“I say, Mysie, we’ve forgotten the basket!”
“Oh, my dear Arthur, what shall we do? You called me to look at that horrid little tom-tit just as I was going to give it to you. The strawberries and everything! And they have walked all these miles in the heat!”
“I know,” cried Arthur. “Don’t you say a word. I’ll settle it.”
And as they pulled into the landing and Flossy and Frederica ran down to meet them he called out:
“I say, Flossy, get into the boat. I’ve got such a splendid idea. We’ll go and eat strawberries at ‘The Pot of Lilies.’”
”‘The Pot of Lilies!’ But you’ve brought some strawberries, haven’t you?”
“Oh, never mind! It’s such a jolly place. You can get a capital glass of beer there, and it’s only fifty yards further on. Jump in, Freddie.”
“But, Arthur, are you quite sure it’s proper?” said Mysie.
“Proper? oh, dear, yes! No one there on a week-day.”
“Now, if you will humbly confess that you and Mysie forgot all about the provisions, and that you never thought of ‘The Pot of Lilies’ till this moment, we’ll come,” said Flossy.
“Flossy! I’ll confess I never heard of ‘The Pot of Lilies’ till Mysie mentioned that you and she rowed up here now and then of an evening! Come along. I’ll take care of you, and neither Hugh nor Miss Venning will come and proctorise us.”
“The Pot of Lilies” was a tiny public-house, so called from the lilies of the valley which were supposed to grow wild in Fordham Woods. It stood close by the water’s edge, with a little landing-place of its own, and a quaint, small-paned bow-window hanging over the river. Bright flowers grew on every window-sill and the Lily sign-board swung overhead. On one side was a garden, where arches and arbours, twined with creepers, shaded one or two little tables; for here, on fine Sunday evenings, Oxley and Redhurst sometimes came to tea.
Arthur sprang out of the boat and went in alone; but, soon reappearing, said:
“Come along; it’s all right,” and a very smiling hostess escorted the girls into the bow-windowed sitting-room while Arthur went to make his further arrangements.
There were china shepherds and great shells on the mantelpiece, queer coloured prints of the Queen and the Duke of Wellington on the wails, which were broken up by endless beams and cupboards.
“What a dear little room!” said Mysie; and, though the floor was sanded and there was a faint odour suggestive of beer and pipes, perhaps this only gave a slight flavour of novelty to the situation.
“I’m sure, Miss,” said the landlady, addressing Flossy, who looked the most responsible of the party, “I only wish the gentleman had sent his orders beforehand, for in the middle of the week, you see, Miss, we don’t have so much company. If you’ll excuse me, Miss – ” and she vanished in search of various necessaries.
Arthur soon returned, saying:
“We’re going to have tea in an arbour. It’s a lovely spot!”
The three girls followed him down the little gravel path, bordered by box edgings, to an erection which was termed by the proprietress “the harbour,” and which was built of wood and partly shaded by an apple-tree. Monthly roses climbed up its trellis-work front; and stones, shells, and broken bottles were picturesquely disposed in heaps at its two sides. It contained some chairs and a round table, on which preparations for their meal were begun, and at present consisted of a cloth and large mustard-pot. This was, however, followed by slices of ham, bread and butter, and water-cresses, and by some tea, which – as neither young lady would take on herself to pour it out – Arthur superintended, and which proved so atrocious that he substituted ginger-beer for the girls and some bottled beer for himself. They might have drunk the tea, however, rejoicing; for they hardly knew whether the setting sun on the river or the steel forks and the great tall tumblers were the most delightful, so full of merriment were they at this unusual and amusing festivity, and they afforded quite as much amusement as they received; for hearty landlady and pretty barmaid knew well enough who these blushing, smiling, well-dressed young ladies were, and that Mr Arthur Spencer, of Redhurst, was engaged to one of them.
Presently strawberries and raspberries and currants, red, black, and white, appeared on the table.
“Mysie,” whispered Arthur, as he helped her to the fruit, “the Oxley folk always come out here for their wedding trip. If they’re very swell they stay a week. Shall we follow their example?”
Mysie, of course, blushed and bridled, and Arthur said aloud:
“I propose we come and have tea here every summer. This is the 15th of July; let us remember it next year.”
“Perhaps it will rain next year,” said Frederica.
“Then we will have tea inside the bow-window. What, Mysie! you’re not looking at your watch? It’s not time to go home.”
It proved, however, time to think of it; and after a little more lingering and a few more raspberries the four took boat again. Flossy and Frederica rowed home through the soft summer twilight, while Arthur and Mysie sat side by side in the stern. Mysie sang a melancholy little song about “days of old,” and how
“The sky was blue in the days of old,
But now it is always grey;”
and then they all laughed at the way they would describe what Arthur called “their little summer outing” to the home party, for the sentiment of Mysie’s song found no echo in the heart of any one of them.
But the moon rose, and the boat came to land at last; they came home through the meadows; and the tea-drinking at “The Pot of Lilies” was over.
Part 3, Chapter XVIII
Out in the Cold
“Boys and girls, come out to play!”
So sang Florence Venning as she danced down the empty school-room at Oxley Manor on the 3rd of August. The last young lady had driven from the door – even the French governess had gone to see her friends; and Flossy, whose devotion to the cause of education by no means precluded a thorough enjoyment of peace and liberty, sang and danced as she picked up stray school grammars and dictionaries and consigned them to a six-weeks’ imprisonment in the cupboard. Clarissa had been standing on a form to reach its top shelf; and now she sat down on the desk, with her feet on the form, and yawned.
“What are you going to do to-day?” said Flossy.
“Nothing,” replied Clarissa, with emphasis. “I shall go to sleep, or read ‘Tom Brown’ – that’s all about boys – or nurse the kitten,” picking it up and kissing it, “which is babyish in a governess, you know.”
“Dear me!” said Flossy, “I shouldn’t care what it was if I liked to do it. Well, it’s nice to have some time to oneself. I shall draw hard. I shall go to the School of Art twice a-week, and see if I can’t get into the Life class; and I shall be able to help at the drawing classes they’re having down at Oxley National School. And I want to have a tea for my Sunday class – I wonder if Mary would! And I never do read anything steadily when the girls are here. Besides,” with equal vivacity, “I want a new dress, and must see about it; I think I’ll do that first.”
“Anything else in a small way?” said Clarissa.
“Oh, fifty other things if I’d time to think of them.”
“Well,” said Clarissa, in languid, sleepy tones, “I don’t want to read a novel; there would be sure to be any number of girls in it! I’d like to be a man myself for the holidays, for a change. One would take an interest in girls then, at any rate!”
“Dear me, why don’t you take an interest in them? I am sure forming the minds of others is the most interesting thing possible.”
“If one had a mind of one’s own. I haven’t.”
“Clarissa, I call that affectation. I don’t consider you at all a stupid person.”
“Thank you,” said Clarissa, again kissing the kitten.
“Only you are so lazy. Now, will you come into Oxley about my dress? You know we are to dine at Redhurst to-night.”
“Oh, Mary will go with you about your dress. Is James Crichton come home?”
“Yes, for a fortnight. I want to show him my sketches, and see those he made in Italy. Well, I’ll try and get Mary; but I think she is busy. She has been writing to Mrs Grey about a girl to come as governess-pupil.”
“That girl will be a bore,” said Clarissa. “Now, really,” cried Flossy, in tones of virtuous indignation, “I do think that’s a shame. I am very glad of the opportunity. I disapprove of all the books that are written on that subject. They put it into girls’ heads to pity themselves, even if they are true. And I intend that there shall be a tone here that will be quite different. Think what a chance it is for really helping a girl! I wish we could have two or three. I shall make a friend of her, and then see if the big girls don’t do so too. But if you go and have old-fashioned prejudices – ”
“I won’t make her do my hair, if that’s what you mean,” said Clarissa, meekly. “Well, Kitty, come along,” and, with slow, lazy steps, she sought the drawing-room, where she sat in an easy-chair with the kitten in her lap and read “Punch.”
Flossy, finding that her eldest sister was not inclined to spend her first leisure hours in the hot walk to Oxley, got ready to go by herself. If Mysie Crofton’s maiden bower was ordered and coloured by the quiet completeness and tasteful arrangement that marked all her doings, Florence Venning’s afforded a proof of the variety and ambition of her aims and of the many hobbies that chased each other through her soul. With so many irons in the fire it was no marvel that some of them were apt to grow cold; that the plants and flowers, the arrangement of which she considered a form of art, and in which she took great pride, sometimes wanted water; that a chalk head was displaced, half-finished, by a water-colour landscape; and that the books in use at the moment were apt to tumble off the edges of her dressing-table, where they had sought a last refuge. Moreover, Flossy, in a severe fit of historical and artistic fever, had once painted the panels of her room with scenes from English history, set in frames of decorative flowers and scrolls. The flowers were pretty, but the historical heroes – though exceedingly creditable to Flossy’s research and, indeed, to her powers of execution – were hardly up to the mark of the cartoons; and their arms and legs, as her artistic knowledge increased, became a source of anxiety, if not of distress, though she could not resolve to have them hidden by what Miss Venning called a “nice clean tint of buff.” At present history and heroes were finding an outlet on sundry pages of foolscap; which, as Clarissa observed, took up less room; and which reflected, perhaps, better the pictures of Flossy’s imagination. With her head full of the newest and most successful, Flossy set off down the sunny road to Oxley. She walked fast, regardless that the heat deepened her pink cheeks to crimson – for Flossy had always rather more to do than her time permitted – and she walked well, with a free, bounding step, carrying her head well up in the air; with smiling eyes, satisfied with their own thoughts, yet ready for any diversion from them. The hero gave place to blue and white muslin and to a new hat. Flossy also arranged her intended drawing lessons, paid a call or two, transacted a little Sunday-school business, and came home in time to dress for the Redhurst dinner-party. She found Clarissa sighing over the family tea that was to be resigned in consequence; but sighs were of no avail in averting the evil any more than were the grumbles of Hugh over the necessity of entertaining his neighbours. Miss Venning was always a pleasant and popular person. Her fresh complexion and her blue eyes, her handsome silk, and her pleasant tongue ornamented a party; but Clarissa, though thought pretty, was regarded as more entirely the schoolmistress, and, when so regarded, had little to say for herself. Flossy was too devoid of sentiment and of vanity and too full of her own concerns to be a favourite with young men. James thought her overpowering; and though Hugh was at ease with her, no one ever having suggested that he ought to marry her – since Flossy, handsome as she was, was just the sort of girl who does not easily get credited with a lover – he rarely gave her a second thought. But she and Arthur were excellent friends, and she was much more intimate with the whole family than was Clarissa, in whose younger days no girls had existed at Redhurst to afford an excuse for intercourse.
James had arrived the day before. He was warmly greeted by his mother; and, as he congratulated Arthur and Mysie, was informed that Hugh had gone to a magistrates’ meeting. Miss Katie Clinton, who was staying in the house, had been playing croquet in pink muslin with Frederica and the schoolboy George; and as they all sat on the terrace at tea and Hugh’s ordinary doings and sayings were mentioned, James began to feel an odd sort of discrepancy between his thoughts and the actual facts. “Hugh had been rather astonished at their news. Yes, he gave very prudent advice; but, still, he had given his consent.”
“Hugh did not want the new railway to come through Fordham: he was going to vote against it. Had he talked much about Italy? Yes, a good deal. He had described Civita Bella and the art galleries there, and the weather, and the Roman Amphitheatre.”
And presently Hugh came back, greeted Jem much in his usual way, and, sitting down, began to talk of his meeting, and how very foolish he considered his brother-magistrates’ opinion of the matter in hand. James could not help staring at him. Could this be the Hugh who had declared to him in passionate language that life would be worth nothing without Violante? Had he really lectured, advised, and reproved, and altogether taken the upper hand of the brother now sitting before him? “I could as soon call at Lambeth and lecture the Archbishop of Canterbury,” thought James. “Surely he never begged and prayed me to take his part with the Mum! Does he remember it all as well as I do? He doesn’t look altered.”
And yet James missed something that had been in his brother’s face during that brief fortnight they had spent together at Civita Bella. Lights and shadows had all been stronger then; the clear, sensible eyes had changed and softened, and the handsome lips, that Hugh would never hide by a moustache, had not been set so close together. As James turned his eyes away from this inspection they met Arthur’s, looking at him curiously.
“Well, Arty,” he said, getting up, “come and have a smoke, and let’s hear all about it.”
Jem and Arthur were much more companionable together than either of them was with Hugh, and now strolled down the garden, and after a little desultory talk Jem said:
“Well, and what did Hugh say to you?”
“I declare, Jem, I never was in such a funk in my life! Hugh said – just what he ought to have said, of course; but he wasn’t gushing.”
“No? And how has he conducted himself since?”
“Well,” said Arthur, “if it were possible that Hugh could have fallen a victim to some lovely black-eyed peasant, or – you didn’t meet any girls, did you?”
“Nonsense, Arthur! Everyone isn’t in your predicament.”
“Then the Bank must be shaky,” said Arthur coolly.
“Do you mean to say that Hugh is out of sorts?” said Jem, after a little pause.
“Well,” said Arthur, more seriously, “I shouldn’t like to think that he was put out about Mysie and me; but everything rubs him up the wrong way. To give you an instance: You know there’s to be a great gathering to open the new Town-Hall, and a concert and dinner. The Lord-Lieutenant is to bring his bride, and Hugh is on the committee. Well, I went to one of the meetings to represent the interests of Redhurst, as the villages round are to send their choirs and school-children to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ in the square outside. So I went to see that our people were provided for, and also to get good places for Aunt Lily and the girls. There were the rector, and Sir William Ribstone, and the mayor, and everyone else. You never heard anything like the way in which Hugh bothered them. Not a suggestion would he let pass without pulling it all to pieces, till they came to a perfect deadlock. Hugh was perfectly civil, but cantankerous enough to drive the old gentlemen frantic, and generally he knows exactly where to give in. I thought he was overworked, and begged him to let me begin going to the Bank; but he will say I shall not pledge myself without due consideration; which, you know, Jem, is really enough to drive a fellow wild! Consider? As if I hadn’t considered! He seems to think one can never cease to be a boy!” concluded Arthur, viciously.
James laughed. He would much have liked to confide the story to Arthur; but somehow he felt that Hugh regarded it so seriously that he could not tell it as a good joke, in which light Arthur, never having seen Violante, would be almost sure to regard it. A few hours soon showed him the truth of his cousin’s remarks. Hugh, though somewhat condescending, was generally courteous and obliging enough; but the captious way in which he complained of the approaching dinner-party, and the spiteful comments he made on Miss Clinton’s manners and looks, his scornful laugh at Arthur’s open boyish love-making, were the spray that indicated the waters of a bitter fountain. But he did not soften, even to his brother; on the contrary, with defiant bravado, he referred to the subject, asking James if he did not triumph in the result of his predictions that all would soon be as if his foolish fancy had never come to disturb him.
James was not a person to stir the waters, even with a view to their final sweetening. He disliked a fuss too much to face the matter out. He did not sympathise with the feelings which he supposed to exist in Hugh’s breast; it was better to suppose the thing a trifle, after all; so he answered:
“Oh, well, no one’s the worse for a bit of romance in their life.”
“To supply them with pleasant memories, eh? You’ve hit it exactly.”
Hugh said no more, but a sense of contempt for the brother who was his only confidant added to the loneliness that oppressed him. In this humour, to sit down to dinner with Mrs Harcourt on one side of him and Miss Clinton on the other seemed intolerable thraldom, and every subject more unprofitable than the one before it. He was so inharmonious a host that the discussion on local politics grew rather warm, though Mrs Crichton sat smiling through any amount of “gentlemen’s talk.” James wondered how anyone could excite themselves over drainage and rights of way; and Arthur strenuously entertained the neglected ladies on either side of him, glinting in between-times at Mysie as she sat far away on the other side of the table. He was the first to propose music after dinner, and Flossy was the first lady to accede to his request.
She stood up, erect, fair, and rosy, and began to sing, clearly and correctly, her last Italian song: “Batti, batti.”
Flossy was tolerably self-confident. She had a good voice and ear, and she sang her Italian better than is usual with young ladies, sure of applause at the end. She little knew how her first notes startled two of her audience. James gave a great jump. “Profanation!” he murmured, as he thought of the exquisite voice and accent in which he had last heard the words uttered, of the lovely scared eyes that had so belied their meaning. Jem smiled and sighed and drew nearer to listen, full of the “associations” of the song, even while he glanced round to see how his brother had taken it.
There is a vast gulf between passion and sentiment, and Hugh was too much under the dominion of the one to endure the other. He did not wait for the second line of the song, but turned and escaped from it out into the warm twilight garden, where the clear, strong notes pursued him relentlessly. He sat down on a bench and hid his face in his hands. “Violante! Violante!” he cried, half aloud. “Oh, what a fool I was not to wait one moment longer! Then I should have been sure! What is the use of it all – ” And then Hugh got up and laughed, keenly conscious of the absurdity of sitting here in his dress-coat lamenting; hating himself for his folly, and yet haunted by the old, soft accents: “I was frightened, Signor Hugo.”
Suddenly the quiet garden seemed filled with chattering and laughing. All the younger ones had streamed out on to the terrace, and were wandering about in twos and threes. Arthur had Mysie to himself at last, and as they wandered past Hugh’s hiding-place, he heard her say, mischievously, something about “Katie’s charming conversation,” and Arthur retort with “That curate that was sitting by you;” and then she threw a rose at him and they both laughed, till Hugh muttered passionately to himself: “I wish I had never got to hear them play the fool and laugh again.”