with Lance and Will with a hand holding either side of the chair, imparting breathless scraps of information, and exchanging remarks: 'There goes the Archdeacon.' 'The Thorpe choir is not come, and Miles is mad about it.' 'That's the Town Hall.' 'There's where Jack licked a cad for bullying.' 'There's a cannon-ball of Oliver Cromwell's sticking out of that wall.' 'That's the only shop fit to get gingerbeer at!' 'That old horse in that cab was in the Crimea.' 'We come last in the procession, and if you see a fellow like a sheep in spectacles, that's Shapcote.' 'Hurrah! what a stunning lot! where is it from?' 'Bembury? My eyes, if that big fellow doesn't mean to bawl us all down. Down that way—that's the palace. Whose carriage is it stopping there? Now, here's the Close.'

'Is that the Cathedral? Oh!'

'You may well say so! No, not that way.' And on rattled poor amazed Geraldine through an archway, under some lime trees, round a corner, round another corner, to another arched doorway, with big doors studded with nails, with a little door for use cut out of one of the big ones.

'You must get out here,' said Lance, 'we are close by,' and he helped her out, and paid and thanked the man with the chair. 'Here's our domain,' he continued, as he introduced Cherry through the open doorway into a small flagged court, with two houses, grey and old-fashioned, forming one side, and on the other an equally old long low building with narrow latticed arched windows. Opposite to the entrance was a handsome buttressed Gothic-looking edifice, behind which rose the gable of the north transept of the Cathedral, beautiful with a rose window, and farther back, far, far above, the noble tower.

Already everything was very wonderful to Geraldine. 'That's our kennel,' said Lance, pointing to the low buildings to the right. 'School's behind; but we boarders are put up in one of the old monks' dormitories, between court and cloister.'

'Is it really?' exclaimed Geraldine.

'So my father says,' said Will. 'Here's our door.' Another stone-arched passage, almost dark, with doors opening on either side, seemed common to both houses; and Will was inviting them to enter, but Lance held back. 'No time,' he said; 'better call your father.'

'The others,' sighed Geraldine.

'Bother the others! That's right: here he is!'

'Halloo, Father!' cried Will; 'we've got Cherry.'

'By which unceremonious designation I imagine you to mean to introduce Miss Underwood,' said a figure, appearing from beneath the archway, in trencher cap, surplice, and hood, with white hair, and a sort of precision and blandness that did not at all agree with Cherry's preconceived notions of the Harewood household. 'I am very glad to see you. My ladies, as usual, are unready. Will you have a glass of wine? No?—What do you say, Lancelot?—Very well, we will take you in at once. You will not object to waiting there, and this is the quiet time.—Boys, you ought to be with the choir.'

'Oceans of time, Dad,' coolly answered Will; 'none of the fellows up there are under weigh.'

Mr. Harewood offered his arm, but perceived that Cherry preferred Lance and her crutch; advancing to the door opposite that by which they had entered, he unlocked it, and Geraldine found herself passing through a beauteous old lofty chamber, with a groined Tudor roof, all fans, and pendants, and shields; tall windows stained with armorial bearings, parchment charters and blazoned genealogies against the walls, and screens upon screens loaded with tomes of all ages, writing-tables and chairs here and there, and glass-topped tables containing illuminations and seals. 'Here is my paradise,' said the librarian, smiling.

'I think it must be,' said Geraldine, with a long breath of wonder and admiration.

'Ah! would you not like to have a good look, Cherry?' said Lance. 'That's Richard Coeur de Lion's seal in there.'

'Don't begin about it—don't set him on,' whispered Willie, with a sign of his head towards his father, who was fitting the key into the opposite door, 'or we shall all stay here for the rest of the day.'

This low door open, Mr. Harewood and the boys bared their heads as they entered, and Geraldine felt the strange solemn sensation of finding herself in a building of vast height and majesty, full of a wonderful stillness, as though the confusion of sounds she had been in so recently were far, far off.

'Where now, Lancelot?' asked Mr. Harewood, in a hushed voice; 'do you want me any further?'

'No, thank you, sir; I'll just take her across the choir to Mr. Miles, and then join the rest of us at the vestry.'

'Good-bye for the present, then,' said Mr. Harewood kindly. 'You are in safe hands. Your brother comes round every one. I could not do this.'

Through the side-screen, into the grandly beautiful choir, arching high above, with stall-work and graceful canopies below, and rich glass casting down beams of coloured light—all for 'glory and for beauty,' thought Geraldine.

'You must not stop; you must look when you are settled. That's my side,' pointing to one of the choristers' desks. 'It will be only we that sing in here; the congregation is in the nave—a perfect sea of chairs. I'll come for you when it is over. Here is Mr. Miles. My sister, sir.'

A pale gentleman in spectacles, with a surplice and beautiful blue hood, was here addressed. He too greeted Geraldine, very shyly but kindly, and she found herself expected to ascend some alarming-looking stone steps. The organ was on the choir-screen, and to the organist's little private gallery was she to ascend. It was a difficult matter, and she had in her trepidation despairingly recognised the difference between Lance's good will and Felix's practised strength; but at last she was landed in an admirable little cushioned nook, hidden by two tall painted carved canopies—exactly over the Dean's head, her brother told her—and where, as she sat sideways, she could see through the quatrefoils into the choir on the right hand, and the nave on the left. 'Delightful! Oh, thank you; how kind! If I am only not keeping any one out.'

'No,' said Lance, smiling, and whispering lower than ever, 'he has no one belonging to him. He hates women. Never a petticoat was here before in his reign. Have you a book?'

'They are robing, Underwood,' said the misogynist in the organ-loft; and Lance hurried away, leaving Geraldine alone, palpitating a good deal, but almost enjoying the solitude, in the vast structure, where the sanctity of a thousand years of worship seemed to fill the very air, as she gazed at the white vaultings and bosses carved with emblems above, at the vista of clustered columns terminating in the great jewelled west window, or at the crown-like loveliness that encompassed the sanctuary. All was still, except a deep low tone of the organ now and then. Mr. Miles looked in after the first, to hope she did not feel it uncomfortably, and to assure her that though she was too near his organ, she need not fear its putting forth its full powers; it was to be kept in subordination, and only guide the voices. This was great attention from a woman-hater, and Geraldine ventured to reiterate her thanks; at which he smiled, and said, 'When one has such a boy as your brother, there is pleasure in doing anything he wishes. You are musical?'

'I never was able to learn to play.'

'But you can read music?'

'Oh yes,' for she had often copied it.

So he brought her whole sheets of music, and put her in the way of following and understanding, perceiving, as he went, that she was full of intelligence and perception.

When he went back to his post, a few groups, looking very small, were creeping in by transept doors—by favour, like herself: then a little white figure flitted across to the desks, opened and marked the books, took up something, and disappeared; and in another moment Lance, in his broad white folds, was at her side. 'Here's the music. Oh, you have it! I've seen Fee,' he whispered; 'they are at Mrs. Harewood's, all right!' and he was gone.

Here she sat, her attention divided between the sacred impressions of the place, its exceeding beauty, and the advance of the multitude into the nave, as the doors were open, and they surged up the space left in the central aisle, and occupied the ranks of chairs prepared for them. Then came a long pause; she scanned each row in search of her sisters, and only was confused by the host of heads; felt lost and lonely, and turned her eyes and mind to the silent grandeur to the east, rather than the throng to the west.

At last there came the sweet floating sound of the chant, growing in power like the ocean swell as it approached, and the first bright banner appeared beneath the lofty pointed archway; and the double white file came flowing on like a snowy glacier, the chant becoming clear and high as the singers of each parish marched along to their places, each ranked under a bright banner with the symbol of their church's dedication. St. Oswald's rood helped Geraldine to make out that of Bexley better than their faces, though she did make out her eldest brother's fair face, and trace him to his seat. The cathedral singers came at last, and that kenspeckle red head of Will Harewood's directed her to the less conspicuous locks belonging to Lance, whose own clear thrush-like note she could catch as he passed beneath the screen. Then came the long train of parish clergy, the canons, the Dean, and lastly the Bishop, the sight of whom recalled so much.

The unsurpliced contribution had meantime been ushered in by the side doors, and filled seats in the rear of the others, so as to add their voices without marring the general effect—the perfection of which Geraldine enjoyed—of the white-robed multitude that seemed to fill the whole chancel.

The sight seemed to inspire her whole soul with a strange yearning joy, as though she were beholding a faint earthly reflex of the great vision of the Beloved Disciple; and far more was it so at the sound, which realised in a measure the words, 'As the voice of mighty waters, and as the voice of thunder.'

These were the very words that had been selected for the Second Lesson, and the First consisted of those verses in which we hear of David's commencement of the continual chant of psalms at the sanctuary; and both, unwonted as they were, gave a wonderful thrill to the audience, as though opening to them a new comprehension of their office as singers of the sanctuary.

There is no need to dwell on the wonderful and touching exhilaration derived from the harmony of vast numbers with one voice attuned to praise. It is a sensation which is so nearly a foretaste of eternity, that participation alone can give the most distant perception thereof. To the entirely unprepared and highly sensitive Geraldine it was most overpowering, all the more because she was entirely out of sight, and without power of taking part by either gesture or posture—she was passive and had no vent for her emotion.

Lance, who made his way to her round through the transept the moment he had disrobed, found her pale, panting, tearful, and trembling, with burning cheeks, so that his exaltation turned to alarm. 'Are you done up, Cherry? It is too hot up here? I'll try to find Felix or Wilmet, which?'

'Neither! I am quite well, only—O Lance, I did not know anything could be so heavenly. There seemed to be the sweeping of angels' wings all round and over me, and Papa's voice quite clear.'

'I know,' said Lance; 'it always does come in that Te Deum.'

The sister and brother were silent, not yet able for the critical discussion of single points; only, as he put his arm round her to help her to rise, she said, with a sigh, 'O Lance, it is a great thing to be one of them! Thank you. I think this is the greatest day of all my life.'

The getting her down, what with Lance's inexperience and want of height and strength, was anxious work; and just as it had been safely accomplished, the rest of their party were seen roaming the aisle in distress and perplexity. Geraldine was very glad of Felix's substantial arm, but she had rather he had omitted that rebuke for venturesomeness in dealing with her, which would have affronted Fulbert, but never seemed to trouble Lance, who was only triumphant in his success; and her perfect contentment charmed away the vexation which really arose from a slight sense of having neglected her.

The others had been perfectly happy in their several ways, and made eager comments on their way to the house of Harewood, whither Lance piloted them—this time by the front way, through the garden, which lay behind the close—entering, in spite of the mannerly demurs of the elder ones, through the open door, into a hall whence a voice of hearty greeting at once ensued. 'Here you are at last; and how's the poor darling your sister? not over-tired?'

And Cherry, before she was aware, found herself kissed, and almost snatched away from Felix, to be deposited on a sofa; and while the like kisses were bestowed on the two little girls, and hospitable offers showered on all, she was amused by perceiving that good Mrs. Harewood was endowed with exactly the same grotesque order of ugliness as her son William; but she was even more engaging, from an indescribably droll mixture of heedlessness, blundering, and tender motherliness.

'There, now, you'll just leave her to me, the poor dear; and Lance will take you down to the Mead, and find Papa and the girls for you.'

'Oh, thank you, I could not think of your staying. Now pray—'

'Now prays' were to no purpose; Mrs. Harewood professed only to want an excuse for staying at home—she did not want to be done up with running after her girls to the four ends of the Mead, when it was a long step for her to begin with. Off with them.

So when Wilmet was satisfied that Geraldine was comfortable, the five moved off—Felix and Alice, Angel in Wilmet's hand, and Lance's and Robina's tongues wagging so fast that the wonder was how either caught a word of what the other was saying.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Harewood, tossing her bonnet and gloves aside, in perfect indifference to the exposure of the curious structure of red and grey hair she thus revealed, lavished meats and drinks upon her guest, waiting on her with such kindness, that in spite of all weariness and craving for quiet after these deep and wonderful impressions, it was impossible not to enjoy that warmth of heart. There was exactly the tender motherliness that even Wilmet and Sister Constance could not give.

It was charming to hear how fond Mrs. Harewood was of Lance, and how the having such a companion had made it possible to keep her Willie at the cathedral school, where the mixture of lads was great, but the master first-rate. He thought highly of the promise of both; 'but, to tell the truth,' said Mrs. Harewood, as she sat and fanned herself with her husband's trencher cap, looking more than ever like a frog in a strawberry bed, 'though my Willie is the cleverest boy in the school, little good his cleverness would have done him, and he would have been harum-scarum Bill more than ever, if it were not for Lance. So say his father and brother Jack; so that they will not be for his going to a public school unless Lance were sure of it too.'

'Will not they be able to stay on here?'

Mrs. Harewood explained that the year that the barristers—choristers she meant—were sixteen, when their voices were usually unserviceable, they, together with those of like age in the school, were subjected to an examination, and the foremost scholar obtained an exhibition, in virtue of which he could remain free of expense for another two years, and then could try for one of the Minsterham scholarships at one of the colleges at Cambridge. Those who failed, either had to pay like the ordinary schoolboys, or left the school.

Dear Mrs. Harewood was a perfect Malaprop, and puzzled Geraldine by continually calling the present occasion the rural meeting, and other like slips, uncommonly comical in a well-educated woman with the words she knew best.

All this, and a great deal more—about the shy woman-hating organist, and the unluckiness of the dissenter—no, precentor—having a sick wife, and the legal difficulties that prevented building a better house for the boarders than the queer long room where they lodged, between the cloister and the Bailey—the proper name of the little court by which Geraldine had come—was poured out; and kind as it was, there was a certain sense of having been talked to death.

A whole flood of Harewoods, Underwoods, and untold numbers besides, swept into the room as the bell began to ring for Evensong. Most sincere were Cherry's entreaties that she might be left alone. She could not go back to her coign of vantage, 'it had been too beautiful for her to bear more,' she said; and she severally declined offers of companionship from three female Harewoods and two sisters, telling Wilmet at last that all she wanted was to be still and alone.

Alone she was, but not still, for there was nothing to hinder the magnificent volume of sound that surged around the Cathedral from coming to her; and she could trace the service all along—in chant, pealing mighty Amens, with the hush between, in anthem, and in jubilant hymn. She was more calmly happy than in the oppressive grandeur of the morning, as she lay there, in the cool drawing-room, with the open window veiled by loose sprays of untrimmed roses, and sacred prints looking down from the walls.

The solitude lasted rather too long, when she had heard the hum and buzz of the host pouring out of the Cathedral, and still no one came. They were to go home by the 5.10 train, and every time she counted the chimes she became more alarmed lest they should be too late. Minutes dragged on. Five! It was five! Was she forgotten? Should she be only missed and remembered at the station, too late? Tired, nervous, unused to oblivion, she found tears in her eyes, and was too sorrowful and angry with her own impatience even to think of the old woman of Servia. Hark! a trampling? Had they remembered her? But oh, it would be late for the train!

In burst Lance, in his cap and little short quaint black gown.

'O Lance, I shall be too late!'

'You don't go by this train.'

'Oh dear! oh dear! Mr. Froggatt was to meet me;' and the tears started from her eyes. 'How could Felix forget?'

'Never mind, there's sure to be a fly or something.'

'Yes, but Mr. Froggatt waiting!'

'Never mind,' repeated Lance, ''tis a fine evening to air the old boss.'

'Don't, Lance; you none of you have any proper regard for Mr. Froggatt;' which, as far as Lance was concerned, was unjust, and it was well for Cherry that it was not addressed to either of the brothers who better deserved it.

What Lance did was to execute one of his peculiar summersaults, and then, making up a dismal face, to say, 'Alas! I commiserate the venerable citizen disappointed of the pleasure of driving my Lady Geraldine home from the wash as well as hisself.'

She was past even appreciating the bathos. 'It is no laughing matter,' she said; 'it is so uncivil, when he is so kind. I can't imagine what Felix is thinking of?'

'Croquet,' said Lance briefly; then seeing the flushed, quivering, mortified face, he added, 'Wilmet has not forgotten you one bit, Cherry; but Alice Knevett and Robin did so want to see the fun in the mead—there's running in sacks, and all sorts of games—that there's no getting any one away; and the W's are in charge, and can't leave them to their own devices, so she said perhaps you would be more rested by lying still than rattling home.'

'Oh, I dare say Wilmet is as sorry as anybody,' said Cherry rather querulously, for the needle point was pricking her again.

'And as to your dear old Froggy,' continued Lance, 'she says he told her he did not in the least expect you back by this train, and if you did not come by it, he'll stay in town for the 8.50.'

'How very good of him!' said Cherry, beginning to be consoled. 'And Felix at croquet!'

'Alice is teaching him. You never did see such a joke as old Blunderbore screwing up his eyes at the balls, and making at them with his mallet like a sledge-hammer. He and Alice and Robin and that Bisset curate are playing against Bill, two of the girls, and Shapcote—Bexley against Minsterham; and little Bobbie's a real out-and-outer. She'll make her side win by sheer cool generalship.'

'And poor little Angel?' The needle point was a pang now.

'Oh, Angel is happier than ever she was in her life. The Bishop's daughter has a turn for little kids, and has got all the small ones together in the pleached alley, playing at all manner of things.'

'Run back, Lance, to the fun. I shall do very well,' said poor Geraldine.

'I should think so, when I get you so often!' scornfully ejaculated Lancelot, drawing a dilapidated brioche from under the sofa, and squatting on it, with his dancing eyes close to her sad ones.

An effusion of spirits prompted her to lay her hands on his shoulders, kiss him on each cheek, and cry, 'O Lance, you are the very sweetest boy!'

'Sweetest treble, you mean,' said Lance quaintly; 'if you had only heard me! You should see how the old ladies in the stalls peep and whisper, and how Bill Harewood opens his mouth rather wider than it will go, and they think it is he.'

'Not for fun, Lance?'

'Well, I believe all their jaws are hung on looser than other people's. But I say, ain't you dying of thirst?'

'Perhaps Mrs. Harewood will give us some tea when she comes in.'

'If you trust to that—'

'O Lance!' she cried, alarmed at seeing him coolly ring the bell.

'Bless you, she's forgotten all about you and tea and everything! They are drinking it by the gallon in the tents; and by and by she'll roll in, ready to cry that you've had none, and mad with herself and me for giving you none; and the fire will be out, and the kettle will boil about ten minutes after you are off by the train. We'll have some this minute.'

'But, Lance—'

'But, Cherry, ain't I a walking Sahara with roaring at the tip-top of my voice to lead the clod-hoppers? How they did bellow! I owe it as a duty to the Chapter to wet my whistle.'

'One comfort is, nobody knows your coolness. Nobody comes for all your ringing.'

'Reason good! Every living soul in the house is in the Bishop's meadow, barring the old cat; I seen 'em with their cap-strings flying. But that's nothing. I know where Mother Harewood keeps her tea and sugar;' and he pounced on a tea-caddy of Indian aspect.

'Lance, if you did that to Mettie—'

'Exactly so. I don't;' and he ran out of the room, while Cherry sat up on her sofa, her petulance quite banished between amusement and desperation at such proceedings in a strange house. He came back presently, with two cups, saucers, and plates, apparently picked up at hap-hazard, as no two were alike. 'My dear Lance, where have you been?'

'In the kitchen. Such a jolly arched old hole. Bill and I have done no end of Welsh rabbits there. Once when we were melting some lead, Bill let it drop into the pudding, and the Pater got it at dinner, and said it was the heaviest morsel he ever had to digest.'