"I understand, my dear boy."

"But how? How did you find out? Was it only that you knew she was the precious darling of my heart? and now you see and own why," cries Frank, almost beside himself with excitement and delight.

"It was Lady Tyrrell who told me," said Mrs. Poynsett, sympathizing too much with the lovers to perceive that her standpoint of resistance was gone from her.

"Yes," said Lenore. "She knew of our walk, and questioned me so closely that I could not conceal anything without falsehood."

"After she met me at Aucuba Villa?" asked Frank.

"Yes. Did you tell her anything?"

"I thought she knew more than I found afterwards that she did," said Frank; "but there's no harm done. It is all coming now."

"She told my father," said Eleonora, sadly, "and he cannot understand our delay. He is grieved and displeased, and thinks I have not been open with him."

"Oh! that will be all right to-morrow," said Frank. "I'll have it out with a free heart, now there's no fear but that I have passed; and I've got the dearest of mothers! I feel as if I could meet him if he were a dozen examiners rolled into one, instead of the good old benevolent parent that he is! Ha! Anne—Susan—Jenkins—thank you—that's splendid! May I have it here? Super-excellent! Only here's half the clay-pit sticking to me! Let me just run up and make myself decent. Only don't let her run away."

Perhaps Clio would have scorned the instinct that made a Charnock unable to enjoy a much-needed meal in the presence of mother and of love till the traces of the accident and the long walk had been removed. His old nurse hurried after—ostensibly to see that his linen was at hand, but really to have her share of the petting and congratulation; and Lenore stood a little embarrassed, till Mrs. Poynsett held out her arms, with the words, "My dear child!" and again she dropped on her knee by the couch, and nestled close in thankful joy.

Presently however, she raised herself, and said sadly, almost coldly, "I am afraid you have been surprised into this."

"I must love one who so loves my boy," was the ardent answer.

"I couldn't help it!" said the maiden, again abandoning herself to the tenderness. "Oh! it is so good of you!"

"My dear, dear daughter!"

"Only please give me one mother's kiss! I have so longed for one."

"Poor motherless child! My sweet daughter!"

Then after a pause Eleonora said, "Indeed, I'll try to deserve better; but oh! pray forgive me, if I cost him much more pain and patience than I am worth."

"He thinks you well worth anything, and perhaps I do," said Mrs Poynsett, who was conquered, won over, delighted more than by either of the former brides, in spite of all antecedents.

"Then will you always trust me?" said Eleonora, with clasped hands, and a wondrous look of earnest sincerity on her grave open brow and beautiful pensive dark blue eyes.

"I must, my dear."

"And indeed I don't think I could help holding to him, because he seems my one stay and hope here; and now I know it is all right with you, indeed it is such happiness as I never knew."

She laid her head down again in subdued joy and rest: but the pause was broken by Frank's return; and a moment after, in darted the Peri in her pink cashmere costume, with a glow transforming her usually colourless face. "Dear, dear Frank, I'm so glad!" she cried, bestowing her kiss; while he cried in amazement, "Is it Rose? Is there a fancy ball?"

"Only Aladdin's Cave. I'm just out of it; and while Jenny is keeping up games, and Edith is getting up a charade, I could dash in to see that Frank was all there, and more too. The exam, is safe, eh?"

"I trust so," said Frank; "the list will not come just yet; but I am told I am certain of a pass—indeed, that I stand high as to numbers."

"That's noble!—Now, Mrs. Poynsett, turn him out as soon as he has eaten his dinner. We want any one who can keep up a respectable kind of a row. I say, will you two do Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess? You look just like it."

"Must we go?" asked Frank, reluctantly; and there was something in the expression of his face, a little paler than usual, that reminded his mother that the young man had for the first time seen sudden and violent death that day, and that though his present gladness was so great, yet that he had gone through too much in body and mind for the revels of the evening not either to jar, or to produce a vehement reaction, if he were driven into them. So she answered by pleading the eleven miles' walk; and the queen of the sports was merciful, adding, "But I must be gone, or Terry will be getting up his favourite tableau of the wounded men of Clontarf, or Rothesay, or the Black Bull's Head, or some equally pleasing little incident."

"Is it going on well?" asked Mrs. Poynsett.

"Sweetly! Couldn't be better. They have all amalgamated and are in the midst of the 'old family coach,' with Captain Duncombe telling the story. He is quite up to the trick, and enjoys turning the tables on his ladies."

"And Camilla?" asked Lenore, in a hesitating, anxious tone

"Oh! she's gone in for it. I think she is the springs! I heard her ask where you were, and Charley told her; so you need not be afraid to stay in peace, if you have a turn that way. Good-bye; you'd laugh to see how delighted people are to be let off the lecture." And she bent over Lenore with a parting kiss, full of significance of congratulation.

She returned, after changing her dress, to find a pretty fairy tableau, contrived by the Bowater sisters, in full progress, and delighting the children and the mothers. Lady Vivian contrived to get a word with her as she returned.

"Beautifully managed, Lady Rosamond. I tell Cecil she should enjoy a defeat by such strategy."

"It is Mrs. Poynsett's regular Christmas party," said Rosamond, not deigning any other reply.

"I congratulate her on her skilful representatives," said Lady Tyrrell. "May I ask if we are to see the hero of the day? No? What! you would say better employed? Poor children, we must let them alone to-night for their illusion, though I am sorry it should be deepened; it will be only the more pain by and by."

"I don't see that," said Rosamond, stoutly.

"Ah! Lady Rosamond, you are a happy young bride, untaught what is l'impossible." Rosamond could not help thinking that no one understood it better than she, as the eldest of a large family with more rank and far more desires than means; but she disliked Lady Tyrrell far too much for even her open nature to indulge in confidences, and she made a successful effort to escape from her neighbourhood by putting two pale female Fullers into the place of honour in front of the folding doors into the small drawing-room, which served as a stage, and herself hovered about the rear, wishing she could find some means of silencing Miss Moy's voice, which was growing louder and more boisterous than ever.

The charade which Rosamond had expected was the inoffensive, if commonplace, Inspector, and the window she beheld, when the curtain drew up, was, she supposed, the bar of an inn. But no; on the board were two heads, ideals of male and female beauty, one with a waxed moustache, the other with a huge chignon, vividly recalling Mr. Pettitt's Penates. Presently came by a dapper professor, in blue spectacles and a college cap, who stood contemplating, and indulging in a harangue on entities and molecules, spirit and matter, affinities and development, while the soft deep brown eyes of the chignoned head languished, and the blue ones of the moustached one rolled, and the muscles twitched and the heads turned till, by a strong process of will explained by the professor, they bent their necks, erected themselves, and finally started into life and the curtain fell on them with clasped hands!

It rose to show the newly-animated pair, Junius Brutus and Barberina his wife, at the breakfast table, with a boar's head of brawn before them, while the Lady Barberina boldly asserted her claims to the headship of the house. Had she not lately been all head?

The pathetic reply was, "Would it were so still, my dear. All head and no tongue, like our present meal."

The lady heaved up the boar's head to throw at him, and the scene closed.

Next, Brutus was seen awkwardly cleaning his accoutrements, having enlisted, as he soliloquized, to escape from woman.

Enter a sergeant with a rich Irish brogue, and other recruits, forming the awkward squad. The drill was performed with immense spirit, but only one of the soldiers showed any dexterity; but while the sergeant was upholding him as 'the very moral of a patthern to the rest,' poor Brutus was seized with agonizing horror at the recognition of Barberina in this disguise!

"Why not?" she argued. "Why should not woman learn to use the arms of which man has hitherto usurped the use?"

Poor Brutus stretched out his arms in despair, and called loudly for the professor to restore him to his original state of silent felicity in the barber's window.

"Ye needn't do that, me boy," quoth the sergeant with infinite scorn. "Be ye where ye will, ye'll never be aught but a blockhead."

Therewith carriages were being announced to the heads of families; and with compliments and eager thanks, and assurances that nothing could have been more delightful, the party broke up.

Captain Duncombe, while muffling his boys, declared that he never saw a cleverer hit in his life, and that those two De Lancey brothers ought to be on the stage; while Miss Moy loudly demanded whether he did not feel it personal; and Mrs. Tallboys, gracefully shaking hands with Anne and Rosamond, declared it a grand challenge where the truth had been unconsciously hit off. Cecil was nowhere to be seen.



CHAPTER XVIII Demonstrations

Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.—BURNS

The hours of the soiree had been early; but the breakfast was so irregular and undecided as to time, that no one took much notice of an intimation which Jenkins had received from the grim Mrs. Grindstone that Mrs, Charnock Poynsett would take breakfast in her own room. Indeed, they all felt glad that her views of etiquette did not bind them to their places; for Frank was burning to be off to Sirenwood, forgetting that it was far easier to be too early than too late for Sir Harry Vivian, who was wont to smoke till long after midnight, and was never visible till the midday repast.

And thus it was Lady Tyrrell who came to Frank alone. "Early afoot," she said; "you foolish, impatient fellow! You will outrun my best advice."

"Ah! but I'm armed. I always told you we might trust to my mother, and it is all right. She loves Lenore with all her heart, and consents freely and gladly."

"Indeed! Well, the dear child has made her conquest!"

"I always knew she would when once reserve was broken down."

"Did you get up the alarm on purpose?"

"Really, one would think I had done so. One such moment was worth years of ordinary meetings! Half the battle is won!"

"Have you seen your mother this morning?"

"No; but she knew I was coming."

"Then you do not know what her feelings are on cooler reflection?"

"My mother would never retract what she has once assured me of," said Frank, haughtily.

"Forgive me—of what has she assured you?"

"That she regards Eleonora as a dear daughter, and that implies doing the same for me as for my brothers. If Sir Harry would but be so good as to come and see her—'

"Stay, Frank, you have not come that length. You forget that if you have, as you say, gained half the battle, there is another half; and that my father very reasonably feels hurt at being the last to be favoured with the intelligence."

"Dear Lady Tyrrell, you can see how it was. There was no helping it when once I could speak to Lenore; and then no one would have let me utter a word till I had gone through the examination. We never meant to go on a system of concealment; but you know how every one would have raved and stormed if I had betrayed a thought beyond old Driver, and yet it was only being at rest about Lenore that carried me through without breaking down. Can't you see?"

"You special pleader! May you win over my father; but you must remember that we are a fallen house, unable to do all we wish."

"If I might see Sir Harry! I must make him forgive me."

"I will see whether he is ready."

Could Frank's eyes have penetrated the walls, he would have seen Lady Tyrrell received with the words, "Well, my dear, I hope you have got rid of the young man—poor fellow!"

"I am afraid that cannot be done without your seeing him yourself."

"Hang it! I hate it! I can't abide it, Camilla. He's a nice lad, though he is his mother's son; and Lenore's heart is set on him, and I can't bear vexing the child."

"Lena cares for him only because she met him before she knew what life is like. After one season she will understand what five hundred a year means."

"Well, you ought to know your sister best; but if the lad has spoken to her, Lena is not the girl to stand his getting his conge so decidedly."

"Exactly; it would only lead to heroics, and deepen the mischief."

"Hang it! Then what do you want me to say?"

"Stand up for your rights, and reduce him to submission by displeasure at not having been consulted. Then explain how there can be no engagement at once; put him on his honour to leave her free till after her birthday in November."

"What! have him dangling after her? That's no way to make her forget him."

"She never will under direct opposition—she is too high-spirited for that; but if we leave it alone, and they are unpledged, there is a fair chance of her seeing the folly both for her and for him."

"I don't know that. Lena may be high-flown; but things go deep with the child—deeper than they did with you, Camilla!"

Perhaps this was a stab, for there was bitterness in the answer. "You mean that she is less willing to give up a fancy for the family good. Remember, it is doubly imperative that Lena should marry a man whose means are in his own power, so that he could advance something. This would be simply ruin—throwing up the whole thing, after all I have done to retrieve our position."

"After all, Camilla, I am growing an old man, and poor Tom is gone. I don't know that the position is worth so much to me as the happiness to her, poor child!" said Sir Harry, wistfully.

"Happiness!" was the scornful answer. "If you said 'her own way,' it would be nearer the truth. A back street in London—going about in a cab—and occasional holidays on sufferance from Mrs. Poynsett."

However little happiness either father or daughter had derived from their chosen ways, this idea was abhorrent to both; and Lady Tyrrell pressed her advantage. "If we keep him waiting much longer he will be rushing after Lena, and if you show the least sign of relenting he will insist on dragging you to an interview with his mother."

The threat was effectual; for Sir Harry had had passages-at arms enough with Mrs. Poynsett to make him dread her curt dry civility far more than either dun or bailiff, and he was at once roused to the determination to be explicit.

Frank met him, with crimson face and prepared speech. "Good morning, Sir Harry! I am afraid you may think that you have reason to complain of my not having spoken to you sooner; but I trusted to your previous knowledge of my feelings, and I was anxious to ascertain my position before laying it before you, though I don't believe I should have succeeded unless my mind had been set at rest."

Soft-hearted Sir Harry muttered, "I understand, but—"

The pause at that 'but' was so long that Frank ventured on going on. "I have not had an official communication, but I know privately that I have passed well and stand favourably for promotion, so that my income will go on increasing, and my mother will make over to me five thousand pounds, as she has done to Miles and Julius, so that it can be settled on Eleonora at once."

"There, there, that's enough!" said Sir Harry, coerced by his daughter's glances; "there's plenty of time before coming to all that! You see, my dear boy, I always liked you, and had an immense respect for your—your family; but, you see, Eleonora is young, and under the circumstances she ought not to engage herself. She can't any way marry before coming of age, and—considering all things—I should much prefer that this should go no further."

"You ought both to be free!" said Lady Tyrrell.

"That I can never be!"

"Nor do you think that she can—only it sounds presumptuous," smiled Lady Tyrrell. "Who can say? But things have to be proved; and considering what young untried hearts are, it is safer and happier for both that there should be perfect freedom, so that no harm should be done, if you found that you had not known your own minds."

"It will make no difference to me."

"Oh yes, we know that!" laughed Sir Harry. "Only suppose you changed your mind, we could not be angry with you."

"You don't think I could!"

"No, no," said Lady Tyrrell; "we think no such thing. Don't you see, if we did not trust your honour, we could not leave this in suspense. All we desire is that these matters may be left till it is possible to see our way, when the affairs of the estate are wound up; for we can't tell what the poor child will have. Come, don't repeat that it will make no difference. It may not to you; but it must to us, and to your mother."

"My mother expects nothing!" said Frank, eagerly; but it was a false step.

Sir Harry bristled up, saying, "Sir, my daughter shall go into no family that—that has not a proper appreciation of—and expectations befitting her position."

"Dear papa," exclaimed Lady Tyrrell, "he means no such thing. He is only crediting his mother with his own romantic ardour and disinterestedness.—Hark! there actually is the gong. Come and have some luncheon, and contain yourself, you foolish boy!"

"I am sorry I said anything that seemed unfitting," said Frank, meekly. "You know I could not mean it!"

"Yes, yes, yes, I bear no malice; only one does not like to see one's own child courted without a voice in the matter, and to hear she is to be taken as a favour, expecting nothing. But, there, we'll say no more. I like you, Frank Charnock! and only wish you had ten thousand a year, or were any one else; but you see—you see. Well, let's eat our luncheon."

"Does she know this decision?" asked Frank, aside, as he held open the door for Lady Tyrrell.

"Yes, she knows it can go no further; though we are too merciful to deny you the beatific vision, provided you are good, and abstain from any more little tendresses for the present.—Ah!"—enter Cecil— "I thought we should see you to-day, my dear!"

"Yes; I am on my way to meet my husband at the station," said Cecil, meeting her in the hall, and returning her kiss.

"Is Raymond coming home to-day?" said Frank, as he too exchanged greetings. "Ah! I remember; I did not see you at breakfast this morning."

"No!" and there was signification in the voice; but Frank did not heed it, for coming down-stairs was Eleonora, her face full of a blushing sweetness, which gave it all the beauty it had ever lacked.

He could do no more than look and speak before all the rest; the carriage was ordered for the sisters to go out together, and he lingered in vain for a few words in private, for Sir Harry kept him talking about Captain Duncombe's wonderful colt, till Cecil had driven off one way, and their two hostesses the other; and he could only ride home to tell his mother how he had sped.

Better than Rosamond, better even than Charlie, was his mother as a confidante; and though she had been surprised into her affectionate acceptance of Eleonora, it was an indescribable delight to mother and son to find themselves once more in full sympathy; while he poured out all that had been pent up ever since his winter at Rockpier. She almost made common cause with him in the question, what would Raymond say? And it proved to be news to her that her eldest son was to be immediately expected at home. Cecil had not come to see her, and had sent her no message; but ungracious inattention was not so uncommon as to excite much remark from one who never wished to take heed to it; and it was soon forgotten in the praise of Eleonora.

Cecil meanwhile was receiving Raymond at the station. He was pleased to see her there in her pony-carriage, but a little startled by the brief coldness of her reply to his inquiry after his mother, and the tight compression of her lips all the time they were making their way through the town, where, as usual, he was hailed every two or three minutes by persons wanting a word with him. When at last there was a free space, she began: "Raymond, I wish to know whether you mean me to be set at naught, and my friends deliberately insulted?"

"What?"

A gentleman here hurried up with "I'll not detain you a minute."

He did, however, keep them for what seemed a great many, to the chafing spirit which thought a husband should have no ears save for his wife's wrongs; so she made her preface even more startling— "Raymond, I cannot remain in the house any longer with Lady Rosamond Charnock and those intolerable brothers of hers!"

"Perhaps you will explain yourself," said Raymond, almost relieved by the evident exaggeration of the expressions.

"There has been a conspiracy to thwart and insult me—a regular conspiracy!"

"Cecil! let me understand you. What can have happened?"

"When I arranged an evening for my friends to meet Mrs. Tallboys, I did not expect to have it swamped by a pack of children, and noisy nonsensical games, nor that both she and I should be insulted by practical jokes and a personal charade."

"A party to meet Mrs. Tallboys?"

"A ladies' party, a conversazione."

"What—by my mother's wish?"

"I was given to understand that I had carte blanche in visiting matters."

"You did not ask her consent?"

"I saw no occasion."

"You did not?"

"No."

"Then, Cecil, I must say that whatever you may have to complain of, you have committed a grave act of disrespect."

"I was told that I was free to arrange these things!"

"Free!" said Raymond, thoroughly roused; "free to write notes, and order the carriage, and play lady of the house; but did you think that made you free to bring an American mountebank of a woman to hold forth absurd trash in my mother's own drawing-room, as soon as my back was turned?"

"I should have done the same had you been there."

"Indeed!" ironically; "I did not know how far you had graduated in the Rights of Women. So you invited these people?"

"Then the whole host of children was poured in on us, and everything imaginable done to interrupt, and render everything rational impossible. I know it was Rosamond's contrivance, she looked so triumphant, dressed in an absurd fancy dress, and her whole train doing nothing but turning me into ridicule, and Mrs. Tallboys too. Whatever you choose to call her, you cannot approve of a stranger and foreigner being insulted here. It is that about which I care— not myself; I have seen none of them since, nor shall I do so until a full apology has been made to my guest and to myself."

"You have not told me the offence."

"In the first place, there was an absurd form of Christmas-tree, to which one was dragged blindfold, and sedulously made ridiculous; and I—I had a dust-pan and brush. Yes, I had, in mockery of our endeavours to purify that unhappy street."

"I should have taken it as a little harmless fun," said Raymond. "Depend on it, it was so intended."

"What, when Mrs. Tallboys had a padlock and key? I see you are determined to laugh at it all. Most likely they consulted you beforehand."

"Cecil, I cannot have you talk such nonsense. Is this all you have to complain of?"

"No. There was a charade on the word Blockhead, where your brother Charles and the two De Lanceys caricatured what they supposed to be Mrs. Tallboys' doctrines."

"How did she receive it?"

"Most good-humouredly; but that made it no better on their part."

"Are you sure it was not a mere ordinary piece of pleasantry, with perhaps a spice of personality, but nothing worth resenting?"

"You did not see it. Or perhaps you think no indignity towards me worth resentment?"

"I do not answer that, Cecil; you will think better of those words another time," said Raymond, sternly. "But when you want your cause taken up, you have to remember that whatever the annoyance, you brought it upon yourself and her, by your own extraordinary proceeding towards my mother—I will not say towards myself. I will try to smooth matters. I think the De Lanceys must have acted foolishly; but the first step ought to be an expression of regret for such conduct towards my mother."

"I cannot express regret. I ought to have been told if there were things forbidden."

"Must I forbid your playing Punch and Judy, or dancing on the tight- rope?" cried Raymond, exasperated.

Cecil bit her lip, and treated the exclamation with the silent dignity of a deeply injured female; and thus they reached home, when Raymond said, "Come to your senses, Cecil and apologize to my mother. You can explain that you did not know the extent of your powers."

"Certainly not. They all plotted against me, and I am the person to whom apology is due."

Wherewith she marched up-stairs, leaving Raymond, horribly perplexed, to repair at once to his mother's room, where Frank still was; but after replying about his success in the examination, the younger brother retreated, preferring that his story should be told by his mother; but she had not so much as entered on it when Raymond demanded what had so much disturbed Cecil.

"I was afraid she would be vexed," said Mrs. Poynsett; "but we were in a difficulty. We thought she hardly knew what she had been led into, and that as she had invited her ladies, it would do less harm to change the character of the party than to try to get it given up."

"I have no doubt you did the best you could," said Raymond, speaking with more like censure of his mother than he had ever done since the hot days of his love for Camilla Vivian; "and you could have had nothing to do with the personalities that seem to have been the sting."

Mrs. Poynsett, true boy-lover that she was, had been informed of the success of Tom's naughtiness—not indeed till after it was over, when there was nothing to be done but to shake her head and laugh; and now she explained so that her son came to a better understanding of what had happened.

As to the extinguishing Women's Rights in child's play, he saw that it had been a wise manoeuvre of his mother, to spare any appearance of dissension, while preventing what she disapproved and what might have injured his interests; but he was much annoyed with the De Lanceys for having clogged the measure with their own folly; and judging of cause by effect, he would hear of no excuse for Rosamond or her brothers, and went away resolved that though nothing should induce him to quarrel with Julius, yet he should tell him plainly that he must restrain his wife and her brothers from annoying Cecil by their practical jokes. He was, as usual, perfectly gentle to his mother, and thanked her for her arrangement. "It was not her fault that it had not turned out better," he said; and he did not seem to hear her exoneration of Rosamond.

He had scarcely gone when Rosamond came in from the village, asking whether he had arrived, as she had seen his hat in the hall.

"Yes, Rosamond. You did not tell me of Cecil's vexation!"

"Cecil? Have I seen her since? No, I remember now. But is she angry? Was it the dust-pan? Oh! Tom, Tom!"

"That and the Blockhead. Did Tom say anything very cutting?"

"Why it was an old stock charade they acted two years ago! I had better tell her so."

"If you would it would be an immense relief, my dear. Raymond is very much annoyed; she says she will speak to nobody till she has had an apology."

"Then she can be as great a goose as I! Why, the Yankee muse and Mrs. Duncombe took all in good part; but Cecil has not atom of fun in her. Don't you think that was the gift the fairies left out at the christening of the all-endowed princess?"

Mrs. Poynsett laughed, but anxiously. "My dear, if you can make peace, it will be a family blessing."

"I! I'll eat any dirt in the world, and make Tom eat it too, rather than you should be vexed, or make discord in the house," cried Rosamond, kissing her, and speeding away to Cecil's door.

It was Raymond who opened it, looking perturbed and heated, but a good deal amazed at seeing his intended scapegoat coming thus boldly to present herself.

"Let me in," she breathlessly said. "I am come to tell Cecil how sorry I am she was so much vexed; I really did not know it before."

"I am ready to accept any proper apology that is offered me," said Cecil, with cold dignity; "but I cannot understand your profession that you did not know I was vexed. You could have intended nothing else."

"But, Cecil, you misunderstood—" began Rosamond.

"I never misunderstand—"

"No human creature can say that!" interposed Raymond, immensely thankful to Rosamond—whatever her offence—for her overtures, and anxious they should be accepted.

"I could not," continued Cecil, "misunderstand the impertinent insults offered to my friends and to myself; though if Lady Rosamond is willing to acknowledge the impropriety I will overlook it."

Raymond's face and neck crimsoned, but Raymond's presence helped her to rein in her temper; and she thought of Julius, and refrained from more than a "Very well. It was meant as a harmless joke, and—and if you—you did not take it so, I am very sorry."

Raymond saw the effort, and looked at his wife for softening; but as he saw none, he met the advance by saying kindly, "I am sure it was so meant, though the moment was unfortunate."

"Indeed it was so," cried Rosamond, feeling it much easier to speak to him, and too generous to profess her own innocence and give up Tom. "It was just a moment's idle fancy—just as we've chaffed one another a hundred times; and for the Blockhead, it is the boys' pet old stock charade that they've acted scores of times. It was mere thoughtlessness; and I'll do or say anything Cecil pleases, if only she won't bother Julius or Mrs. Poynsett about our foolishness." And the mist of tears shone in the dark lashes as she held out her hand.

"I cannot suppose it mere thoughtlessness—" began Cecil; but Raymond cut her short with angry displeasure, of which she had not supposed him capable. "This is not the way to receive so kind an apology. Take Rosamond's hand, and respond properly."

To respond properly was as little in Cecil's power as her will; but she had not been an obedient daughter for so large a proportion of her life without having an instinct for the voice of real authority, and she did not refuse her hand, with the words, "If you express regret I will say no more about it."

And Rosamond, thinking of Julius and his mother, swallowed the ungraciousness, and saying "Thank you," turned to go away.

"Thank you most heartily for this, my dear Rosamond," said Raymond, holding out his hand as he opened the door for her; "I esteem it a very great kindness."

Rosamond, as she felt the strong pressure of his hand, looked up in his face with a curious arch compassion in her great gray eyes. He shut the door behind her, and saw Cecil pouting by the mantelpiece, vexed at being forced into a reconciliation, even while she knew she could not persist in sending all the family except Frank to Coventry. He was thoroughly angry at the dogged way in which she had received this free and generous peace-making, and he could not but show it. "Well," he said, "I never saw an apology made with a better grace nor received with a worse one."

Cecil made no reply. He stood for a minute looking at her with eyes of wondering displeasure, then, with a little gesture of amazement, left the room.

Cecil felt like the drowning woman when she gave the last scissor- like gesture with her fingers. She was ready to fall into a chair and cry. A sense of desolateness was very strong on her, and that look in his dark eyes had seemed to blast her.

But pride came to her aid. Grindstone was moving about ready to dress her for dinner. No one should see that she was wounded, or that she took home displeasure which she did not merit. So she held up her head, and was chilling and dignified all dinner-time; after which she repaired to Lady Tyrrell's conversazione.



CHAPTER XIX The Monstrous Regiment of Women

Descend, my muse!

Raymond had been invited by one of his fellow-guests to make a visit at his house, and this was backed up on the morning after his return by a letter containing a full invitation to both himself and his wife. He never liked what he called "doing nothing in other people's houses," but he thought any sacrifice needful that might break up Cecil's present intimacies, and change the current of her ideas; and his mother fully agreed in thinking that it would be well to being a round of visits, to last until the Session of Parliament should have begin. By the time it was over Julius and Rosamond would be in their own house, and it might be easier to make a new beginning.

The friends whom he could reckon on as sure to welcome him and his bride were political acquaintances of mark, far above the Dunstone range, and Cecil could not but be gratified, even while Mrs. Duncombe and her friend declared that they were going to try to demoralize her by the seductions of the aristocracy.

After all, Cecil was too much of an ingrained Charnock to be very deeply imbued with Women's Rights. All that she wanted was her own way, and opposition. Lady Tyrrell had fascinated her and secured her affection, and she followed her lead, which was rather that of calm curiosity and desire to hear the subject ventilated than actual partisanship, for which her ladyship was far too clever, as well as too secure in her natural supremacy. They had only seemed on that side because other people were so utterly alien to it, and because of their friendship with the really zealous Mrs. Duncombe.

The sanitary cause which had become mixed with it was, however, brought strongly before their minds by Mrs. Tallboys' final lecture, at which she impressed on the ladies' minds with great vehemence that here they might lead the way. If men would not act as a body, the ladies should set the example, and shame them, by each doing her very utmost in the cleansing of the nests of disease that reeked in the worn-out civilization of the cities of the old country. The ladies listened: Lady Tyrrell, with a certain interest in such an eager flow of eloquence; Eleonora, with thoughts far away. Bessie Duncombe expressed a bold practical determination to get one fragment, at least, of the work done, since she knew Pettitt, the hair-dresser, was public-spirited enough to allow her to carry out her ideas on his property, and Cecil, with her ample allowance, as yet uncalled for, in the abundance of her trousseau, promised to supply what the hair-dresser could not advance, as a tangible proof of her sincerity.

She held a little council with Mrs. Duncombe at the working society, when she resigned her day into that lady's hands on going away. "I shall ask Mrs. Miles Charnock," said that lady. "You don't object?"

"Oh no, only don't ask her till I'm gone, and you know she will only come on condition of being allowed to expound."

"We must have somebody, and now the thing has gone on so long, and will end in three months, the goody element will not do much harm, and, unluckily, most women will not act without it."

"You have been trying to train Miss Moy."

"I shall try still, but I can't get her to take interest in anything but the boisterous side of emancipation."

"I can't bear the girl," said Cecil; "I am sure she comes only for the sake of the horses."

"I'm afraid so; but she amuses Bob, and there's always a hope of moving her father through her, though she declares that the Three Pigeons is his tenderest point, and that he had as soon meddle with it as with the apple of his eye. I suppose he gets a great rent from that Gadley."

"Do you really think you shall do anything with her?" said Cecil, who might uphold her at home, but whose taste was outraged by her.

"I hope so! At any rate, she is not conventional. Why, when I was set free from my school at Paris, and married Bob three months later, I hadn't three ideas in my head beyond horses and balls and soldiers. It has all come with life and reading, my dear."

And a very odd 'all' it was, so far; but there was this difference between Bessie Duncombe and Cecil Charnock Poynsett, that the 'gospel of progress' was to the one the first she had ever really known, and became a reaching forward to a newly-perceived standard of benevolence and nobleness: to the other it was simply retrograding, and that less from conviction than from the spirit of rivalry and opposition.

Lady Tyrrell with her father and sister were likewise going to leave home, to stay among friends with whom Sir Harry could hunt until the London campaign, when Eleonora was to see the world. Thus the bazaar was postponed until the return of the ladies in the summer, when the preparations would be more complete and the season more suitable. The church must wait for it, for nothing like a sufficient amount of subscription had been as yet promised.

There was still, however, to come that select dinner-party at Mrs. Duncombe's, to which Julius, moved by her zeal and honesty, as well as by curiosity, had promised his presence with Rosamond, "at his peril," as she said.

They were kept so long at the door of Aucuba Villa that they had begun to doubt if they had not mistaken the day, until the Sirenwood carriage crashed up behind them; and after the third pull at the bell they were admitted by an erect, alert figure,—a remnant of Captain Duncombe's military life.

He marshalled them into the drawing-room, where by dim firelight they could just discern the Professor and a certain good-natured horsey friend of the Captain's, who sprang up from easy-chairs on the opposite sides of the fire to greet them, while the man hastily stirred up the fire, lighted the gas, dashed at the table, shutting up an open blotting-book that lay on it, closing an ink-bottle, and gathering up some torn fragments or paper, which he would have thrown into the scrap-basket but that it was full of little books on the hundred ways of dressing a pumpkin. Then he gave a wistful look at the ami de la maison, as if commending the guests to him, and receiving a nod in return, retired.

"I fear we are too early," said Lady Tyrrell.

"Fact is," said the familiar, whose name Julius was trying to remember, "there's been a catastrophe; cook forgot to order the turkey, went to bed last night in hysterics, and blew out the gas instead of turning it off. No, no"—as the guests expecting fatal consequences, looked as if they thought they had better remove themselves: "she came round, and Duncombe has driven over to Backsworth to bring home the dinner. He'll soon be back."

This not appearing greatly to reassure the visitors, the Professor added, "No, no, ladies. Mrs. Duncombe charged me to say that she will be perfectly fixed in a short time, and I flatter myself that my wife is equal to any emergency."

"It is very kind in her," said Lady Tyrrell.

"I confess," said Professor Tallboys, "that I am not sorry that such an occasion should occur of showing an American lady's domestic powers. I flatter myself they do not discredit her cause."

Just then were heard the wheels of the drag, and in rushed one of the boys, grasping Eleonora's skirts, and proclaiming, "We've got the grub! Oysters and a pie! Oh my!"

"Satisfactory!" said the friend. "But let go, Ducky, you are rumpling Miss Vivian."

"She's coming to see the quarion! You promised, Lena! Here's a jolly crayfish! He'll pinch!"

There was a small conservatory or glazed niche on one side of the room, into which the boy dragged Lenore, and Julius followed, dimly sensible of what the quarion might be, and hoping for a word with the young lady, while he trusted to his wife to occupy her sister.

The place contained two desolate camellias, with leaves in the same proportion as those on trees in the earlier ages of illumination, and one scraggy, leafless geranium, besides a green and stagnant tank, where a goldfish moved about, flapping and gasping, as the boy disturbed it in his search for the crayfish. He absorbed all the conversation, so that Julius could only look back into the room, where an attempt at artistic effect was still dimly visible through accumulated litter. The Venus of Milo stood on a bracket, with a riding-whip in her arms, and a bundle of working society tickets behind her, and her vis-a-vis, the Faun of Praxiteles, was capped by a glove with one finger pointing upwards, and had a ball of worsted tangled about his legs; but further observation was hindered by the man-servant's voice at the outer door, "Master Ducky, where are you? Your ma says you are to go to bed directly."

"No, no, I'll put myself to bed!"

"Come, sir, please do, like a good boy—Master Pinney won't go without you, and I must put him to bed while they are dishing up. Come, sir, I've got a mince-pie for you."

"And some oysters—Bobby said I should have some oysters!"

"Yes, yes; come along, sir."

And Master Ducky submitted to his fate, while Julius looked his wonder, and asked, "Is he nursery-maid?"

"Just now, since the bonne went," said Lenore. "He is a most faithful, attached servant, who will do anything for them. She does attach people deeply when the first shock is over."

"I am coming to believe so," he answered. "There seem to me to be excellent elements."

"I am so glad!" said Lenore; "she is so thorough, so true and frank; and much of this oddness is really an inconsistent struggle to keep out of debt."

"Well! at any rate I am thankful to her for this opportunity of seeing you," said Julius. "We have both been longing to speak our welcome to you."

"Thank you. It is so kind," she fervently whispered; "all the kinder for the state of things that is insisted on—though you know that it can make no real difference," she added, apparently addressing the goldfish.

"Frank knows it," said Julius, in a low voice.

"I trust he does, though I cannot see him to assure him—you will?" she added, looking up at him with a shy brightness in her eye and a flush on her cheek.

"Yes, indeed!" he said, laying his hand on hers for a moment. "I fear you may both have much to pull through, but I think you are of a steadfast nature."

"I hope so—I think I am, for none of my feelings seem to me ever to change, except that I get harder, and, I am afraid, bitterer."

"I can understand your feeling that form of trial."

"Oh, if you could, and would help me!"

"As a brother; if I may."

Again she laid a hand on his, saying, "I have longed to talk openly to you ever since we met in the cow-shed; but I could not make any advance to any of you, because," she whispered in haste, "I thought it my duty to hold back from Frank. And now, till we go away, Camilla watches me and occupies me every minute, will not even let me ride out with papa. I wonder she lets me talk to you now."

"We know each other," said Julius, shortly.

It was so. Once, in the plain-spoken days of childhood, Miles and Julius had detected Camilla Vivian in some flagrant cheating at a game, and had roundly expressed their opinion. In the subsequent period of Raymond's courtship, Miles had succumbed to the fascination, but Julius had given one such foil, that she had never again attempted to cajole him.

"I have seen that you did from the first," said Lenore. "And it would make it much easier to talk to you than to any outsider, who would never understand, even if it were possible for me to explain, how hard it is to see which way my duty lies—especially filial."

"Do you mean in general, or in this special matter?"

"Both. You see, in her hands he is so different from what he was before she came home, that I don't feel as if I was obeying him— only her; and I don't think I am bound to do that. Not in the great matter, I am clear. Nobody can meddle with my real sincere pledge of myself to Frank, nobody!" she spoke as if there was iron in her lips. "But as far as overt acts go, they have a right to forbid me, till I am of age at least, and we must bear it."

"Yes, you are right there."

"But there are thousands of other little cases of right and wrong, and altogether I have come to such a spirit of opposition that I find it easier to resist than to do anything with a good grace."

"You cannot always tell when resistance is principle, and when temper or distaste."

"There's distaste enough always," said poor Lenore.

"To gaieties?" he said, amazed as one habituated to his wife's ravenous appetite for any sort of society or amusement.

"Of course," she answered sadly. "A great deal of trouble just for a little empty babble. Often not one word worth remembering, and a general sense of having been full of bad feelings."

"No enjoyment?" he asked in surprise.

"Only by the merest chance and exception," she answered, surprised at his surprise; "what is there to enjoy?"

The peculiar-looking clergyman might have seemed more likely to ask such a question than the beautiful girl, but he looked at her anxiously and said, "Don't nourish morbid dislike and contempt, my dear Lena, it is not a safeguard. There are such things as perilous reactions. Try to weigh justly, and be grateful for kindness, and to like what is likeable."

At that moment, after what had been an interval of weary famine to all but these two, host and hostess appeared, the lady as usual, picturesque, though in the old black silk, with a Roman sash tied transversely, and holly in her hair; and gaily shaking hands— "That's right, Lady Rosamond; so you are trusted here! Your husband hasn't sent you to represent him?"

"I'm afraid his confidence in me did not go so far," said Rosamond.

"Ah! I see—Lady Tyrrell, how d'ye do—you've brought Lena? Well, Rector, are you prepared?"

"That depends on what you expect of me."

"Have you the convinceable spot in your mind?"

"We must find it. It is very uncommon, and indurates very soon, so we had better make the most of our opportunity," said the American lady, who had entered as resplendent as before, though in so different a style that Rosamond wondered how such a wardrobe could be carried about the world; and the sporting friend muttered, "Stunning! she has been making kickshaws all day, and looks as if she came out of a bandbox! If all women were like that, it might pay."

It was true. Mrs. Tallboys was one of those women of resource whose practical powers may well inspire the sense of superiority, and with the ease and confidence of her country.

The meal was a real success. That some portion had been procured, ready dressed, at Backsworth, was evident, but all that had been done at home had a certain piquant Transatlantic flavour, in which the American Muse could be detected; and both she and her husband were polished, lively, and very agreeable, in spite of the twang in their voices. Miss Moy, the Captain and his friend, talked horses at one end of the table, and Rosamond faltered her woman's horror for the rights of her sex, increased by this supposed instance.

When the ladies rose at dessert, Mrs. Duncombe summoned him: "Come, Rector!—come, Professor! you're not to sit over your wine."

"We rise so far above the ordinary level of manhood!" said Julius, obediently rising.

"Once for all, Mr. Charnock," said Mrs. Duncombe, turning on him with flashing eyes and her Elizabethan majesty, "if you come prepared to scoff, we can have nothing to do with you."

Rosamond's eyes looked mischievous, and her brow cocked, but Julius answered in earnest, "Really, I assure you I have not come in a spirit of sarcasm; I am honestly desirous of hearing your arguments."

"Shall I stay in your stead?" added Miss Moy. "They'll be much more amusing here!"

"Come, Gussie, you're on your good behaviour," said Mrs. Duncombe. "Bob kept you to learn the right way of making a sensation."

As they entered the drawing-room two more guests arrived, namely, Joanna Bowater, and Herbert, who walked in with a kind of grim submission, till he saw Lady Tyrrell, when he lighted up, and, on a little gracious gesture with her hand, he sat down on the sofa beside her; and was there solaced by an occasional remark in an undertone; for indeed the boy was always in a trance wherever she was, and she had a fair amount of by-play wherewith to entertain herself and him during the discussion.

"You are just in time, Jenny," said Rosamond; "the great question is going to be started."

"And it is—?"

"The Equality of the Sexes," pronounced Mrs. Duncombe.

"Ex cathedra?" said Julius, as the graceful Muse seated herself in a large red arm-chair. "This scene is not an easy one in which to dispute it."

"You see, Bessie," said Mrs. Tallboys, "that men are so much afraid of the discussion that they try to elude it with empty compliment under which is couched a covert sneer."

"Perhaps," returned Julius, "we might complain that we can't open our lips without compliments and sneers being detected when we were innocent of both."

"Were you?" demanded Mrs. Tallboys.

"Honestly, I was looking round and thinking the specimens before us would tell in your favour."

"What a gallant parson!" cried Miss Moy.

But a perfect clamour broke out from others.

"Julius, that's too bad! when you know—"

"Mr Charnock, you are quite mistaken. Bob is much cleverer than I, in his own line—"

"Quite true, Rector," affirmed Herbert; "Joan has more brains than all the rest of us—for a woman, I mean."

"For a woman!" repeated Mrs. Tallboys. "Let a human being do or be what she will, it is disposed of in a moment by that one verdict, 'Very well for a woman!'"

"How is it with the decision of posterity?" said Jenny. "Can you show any work of woman of equal honour and permanence with that of men?"

"Because her training has been sedulously inferior."

"Not always," said Jenny; "not in Italy in the cinque cento, nor in England under Elizabeth."

"Yes, and there were names—!"

"Names, yes, but that is all. The lady's name is remembered for the curiosity of her having equalled the ordinary poet or artist of her time, but her performances either are lost or only known to curious scholars. They have not the quality which makes things permanent."

"What do you say to Sappho?"

"There is nothing of her but a name, and fragments that curious scholars read."

"Worse luck to her if she invented Sapphics," added Herbert.

"One of womankind's torments for mankind, eh?" said his neighbour.

"And there are plenty more such," asserted Mrs. Duncombe, boldly (for these were asides). "It is only that one can't recollect—and the men have suppressed them."

"I think men praised them," said Jenny, "and that we remember the praise, not the works. For instance, Roswitha, or Olympia Morata, or Vittoria Colonna. Vittoria's sonnets are extant, but we only value them as being hers, more for what she was than for their intrinsic merit."

"And," added Eleonora, "men did not suppress Hannah More, or Joanna Baillie. You know Scott thought Miss Baillie's dramas would rank with Shakespeare's."

Mrs. Tallboys was better read in logic and mathematics than in history, and did not follow Jenny, but she turned her adversary's argument to her own advantage, by exclaiming, "Are the gentlemen present familiar with these bright lights?"

"I confess my ignorance of some of them," said Julius.

"But my youngest brother knows all that," said Rosamond at a brave venture.

"Macaulay's school-boy," murmured Lady Tyrrell, softly.

"Let us return to the main point," said Mrs. Tallboys, a little annoyed. "It is of the present and future that I would speak, not of the past."

"Does not the past give the only data on which to form a conclusion?" said Julius.

"Certainly not. The proposition is not what a woman or two in her down-trodden state may have exceptionally effected, but her natural equality, and in fact superiority, in all but the physical strength which has imposed an unjust bondage on the higher nature."

"I hardly know where to meet you if you reject all arguments from proved facts," said Julius.

"And the Bible. Why don't you say the Bible?" exclaimed his wife in an undertone; but Mrs. Tallboys took it up and said, "The precepts of Scripture are founded on a state of society passed away. You may find arguments for slavery there."

"I doubt that," said Julius. "There are practical directions for an existing state of things, which have been distorted into sanction for its continuance. The actual precepts are broad principles, which are for all times, and apply to the hired servant as well as to the slave. So again with the relations of man and wife; I can nowhere find a command so adapted to the seclusion and depression of the Eastern woman as to be inapplicable to the Christian matron. And the typical virtuous woman, the valiant woman, is one of the noblest figures anywhere depicted."

"I know," said Mrs. Tallboys, who had evidently been waiting impatiently again to declaim, "that men, even ministers of religion, from Paul if you like downwards, have been willing enough to exalt woman so long as they claim to sit above her. The higher the oppressed, so much higher the self-exaltation of the oppressor. Paul and Peter exalt their virtuous woman, but only as their own appendage, adorning themselves; and while society with religious ministers at the head of it call on woman to submit, and degrade the sex, we shall continue to hear of such disgraces to England as I see in your police reports—brutal mechanics beating their wives."

"I fear while physical force is on the side of the brute," said Julius, "no abstract recognition of equality would save her."

"Society would take up her cause, and protect her."

"So it is willing to do now, if she asks for protection."

"Yes," broke in Rosamond, "but nothing would induce a woman worth sixpence to take the law against her husband."

"There I think Lady Rosamond has at once demonstrated the higher nature of the woman," said Mrs. Tallboys. "What man would be capable of such generosity?"

"No one denies," said Julius, "that generous forbearance, patience, fortitude, and self-renunciation, belong almost naturally to the true wife and mother, and are her great glory; but would she not be stripped of them by self-assertion as the peer in power?"

"Turning our flank again with a compliment," said Mrs. Duncombe. "These fine qualities are very convenient to yourselves, and so you praise them up."

"Not so!" returned Julius, "because they are really the higher virtues!"

"Patience!" at once exclaimed the American and English emancipators with some scorn.

"Yes," said Julius, in a low tone of thorough earnest. "The patience of strength and love is the culmination of virtue."

Jenny knew what was in his mind, but Mrs. Tallboys, with a curious tone, half pique, half triumph, said, "You acknowledge this which you call the higher nature in woman—that is to say, all the passive qualities,—and you are willing to allow her a finer spiritual essence, and yet you do not agree to her equal rights. This is the injustice of the prejudice which has depressed her all these centuries."

"Stay," broke in Jenny, evidently not to the lady's satisfaction. "That does not state the question. Nobody denies that woman is often of a higher and finer essence, as you say, than man, and has some noble qualities in a higher degree than any but the most perfect men; but that is not the question. It is whether she have more force and capacity than man, is in fact actually able to be on an equality."

"And, I say," returned Mrs. Tallboys, "that man has used brute force to cramp woman's intellect and energy so long, that she has learnt to acquiesce in her position, and to abstain from exerting herself, so that it is only where she is partially emancipated, as in my own country, that any idea of her powers can be gained."

"I am afraid," said Julius, "that more may be lost to the world than is gained! No; I am not speaking from the tyrant point of view. I am thinking whether free friction with the world way not lessen that sweetness and tender innocence and purity that make a man's home an ideal and a sanctuary—his best earthly influence."

"This is only sentiment. Innocence is worthless if it cannot stand alone and protect itself!" said Mrs. Tallboys.

"I do not mean innocence unable to stand alone. It should be strong and trustworthy, but should have the bloom on it still, not rubbed off by contact or knowledge of evil. Desire of shielding that bloom from the slightest breath of contamination is no small motive for self-restraint, and therefore a great preservative to most men."

"Women purify the atmosphere wherever they go," said the lady.

"Many women do," returned Julius; "but will they retain that power universally if they succeed in obtaining a position where there will be less consideration for them, and they must be exposed to a certain hardening and roughening process?"

"If so," exclaimed Mrs. Tallboys, "if men are so base, we would soon assert ourselves. We are no frail morning glories for you to guard and worship with restraint, lest forsooth your natural breath should wither us away."

As she spoke the door opened, and, with a strong reek of tobacco, in came the two other gentlemen. "Well, Rector, have you given in?" asked the Captain. "Is Lady Rosamond to mount the pulpit henceforth?"

"Ah! wouldn't I preach you a sermon," returned Rosamond.

"To resume," said Mrs. Tallboys, sitting very upright. "You still go on the old assumption that woman was made for you. It is all the same story: one man says she is for his pleasure, another for his servant, and you, for—for his refinement. You would all have us adjectives. Now I defy you to prove that woman is not a substantive, created for herself."

"If you said 'growed,' Mrs. Tallboys, it would be more consistent," said Jenny. "Her creation and her purpose in the world stand upon precisely the same authority."

"I wonder at you, Miss Bowater," said Mrs. Tallboys. "I cannot understand a woman trying to depreciate her sex."

"No," thrust in Gussie Moy; "I want to know why a woman can't go about without a dowager waddling after her" ("Thank you," breathed Lady Tyrrell into Herbert's ear), "nor go to a club."

"There was such a club proposed in London," said Captain Duncombe, "and do you know, Gussie, the name of it?"

"No!"

"The Middlesex Club!"

"There! it is just as Mrs. Tallboys said; you will do nothing but laugh at us, or else talk sentiment about our refining you. Now, I want to be free to amuse myself."

"I don't think those trifling considerations will be great impediments in your way," said Lady Tyrrell in her blandest tone. "Is that actually the carriage? Thank you, Mrs. Tallboys. This is good-bye, I believe. I am sorry there has not been more time for a fuller exposition to-night."

"There would have been, but I never was so interrupted," said Mrs. Tallboys in an undertone, with a displeased look at Jenny at the other end of the room.

Declamation was evidently more the Muse's forte than argument, but her aside was an aside, and that of the jockey friend was not. "So you waited for us to give your part of the lecture, Miss Moy?"

"Of course. What's the use of talking to a set of women and parsons, who are just the same?"

Poor Herbert's indignant flush infinitely amused the party who were cloaking in the hall. "Poor Gussie; her tongue runs fast," said Mrs. Duncombe.

"Emancipated!" said Jenny. "Good-bye, Mrs. Duncombe. Please let us be educated up to our privileges before we get them."

"A Parthian shot, Jenny," said Julius, as they gave her a homeward lift in the carriage. "You proved yourself the fittest memberess for the future parliament to-night."

"To be elected by the women and parsons," said Jenny, with little chuckle of fun. "Poor Herbert!"

"I only wish that girl was a man that I might horsewhip her," the clerical sentiment growled out from Herbert's corner of the carriage. "Degradation of her sex! She's a standing one!"



CHAPTER XX Vivienne

Of all the old women that ever I saw, Sweet bad luck to my mother in law.—Irish Song

The Parliamentary Session had reached the stage that is ended by no power save that of grouse, and the streets were full of vans fantastically decorated with baths, chairs, bedsteads, and nursery gear.

Cecil could see two before different house-doors as she sat behind her muslin curtains, looking as fresh and healthful as ever, and scarcely more matronly, except that her air of self-assertion had become more easy and less aggressive now that she was undisputed mistress of the house in London.

There was no concern on her part that she was not the mother of either of the two latest scions of the house of Charnock. Certainly she did not like to be outdone by Rosamond; but then it was only a girl, and she could afford to wait for the son and heir; indeed, she did not yet desire him at the cost of all the distinguished and intellectual society, the concerts, soirees, and lectures that his non-arrival left her free to enjoy. The other son and heir interested her nearly, for he was her half-brother. There had been something almost ludicrous in the apologies to her. His mother seemed to feel like a traitor to her, and Mr. Charnock could hardly reconcile his darling's deposition with his pride in the newcomer. Both she and Raymond had honestly rejoiced in their happiness and the continuance of the direct line of Dunstone, and had completed the rejoicing of the parents by thorough sympathy, when the party with this unlooked-for addition had returned home in the spring. Mrs. Charnock had insisted on endowing his daughter as largely as he justly could, to compensate for this change in her expectations, and was in doubt between Swanmore, an estate on the Backsworth side of Willansborough, and Sirenwood itself, to purchase and settle on her. Raymond would greatly have preferred Sirenwood, both from its adjoining the Compton property and as it would be buying out the Vivians; but there were doubts about the involvements, and nothing could be done till Eleonora's majority. Mr. Charnock preferred Swanmore as an investment, and Raymond could, of course, not press his wishes.

A short visit had been made at Dunstone to join in the festivities in honour of the little heir, but Cecil had not been at Compton since Christmas, though Raymond had several times gone home for a Sunday when she had other companionship. Charlie had been with them preparing his outfit for India whither he had been gone about a month; and Frank, though living in lodgings, was the more frequently at his sister-in-law's service, because wherever she was the Vivian sisters might be looked for.

No sooner had Raymond taken the house in —- Square than Lady Tyrrell had engaged the opposite one, so that one household could enjoy evening views of the other's interior, and Cecil had chiefly gone into society under her friend's auspices. Her presentation at Court had indeed been by the marchioness; she had been staying with an old friend of Mrs. Poynsett's, quite prepared to be intimate with Raymond Poynsett's wife, if only Cecil would have taken to her. But that lady's acceptance of any one recommended in this manner was not to be thought of, and besides, the family were lively, merry people, and Cecil was one of those who dislike and distrust laughter, lest it should be at themselves. So she remained on coldly civil terms with that pleasant party, and though to a certain degree following her husband's lead as to her engagements, all her ways were moulded by her friend's influence. Nor was the effect otherwise than becoming. Nothing could be in better taste than all in Mrs. Charnock Poynsett's establishment, and London and Lady Tyrrell together had greatly improved her manners. All her entertainments went off well, and she filled her place in the world with grace and skill, just as she had always figured herself doing.

Yet there was a sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction, which increased upon her as the time drew nearer for returning to be again only a guest in her married home. It was a tangible grievance on which her mind could fix itself. Surely it was hard on her that her husband should require it of her, and yet she perceived that he could not avoid it, since his mother was mistress. She knew too that he was unfailingly kind, attentive, and indulgent, except on that one occasion when he had sharply reproved her for her behaviour in the Tallboys matter; and strange to say, a much stronger feeling towards him had been setting in ever since that one time when she had seen him thoroughly angry. She longed and craved to stir that even, gentle courtesy to frowns or smiles; and yet there was a perversity in her nature that seem to render it impossible to her to attempt to win a smile from him, far more so to lay aside any device or desire of her own to gratify him. All she did know was, that to be all that her ambition had sought, a Charnock by marriage as well as birth, and with a kind, considerate husband, was not enough to hinder a heartsickness she had never known or supposed possible.

Presently, through the flowers in her balcony, Cecil saw the opening and closing of the opposite house-door, and a white parasol unfurled, and she had only time to finish and address her letter to Mrs. Duncombe before Lady Tyrrell was announced.

"Here I am after a hard morning's work, winding up accounts, &c."

"You go to-morrow?"

"Yes, trusting that you will soon follow; though you might be a cockney born, your bloom is town-proof."

"We follow as soon as the division on the Education Question is over, and that will not be for ten days. You are come to look at my stores for the bazaar; but first, what are you going to do this afternoon?"

"What are your plans?"

"I must leave cards at half-a-dozen people's at the other end of the park. Will you come with me? Where is Lenore?"

"She is gone to take leave of the Strangeways' party; Lady Susan insisted on having her for this last day. Poor Frank! I confess impartially that it does not look well for him."

"Poor Frank!" repeated Cecil, "he does look very forlorn when he hears where she is."

"When, after all, if the silly boy could only see it, it is the most fortunate thing that could happen to him, and the only chance of keeping his head above water. I have made Lady Susan promise me two of her daughters for the bazaar. They thoroughly know how to make themselves useful. Oh, how pretty!"

For Cecil was producing from the shelves of various pieces of furniture a large stock of fancy articles—Swiss carvings, Spa toys, Genevese ornaments, and Japanese curiosities, which, as Lady Tyrrell said, "rivalled her own accumulation, and would serve to carry off the housewives and pen-wipers on which all the old maids of Wil'sbro' were employed."

"We must put out our programmes," Cecil added; "people will not work in earnest till the day is fixed and they know the sellers."

"Yes, the lady patronesses are most important," said Lady Tyrrell, writing them down: "Mrs. Raymond Charnock Poynsett; Lady Rosamond, eh?"

"Oh no, Julius won't hear of it."

"And opposition is sweet: so we lose her romantic name, and the stall of the three brides. Mrs. Miles Charnock is too much out of the world to be worth asking. Then myself—Mrs. Duncombe, Mrs. Fuller, as a matter of necessity, Mrs. Moy."

"Oh!"

"Needful, my dear, to propitiate that set. Also that mayoress, Mrs. Truelove, isn't she? Six. We'll fill up with country people!"

Six more distinguished names were soon supplied of ladies who would give their patronage, provided neither toil nor care was required of them; and still consulting, the two friends took their seats in the carriage. The time of the bazaar was to be fixed by the opening of the town-hall, which was to take place on the 12th of September—a Thursday, the week before the races; and the most propitious days appeared to be the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Great Backsworth Cup Day, since the world would then be in an excited, pleasure- seeking state, favourable to their designs.

"I shall have a party in the house," said Lady Tyrrell: "shall you be able?"

"I can't tell; you know it does not depend on me, and I certainly shall not ask it as a favour. Camilla, did I tell you that I tried to make my father understand the state of things, and speak to Raymond? But he would only say, that while I am so young and inexperienced, it is a great advantage for me to live with Mrs. Poynsett, and that I must be the greatest comfort to her. Papa is an intense believer in Mrs. Poynsett, and when he once has taken up a notion nothing will convince him."

"You can't even make capital of this purchase of a house of your own?"

"I don't like to do that."

"My dear, I see your delicacy and forbearance, and I would not urge you, if I did not see how deeply your happiness is concerned. Of course I don't mean merely the authority over the wirthschaft, though somehow the cares of it are an ingredient in female contentment; but forgive me, Cecil, I am certain that you will never take your right place—where you care for it more—till you have a home of your own."

"Ah!" The responsive sound burst from the very depths of Cecil's heart, penetrated as they had never been before; but pride and reserve at once sprang up, and she answered coldly, "I have no reason to complain."

"Right, my dear Cecil, I like you the better;" and she pressed her hand.

"It is quite true," said Cecil, withdrawing hers.

"Quite, absolutely true. He would die rather than give you any reason for the slightest murmur; but, Cecil, dearest, that very heedfulness shows there is something he cannot give you."

"I don't know why you should say so," answered a proud but choked voice.

"I say so," replied the clear tones, firmly, though with a touch of pity, "because I see it. Cecil, poor child, they married you very young!"

"I missed nothing," exclaimed Cecil; but she felt that she could only say so in the past, and her eyes burnt with unshed tears.

"No, my dear, you were still a girl, and your deeper woman's heart had not grown to perceive that it was not met."

"He chose me," she faintly said.

"His mother needed a daughter. It was proper for him to marry, and you were the most eligible party. I will answer for it that he warned you how little he could give."

"He did," cried Cecil. "He did tell me that he could not begin in freshness and warmth, like a young man; but I thought it only meant that we were too sensible to care about nonsense, and liked him for it. He always must have been staid and reserved—he could never have been different, Camilla. Don't smile in that way! Tell me what you mean."

"My dear Cecil, I knew Raymond Poynsett a good many years before you did."

"And—well? Then he had a first love?" said Cecil, in a voice schooled into quiet. "Was he different then? Was he as desperate as poor Frank is now?"

"Frank is a very mild copy of him at that age. He overbore every one, wrung consent from all, and did everything but overcome his mother's calm hostility and self-assertion."

"Did that stop it? She died of course," said Cecil. "She could not have left off loving him."

"She did not die, but her family were wearied out by the continual objections to their overtures, and the supercilious way of treating them. They thought it a struggle of influence, and that he was too entirely dominated for a daughter-in-law to be happy with her. So they broke it off."

"And she—" Cecil looked up with searching eyes.

"She had acutely felt the offence, the weakness, the dutifulness, whatever you may choose to call it, and in the rebound she married."

"Who is she?" gasped Cecil.

"It is not fair to tell you," was the gentle answer, with a shade of rebuke. "You need not look for her. She is not in the county."

"I hope I shall never see her!"

"You need not dread doing so if you can only have fair play, and establish the power that belongs rightly to you. She would have no chance with you, even if he had forgiven her."

"Has not he?"

"Never!"

"And he used up all his heart?" said Cecil in a low, musing tone.

"All but what his mother absorbed. She was a comparatively young and brilliant woman, and she knew her power. It is a great ascendancy, and only a man's honest blindness could suppose that any woman would be content under it."

Cecil's tongue refused to utter what oppressed her heart—those evenings beside the sofa, those eager home expeditions for Sunday, the uniform maintenance of his mother's supremacy.

"And you think absence from her would lessen her influence?"

"I am sure of it. There might be a struggle, but if I know Mr. Charnock Poynsett rightly, he is too upright not to be conscious of what is due to you, and be grieved not to be able to give you more— that is, when his mother is not holding him in her grasp. Nor can there be any valid objection, since Mrs Miles Charnock is always at her service."

"She will return to Africa. I don't know why she and Rosamond have been always so much more acceptable."

"They are not her rivals; besides, they have not your strength. She is a woman who tries to break whatever she cannot bend, and the instant her son began to slip from her grasp the contest necessarily began. You had much better have it over once and for ever, and have him on your side. Insist on a house of your own, and when you have made your husband happy in it, then, then—Ah! Good morning—Sir George!"

She had meant to say, "Then you win his heart," but the words would not come, and a loathing hatred of the cold-hearted child who had a property in Raymond so mastered her that she welcomed the interruption, and did not return to the subject.

She knew when she had said enough, and feared to betray herself; nor could Cecil bear to resume the talk, stunned and sore as she was at the revelation, though with no suspicion that the speaker had been the object of her husband's affection. She thought it must have been the other sister, now in India, and that this gave the key to many allusions she had heard and which she marvelled at herself for not having understood. The equivocation had entirely deceived her, and she little thought she had been taking counsel with the rival who was secretly triumphing in Raymond's involuntary constancy, and sowing seeds of vengeance against an ancient enemy.

She could not settle to anything when she came home. Life had taken a new aspect. Hitherto she had viewed herself as born to all attention and deference, and had taken it as a right, and now she found herself the victim of a mariage de convenance to a man of exhausted affections, who meant her only to be the attendant of his domineering mother. The love that was dawning in her heart did but add poignancy to the bitterness of the revelation, and fervour to her resolve to win the mastery over the heart which was her lawful possession.

She was restless till his return. She was going to an evening party, and though usually passive as to dress, she was so changeable and difficult to satisfy that Grindstone grew cross, and showed it by stern, rigid obedience. And Cecil well knew that Grindstone; who was in authority in the present house, hated the return to be merely the visitor of Alston and Jenkins.

In the drawing-room Cecil fluttered from book to window, window to piano again, throwing down her occupation at every sound and taking up another; and when at last Raymond came in, his presence at first made her musings seem mere fancies.

Indeed it would have been hard to define what was wanting in his manner. He lamented his unavoidable delay, and entertained her with all the political and parliamentary gossip he had brought home, and which she always much enjoyed as a tribute to her wisdom, so much that it had been an entire, though insensible cure for the Rights of Woman. Moreover, he was going with her to this 'drum,' though he would greatly have preferred the debate, and was to be summoned in case of a division. She knew enough of the world to be aware that such an attentive and courteous husband was not the rule. But what was courtesy to one who longed for unity?

"Is Frank to be there this evening?" he asked.

"Yes, I believe so."

"I thought he was to have gone with us."

"He told me not to depend on him. He had made an engagement to ride into the country with Sir Harry Vivian." And she added, though the proud spirit so hated what seemed to her like making an advance that it sounded like a complaint, "So you can't avoid going with me?"

"I should any way have gone with you, but I may have to leave you to Frank to see you away," he said. "And I had rather have Frank here than with that set."

"Breaking up one of our few tete-a-tete evenings, and they are becoming few enough!"

This murmur gratified him, and he said, "We shall be more alone together now. The Rectory is almost ready, and Julius means to move in another week, and I suppose Miles will carry Anne off before the year is over."

"Yes, we are the only ones with no home."

"Rather, we hold fast to the old home."

"Not my old home."

"Does not mine become yours?"

"Not while—." She paused and started afresh. "Raymond, could we not live at Swanslea, if it is bought for us?"

"Swanslea! Five miles off! Impossible."

Cecil was silent.

"My dear Cecil," he said, after a few moments' consideration, "I can understand that you felt unfortunately crowded last year, but all that is over, and you must see that we are necessary to my mother, and that all my duties require me to live at home."

"You could attend to the property from Swanslea."

"The property indeed! I meant my mother!"

"She has Anne."

"Anne will soon be in Africa—even if she were more of a companion. I am sorry it is a trial to you; for my proper place is clearly with my mother, the more in her helpless state, and with my brothers gone out into the world. Now that the numbers are smaller, you will find it much easier to take the part that I most earnestly wish should be yours."

"I cannot get on with her."

"Do not say so! Do not think so! To have Rosamond there with her Irish ease, and her reserve, kept you in the background before; I say it, but I could not help it; and now there will be no hindrance to your drawing together. There is nothing I so desire."

If the carriage had not stopped as he spoke Cecil would not have uttered the thought that smote her, namely, that his desire was on behalf, not of his wife, but of his mother, to whom he was ready to sacrifice her happiness without a pang. She did not see that he could imagine no greater happiness for her than a thorough love of his mother.

They certainly were not the happiest couple present as they walked up-stairs, looking like a model husband and wife, with their name echoing from landing to landing.

If any expression savouring of slang could possibly be applied to Raymond, he might be said to be struck all of a heap by his wife's proposition. He had never even thought of the possibility of making a home anywhere but at Compton Poynsett, or of his wife wishing that he should do so; and proverbial sayings about the incompatability of relatives-in-law suddenly assumed a reasonableness that he could not bear to remember.

But his courtesy and sense of protection, trained by a woman of the old school, would not suffer him to relax his attention to his wife. Though he was very anxious to get back to the house, he would not quit her neighbourhood till he had found Frank and intrusted her to him.

He was not happy about Frank. The youth was naturally of an intellectual and poetical temperament, and had only cared for horses and field-sports as any healthy lad growing up in a country house must enjoy them; and Raymond had seen him introduced to the style of men whom he thought would be thoroughly congenial to him, and not unlikely to lead him on to make a mark in the world.

But that unfortunate Vivian attachment stood in the way; Sir Harry and his elder daughter ignored it entirely, but did not forbid Frank the house; though Lady Tyrrell took care, as only she could do, that Eleonora should never have ten minutes private conversation with him, either at home or abroad. Even in a crowd, a ball, or garden- party, the vigilant sister had her means of breaking into any kind of confidence; and Frank was continually tantalized by the pursuit. It could not but unsettle him, and draw him into much more gaiety than was compatible with the higher pursuits his mother had expected of him; and what was worse, it threw him into Sir Harry Vivian's set, veteran roues, and younger men who looked up to their knowingness and listened to their good stories.

What amount of harm it was doing Raymond could not guess. He had known it all himself, and had escaped unscathed, but he did not fear the less for his younger brother, and he only hoped that the inducement to mingle with such society would be at an end before Frank had formed a taste for the habits that there prevailed.

Eleonora Vivian had been much admired at first, but her cold manner kept every one at a distance, and her reserve was hardly ever seen to relax. However, her one friendship with the Strangeways family gave Raymond hopes that her constancy was not proof against the flattering affection, backed by wealth, that seemed to await her there. The best he could wish for Frank was that the infatuation might be over as soon as possible, though he pitied the poor fellow sincerely when he saw him, as he did to-night, waiting with scarcely concealed anxiety while Miss Vivian stood listening to a long discourse about yachting from an eager pair of chattering girls.

Then some break occurred, and Frank moved up to her. "Your last evening! How little I have seen of you!"

"Little indeed!"

"I called, but you were at the Strangeways'."

"They are very kind to me. When is your holiday?"

"Not till spring, but I may get a few days in the autumn: you will be at home?"

"As far as I know."

"If I thought for a moment you cared to see me; but you have shown few signs of wishing it of late."

"Frank—if I could make you understand—"

They were walking towards a recess, when Lady Tyrrell fastened upon Raymond. "Pray find my sister; she forgets that we have to be at Lady Granby's—Oh! are you there, Lenore! Will you see her down, Mr. Poynsett? Well, Frank, did you get as far as you intended?"

And she went down on his arm, her last words being, "Take care of yourself till we meet at home. For this one year I call Sirenwood home—then!"

Raymond and Lenore said no more to one another. The ladies were put into the carriage. The elder brother bade Frank take care of Cecil, and started for Westminster with the poor lad's blank and disappointed face still before his eyes, hoping at least it was well for him, but little in love with life, or what it had to offer.



CHAPTER XXI Awfully Jolly

When life becomes a spasm, And history a whiz, If that is not sensation, I don't know what it is.—LEWIS CARROLL

"Is Lady Rosamond at home?"

"No, ma'am."

"Nor Mrs. Charnock?"

"No, ma'am; they are both gone down to the Rectory."

"Would you ask whether Mrs. Poynsett would like to see me?"

"I'll inquire, ma'am, if you will walk in," said Mr. Jenkins moved by the wearied and heated looks of Miss Vivian, who had evidently come on foot at the unseasonable visiting hour of 11.15 a.m.

The drawing-room was empty, but, with windows open on the shady side, was most inviting to one who had just become unpleasantly aware that her walking capacity had diminished under the stress of a London season, and that a very hampering one. She was glad of the rest, but it lasted long enough to be lost in the uncomfortable consciousness that hers was too truly a morning call, and she would have risen and escaped had not that been worse.

At last the door of communication opened, and to her amazement Mrs. Poynsett was pushed into the room by her maid in a wheeled chair. "Yes, my dear," she said, in reply to Eleonora's exclamation of surprise and congratulation, "this is my dear daughters' achievement; Rosamond planned and Anne contrived, and they both coaxed my lazy bones."

"I am so very glad! I had no notion I should see you out of your room."

"Such is one's self-importance! I thought the fame would have reached you at least."

"Ah, you don't know how little I see of any one I can hear from! And now I am afraid I have disturbed you too early."

"Oh no, my dear; it was very good and kind, and I am only grieved that you had so long to wait; but we will make the most of each other now. You will stay to luncheon?"

"Thank you, indeed I am afraid I must not: papa would not like it, for no one knows where I am."

"You have taken this long walk in the heat, and are going back! I don't like it, my dear; you look fagged. London has not agreed with you."

Mrs. Poynsett rang her little hand-bell, and ordered in biscuits and wine, and would have ordered the carriage but for Lenore's urgent entreaties to the contrary, amounting to an admission that she wished her visit to be unnoticed at home. This was hardly settled before there was a knock at the door, announcing baby's daily visit; and Miss Julia was exhibited by her grandmamma with great satisfaction until another interruption came, in a call from the doctor, who only looked in occasionally, and had fallen on this unfortunate morning.

"Most unlucky," said Mrs. Poynsett. "I am afraid you will doubt about coming again, and I have not had one word about our Frankie."

"He is very well. I saw him at a party the night before we left town. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Poynsett."

"You will come again?"

"If I can; but the house is to be full of visitors. If I don't, you will know it is because I can't."

"I shall be thankful for whatever you can give me. I wish I could save you that hot walk in the sun."

But as Mrs. Poynsett was wheeled into her own room some compensation befell Eleonora, for she met Julius in the hall, and he offered to drive her to the gates of Sirenwood in what he called 'our new plaything, the pony carriage,' on his way to a clerical meeting.

"You are still here?" she said.

"Till Tuesday, when we go to the Rectory to receive the two De Lancey boys for the holidays."

"How Mrs. Poynsett will miss you."

"Anne is a very efficient companion," said Julius, speaking to her like one of the family; "the pity is that she will be so entirely lost to us when Miles claims her."

"Then they still mean to settle in Africa?"

"Her heart has always been there, and her father is in treaty for a farm for him, so I fear there is little hope of keeping them. I can't think what the parish will do without her. By the bye, how does Joe Reynolds get on with his drawings?"

"I must show them to you. He is really very clever. We sent him to the School of Art twice a week, and he has got on wonderfully. I begin to believe in my academician."

"So you don't repent?"

"I think not. As far as I can judge he is a good boy still. I make him my escort to church, so that I am sure of him there. Renville would have taken him for a boy about his studio, and I think he will go there eventually; but Camilla thinks he may be an attraction at the bazaar, and is making him draw for it."