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The Athelings
CHAPTER XXIX.
FAMILY SENTIMENTS
When the fly jumbled into Bellevue, the lighted window, which always illuminated the little street, shone brighter than ever in the profound darkness of this late night, when all the respectable inhabitants for more than an hour had been asleep. Papa and Mamma, somewhat drowsily, yet with a capacity for immediate waking-up only to be felt under these circumstances, had unanimously determined to sit up for the girls; and the window remained bright, and the inmates wakeful, for a full hour after the rumbling “fly,” raising all the dormant echoes of the neighbourhood, had rolled off to its nightly shelter. The father and the mother listened with the most perfect patience to the detail of everything, excited in spite of themselves by their children’s companionship with “the great,” yet considerably resenting, and much disappointed by the failure of those grand visions, in which all night the parental imagination had pictured to itself an admiring assembly hanging upon the looks of those innocent and simple girls. Mr and Mrs Atheling on this occasion were somewhat disposed, we confess, to make out a case of jealousy and malice against the fashionable guests of Mrs Edgerley. It was always the way, Papa said. They always tried to keep everybody down, and treated aspirants superciliously; and in the climax of his indignation, under his breath, he added something about those “spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes.” Mrs Atheling did not quote Shakespeare, but she was quite as much convinced that it was their “rank in life” which had prevented Agnes and Marian from taking a sovereign place in the gay assembly they had just left. The girls themselves gave no distinct judgment on the subject; but now that the first edge of her mortification had worn off, Agnes began to have great doubts upon this matter. “We had no claim upon them—not the least,” said Agnes; “they never saw us before; we were perfect strangers; why should they trouble themselves about us, simply because I had written a book?”
“Do not speak nonsense, my dear—do not tell me,” said Mrs Atheling, with agitation: “they had only to use their own eyes and see—as if they often had such an opportunity! My dear, I know better; you need not speak to me!”
“And everybody has read your book, Agnes—and no doubt there are scores of people who would give anything to know you,” said Papa with dignity. “The author of Hope Hazlewood is a different person from Agnes Atheling. No, no—it is not that they don’t know your proper place; but they keep everybody down as long as they can. Now, mind, one day you will turn the tables upon them; I am very sure of that.”
Agnes said no more, but went up to her little white room completely unconvinced upon the subject. Miss Willsie saw the tell-tale light in this little high window in the middle of the night—when it was nearly daylight, the old lady said—throwing a friendly gleam upon the two young controversialists as they debated this difficult question. Agnes, of course, with all the heat of youth and innovation, took the extreme side of the question. “It is easy enough to write—any one can write,” said the young author, triumphant in her argument, yet in truth somewhat mortified by her triumph. “But even if it was not, there are greater things in this world than books, and almost all other books are greater than novels; and I do think it was the most foolish thing in the world to suppose that clever people like these—for they were all clever people—would take any notice of me.”
To which arguments, all and several, Marian returned only a direct, unhesitating, and broad negative. It was not easy to write, and there were not greater things than books, and it was not at all foolish to expect a hundred times more than ever their hopes had expected. “It is very wrong of you to say so, Agnes,” said Marian. “Papa is quite right; it will all be as different as possible by-and-by; and if you have nothing more sensible to say than that, I shall go to sleep.”
Saying which, Marian turned round upon her pillow, virtuously resisted all further temptations, and closed her beautiful eyes upon the faint grey dawn which began to steal in between the white curtains. They thought their minds were far too full to go to sleep. Innocent imaginations! five minutes after, they were in the very sweetest enchanted country of the true fairyland of dreams.
While Charlie, in his sleep in the next room, laboriously struggled all night with a bloodless apparition, which smiled at him from an open doorway—fiercely fought and struggled against it—mastered it—got it down, but only to begin once more the tantalising combat. When he rose in the morning, early as usual, the youth set his teeth at the recollection, and with an attempt to give a reason for this instinctive enmity, fiercely hoped that Lord Winterbourne would try to take from his father his little inheritance. Charlie, who was by no means of a metaphysical turn, did not trouble himself at all to inquire into the grounds of his own unusual pugnacity. He “knew he owed him something,” and though my Lord Winterbourne was a viscount and an ex-minister, and Charlie only a poor man’s son and a copying-clerk, he fronted the great man’s image with indomitable confidence, and had no more doubt of his own prowess than of his entire goodwill in the matter. He did not think very much more of his opponent in this case than he did of the big folios in the office, and had as entire confidence in his own ability to bring the enemy down.
But it was something of a restless night to Papa and Mamma. They too talked in their darkened chamber, too proper and too economical to waste candlelight upon subjects so unprofitable, of old events and people half forgotten;—how the first patroness of Agnes should be the daughter of the man between whom and themselves there existed some unexplained connection of old friendship or old enmity, or both;—how circumstances beyond their guidance conspired to throw them once more in the way of persons and plans which they had heard nothing of for more than twenty years. These things were very strange and troublous events to Mr Atheling and his wife. The past, which nearer grief and closer pleasure—all their family life, full as that was of joy and sorrow—had thrown so far away and out of remembrance, came suddenly back before them in all the clearness of youthful recollection. Old feelings returned strong and fresh into their minds. They went back, and took up the thread of this history, whatever it might be, where they had dropped it twenty years ago; and with a thrill of deeper interest, wondered and inquired how this influence would affect their children. To themselves now little could happen; their old friend or their old enemy could do neither harm nor benefit to their accomplished lives—but the children!—the children, every one so young, so hopeful, and so well endowed; all so strangely brought into sudden contact, at a double point, with this one sole individual, who had power to disturb the rest of the father and the mother. They relapsed into silence suddenly, and were quieted by the thought.
“It is not our doing—it is not our seeking,” said Mr Atheling at length. “If the play wants a last act, Mary, it will not be your planning nor mine; and as for the children, they are in the hands of God.”
So in the grey imperfect dawn which lightened on the faces of the sleeping girls, whose sweet youthful rest was far too deep to be broken even by the growing light, these elder people closed their eyes, not to sleep, but to pray. If evil were about to come—if danger were lurking in the air around them—they had this only defence against it. It was not the simple faith of youth which dictated these prayers; it was a deeper and a closer urgency, which cried aloud and would not cease, but yet was solemn with the remembrance of times when God’s pleasure was not to grant them their petitions. The young ones slept in peace, but with fights and triumphs manifold in their young dreams. The father and the mother held a vigil for them, holding up holy hands for their defence and safety; and so the morning came at last, brightly, to hearts which feared no evil, or when they feared, put their apprehensions at once into the hand of God.
CHAPTER XXX.
AGNES’S FORTUNE
The morning, like a good fairy, came kindly to these good people, increasing in the remembrance of the girls the impression of pleasure, and lessening that of disappointment. They came, after all, to be very well satisfied with their reception at Mrs Edgerley’s. And now her second and most important invitation remained to be discussed—the Willows—the pretty house at Richmond, with the river running sweetly under the shadow of its trees; the company, which was sure to include, as Mr Agar said, some people worth knowing, and which that ancient connoisseur himself did not refuse to join. Agnes and Marian looked with eager eyes on the troubled brow of Mamma; a beautiful vision of the lawn and the river, flowers and sunshine, the sweet silence of “the country,” and the unfamiliar music of running water and rustling trees, possessed the young imaginations for the time to the total disregard of all sublunary considerations. They did not think for a moment of Lord Winterbourne’s daughter, and the strange chance which could make them inmates of her house; for Lord Winterbourne himself was not a person of any importance in the estimation of the girls. But more than that, they did not even think of their wardrobe, important as that consideration was; they did not recollect how entirely unprovided they were for such a visit, nor how the family finances, strait and unelastic, could not possibly stretch to so new and great an expenditure. But all these things, which brought no cloud upon Agnes and Marian, conspired to embarrass the brow of the family mother. She thought at the same moment of Lord Winterbourne and of the brown merinos; of this strange acquaintanceship, mysterious and full of fate as it seemed; and of the little black silk cloaks which were out of fashion, and the bonnets with the faded ribbons. It was hard to deny the girls so great a pleasure; but how could it be done?
And for a day or two following the household remained in great uncertainty upon this point, and held every evening, on the engrossing subject of ways and means, a committee of the whole house. This, however, we are grieved to say, was somewhat of an unprofitable proceeding; for the best advice which Papa could give on so important a subject was, that the girls must of course have everything proper if they went. “If they went!—that is exactly the question,” said the provoked and impatient ruler of all. “But are they to go? and how are we to get everything proper for them?” To these difficult questions Mr Atheling attempted no answer. He was a wise man, and knew his own department, and prudently declined any interference in the legitimate domain of the other head of the house.
Mrs Atheling was by no means addicted to disclosing the private matters of her own family life, yet she carried this important question through the faded wallflowers to crave the counsel of Miss Willsie. Miss Willsie was not at all pleased to have such a matter submitted to her. Her supreme satisfaction would have lain in criticising, finding fault, and helping on. Now reduced to the painful alternative of giving an opinion, the old lady pronounced a vague one in general terms, to the effect that if there was one thing she hated, it was to see poor folk striving for the company of them that were in a different rank in life; but whenever this speech was made, and her conscience cleared, Miss Willsie began to inquire zealously what “the silly things had,” and what they wanted, and set about a mental turning over of her own wardrobe, where were a great many things which she had worn in her own young days, and which were “none the worse,” as she said—but they were not altogether adapted for the locality of the Willows. Miss Willsie turned them over not only in her own mind, but in her own parlour, where her next visitor found her as busy with her needle and her shears as any cottar matron ever was, and anxiously bent on the same endeavour to “make auld things look amaist as weel’s the new.” It cost Miss Willsie an immense deal of trouble, but it was not half so successful a business as the repairs of that immortal Saturday Night.
But the natural course of events, which had cleared their path for them many times before, came in once more to make matters easy. Mr Burlington, of whom nothing had been heard since the day of that eventful visit to his place—Mr Burlington, who since then had brought out a second edition of Hope Hazlewood, announced himself ready to “make a proposal” for the book. Now, there had been many and great speculations in the house on this subject of “Agnes’s fortune.” They were as good at the magnificent arithmetic of fancy as Major Pendennis was, and we will not say that, like him, they had not leaped to their thousands a-year. They had all, however, been rather prudent in committing themselves to a sum—nobody would guess positively what it was to be—but some indefinite and fabulous amount, a real fortune, floated in the minds of all: to the father and mother a substantial provision for Agnes, to the girls an inexhaustible fund of pleasure, comfort, and charity. The proposal came—it was not a fabulous and magnificent fortune, for the author of Hope Hazlewood was only Agnes Atheling, and not Arthur Pendennis. For the first moment, we are compelled to confess, they looked at each other with blank faces, entirely cast down and disappointed: it was not an inexhaustible fairy treasure—it was only a hundred and fifty pounds.
Yes, most tender-hearted reader! these were not the golden days of Sir Walter, nor was this young author a literary Joan of Arc. She got her fortune in a homely fashion like other people—at first was grievously disappointed about it—formed pugnacious resolutions, and listened to all the evil stories of the publishing ghouls with satisfaction and indignant faith. But by-and-by this angry mood softened down; by-and-by the real glory of such an unrealisable heap of money began to break upon the girls. A hundred and fifty pounds, and nothing to do with it—no arrears to pay—nothing to make up—can any one suppose a position of more perfect felicity? They came to see it bit by bit dawning upon them in gradual splendour—content blossomed into satisfaction, satisfaction unfolded into delight. And then to think of laying by such a small sum would be foolish, as the girls reasoned; so its very insignificance increased the pleasure. It was not a dull treasure, laid up in a bank, or “invested,” as Papa had solemnly proposed to invest “Agnes’s fortune;” it was a delightful little living stream of abundance, already in imagination overflowing and brightening everything. It would buy Mamma the most magnificent of brocades, and Bell and Beau such frocks as never were seen before out of fairyland. It would take them all to the Old Wood Lodge, or even to the seaside; it would light up with books and pictures, and pretty things, the respectable family face of Number Ten, Bellevue. There was no possibility of exhausting the capacities of this marvellous sum of money, which, had it been three or four times as much, as the girls discovered, could not have been half as good for present purposes. The delight of spending money was altogether new to them: they threw themselves into it with the most gleeful abandonment (in imagination), and threw away their fortune royally, and with genuine enjoyment in the process; and very few millionaires have ever found as much pleasure in the calculation of their treasures as Agnes and Marian Atheling, deciding over and over again how they were to spend it, found in this hundred and fifty pounds.
In the mean time, however, Papa carried it off to the office, and locked it up there for security—for they all felt that it would not be right to trust to the commonplace defences of Bellevue with such a prodigious sum of money in the house.
CHAPTER XXXI.
EXTRAVAGANCE
It was a July day, brilliant and dazzling; the deep-blue summer sky arched over these quiet houses, a very heaven of sunshine and calm; the very leaves were golden in the flood of light, and grateful shadows fell from the close walls, and a pleasant summer fragrance came from within the little enclosures of Bellevue. Nothing was stirring in the silent little suburban street—the very sounds came slow and soft through the luxurious noonday air, into which now and then blew the little capricious breath of a cool breeze, like some invisible fairy fan making a current in the golden atmosphere. Safe under the shelter of green blinds and opened windows, the feminine population reposed in summer indolence, mistresses too languid to scold, and maids to be improved by the same. In the day, the other half of mankind, all mercantile and devoted to business, deserted Bellevue and perhaps were not less drowsy in their several offices, where dust had to answer all the purpose of those trim venetian defences, than their wives and daughters were at home.
But before the door of Number Ten stood a vehicle—let no one scorn its unquestioned respectability,—it was The Fly. The fly was drawn by an old white horse, of that bony and angular development peculiar to this rank of professional eminence. This illustrious animal gave character and distinction at once to the equipage. The smartest and newest brougham in existence, with such a steed attached to it, must at once have taken rank, in the estimation of all beholders, as a true and unmistakable Fly. The coachman was in character; he had a long white livery-coat, and a hat very shiny, and bearing traces of various indentations. As he sat upon his box in the sunshine, he nodded in harmony with the languid branches of the lilac-bushes. Though he was not averse to a job, he marvelled much how anybody who could stay at home went abroad under this burning sun, or troubled themselves with occupations. So too thought the old white horse, switching his old white tail in vain pursuit of the summer flies which troubled him; and so even thought Hannah, Miss Willsie’s pretty maid, as she looked out from the gate of Killiecrankie Lodge, shading her eyes with her hand, marvelling, half in envy, half in pity, how any one could think even of “pleasuring” on such a day.
With far different sentiments from these languid and indolent observers, the Athelings prepared for their unusual expedition. Firmly compressed into Mrs Atheling’s purse were five ten-pound notes, crisp and new, and the girls, with a slight tremor of terror enhancing their delight, had secretly vowed that Mamma should not be permitted to bring anything in the shape of money home. They were going to spend fifty pounds. That was their special mission—and when you consider that very rarely before had they helped at the spending of more than fifty shillings, you may fancy the excitement and delight of this family enterprise. They had calculated beforehand what everything was to cost—they had left a margin for possibilities—they had all their different items written down on a very long piece of paper, and now the young ladies were dancing Bell and Beau through the garden, and waiting for Mamma.
For the twin babies were to form part of this most happy party. Bell and Beau were to have an ecstatic drive in that most delightful of carriages which the two big children and the two little ones at present stood regarding with the sincerest admiration. If Agnes had any doubt at all about the fly, it was a momentary fear lest somebody should suppose it to be their own carriage—a contingency not at all probable. In every other view of the question, the fly was scarcely second even to Mrs Edgerley’s sublime and stately equipage; and it is quite impossible to describe the rapture with which this magnificent vehicle was contemplated by Bell and Beau.
At last Mamma came down stairs in somewhat of a flutter, and by no means satisfied that she was doing right in thus giving in to the girls. Mrs Atheling still, in spite of all their persuasions, could not help thinking it something very near a sin to spend wilfully, and at one doing, so extraordinary a sum as fifty pounds—“a quarter’s income!” she said solemnly. But Papa was very nearly as foolish on the subject as Agnes and Marian, and the good mother could not make head against them all. She was alarmed at this first outbreak of “awful” extravagance, but she could not quite refuse to be pleased either with the pleasant piece of business, with the delight of the girls, and the rapture of the babies, nor to feel the glory in her own person of “shopping” on so grand a scale—
“My sister and my sister’s child,
Myself and children three.”
The fly was not quite so closely packed as the chaise of Mrs Gilpin, yet it was very nearly as full as that renowned conveyance. They managed to get in “five precious souls,” and the white horse languidly set out upon his journey, and the coachman, only half awake, still nodded on his box. Where they went to, we will not betray their confidence by telling. It was an erratic course, and included all manner of shops and purchases. Before they had got nearly to the end of their list, they were quite fatigued with their labours, and found it rather cumbrous, after all, to choose the shops they wanted from the “carriage” windows, a splendid but inconvenient necessity. Then Bell and Beau grew very tired, wanted to go home, and were scarcely to be solaced even with cakes innumerable. Perfect and unmixed delights are not to be found under the sun; and though the fly went back to Bellevue laden with parcels beyond the power of arithmetic; though the girls had accomplished their wicked will, and the purse of Mrs Atheling had shrunk into the ghost of its former size, yet the accomplished errand was not half so delightful as were those exuberant and happy intentions, which could now be talked over no more. They all grew somewhat silent, as they drove home—“vanity of vanities—” Mrs Atheling and her daughters were in a highly reflective state of mind, and rather given to moralising; while extremely wearied, sleepy, and uncomfortable were poor little Bell and Beau.
But at last they reached home—at last the pleasant sight of Susan, and the fragrance of the tea, which, as it was now pretty late in the afternoon, Susan had prepared to refresh them, restored their flagging spirits. They began to open out their parcels, and fight their battles over again. They examined once more, outside and inside, the pretty little watches which Papa had insisted on as the first of all their purchases. Papa thought a watch was a most important matter—the money spent in such a valuable piece of property was invested; and Mrs Atheling herself, as she took her cup of tea, looked at these new acquisitions with extreme pride, good pleasure, and a sense of importance. They had put their bonnets on the sofa—the table overflowed with rolls of silk and pieces of ribbon half unfolded; Bell and Beau, upon the hearth-rug, played with the newest noisiest toys which could be found for them; and even Susan, when she came to ask if her mistress would take another cup, secretly confessed within herself that there never was such a littered and untidy room.
When there suddenly came a dash and roll of rapid wheels, ringing into all the echoes. Suddenly, with a gleam and bound, a splendid apparition crossed the window, and two magnificent bay-horses drove up before the little gate. Her very watch, new and well-beloved, almost fell from the fingers of Agnes. They looked at each other with blank faces—they listened in horror to the charge of artillery immediately discharged upon their door—nobody had self-possession to apprehend Susan on the way, and exhort her to remember the best room. And Susan, greatly fluttered, forgot the sole use of this sacred apartment. They all stood dismayed, deeply sensible of the tea upon the table, and the extraordinary confusion of the room, when suddenly into the midst of them, radiant and splendid, floated Mrs Edgerley—Mayfair come to visit Bellevue.
