by Ellen Wood
“It is the only way we can keep our girls in check,” observed she; “otherwise they’d break and lose all before them. I know how many glasses have been used at table, consequently how many go out to be washed, and the girl has to bring that same number in, or explain the reason why. As to the spoons, they get thrown away with the dishwater and sometimes into the fire. If they were silver it would be all the same.”
“Do you like the match, Miss Dinah?”
“Johnny Ludlow,” she said, turning to face me, “we make a point in this house of not expressing our likes and dislikes. Our position is peculiar, you know. When people have come to years of discretion, and are of the age that Mrs. Podd is, not to speak of Dr. Lewis’s, we must suppose them to be capable of judging and acting for themselves. We have not helped on the match by so much as an approving word or look: on the other hand, it has not lain in our duty or in our power to retard it.”
Which was, of course, good sense. But for all her caution, I fancied she could have spoken against it, had she chosen.
A trifling incident occurred to me in going back to the Bell. Rushing round the corner into Broad Street, a tall, well-dressed man, sauntering on before me, suddenly turned on his heel, and threw away his cigar. It caught the front of my shirt. I flung it off again; but not before it had burnt a small hole in the linen.
“I beg your pardon,” said the smoker, in a courteous voice — and there was no mistaking him for anything but a gentleman. “I am very sorry. It was frightfully careless of me.”
“Oh, it is nothing; don’t think about it,” I answered, making off at full speed.
St. Michael’s Church stood in a nook under the cathedral walls: it is taken down now. It was there that the wedding took place. Dr. Lewis arrived at it more like a baby than a bridegroom, helpless and nervous to a painful degree. But Mrs. Podd made up for his deficiencies in her grand self-possession; her white bonnet and nodding feather seemed to fill the church. Anne wore grey silk; Julia and Fanny Podd some shining pink stuff that their petticoats could be seen through. Poor Anne’s tears were dropping during the service; she kept her head bent down to hide them.
“Look up, Anne,” I said from my place close to her. “Take courage.”
“I can’t help it, indeed, Johnny,” she whispered. “I wish I could. I’m sure I wouldn’t throw a damper on the general joy for the world.”
The wedding-party was a very small one indeed; just ourselves and a stern-looking gentleman, who was said to be a lawyer-cousin of the Podds, and to come from Birmingham. All the people staying at Lake’s had flocked into the church to look on.
“Pray take my arm. Allow me to lead you out. I see how deeply you are feeling this.”
The ceremony seemed to be over almost as soon as it was begun — perhaps the parson, remembering the parties had both been married before, cut it short. And it was in the slight bustle consequent upon its termination that the above words, in a low, tender, and most considerate tone, broke upon my ear. Where had I heard the voice before?
Turning hastily round, I recognized the stranger of the night before. It was to Anne he had spoken, and he had already taken her upon his arm. Her head was bent still; the rebellious tears would hardly be kept back; and a sweet compassion sat on every line of his handsome features as he gazed down at her.
“Who is he?” I asked of Fanny Podd, as he walked forward with Anne.
“Mr. Angerstyne — the most fascinating man I ever saw in my life. The Lakes could not have taken him in, but for mamma’s inventing that little fable of Anne’s going with old Lewis to the Bell. Trust mamma for not letting us two girls lose a chance,” added free-speaking Fanny. “I may take your arm, I suppose, Johnny Ludlow.”
And after a plain breakfast in private, which included only the wedding-party, Dr. and Mrs. Lewis departed for Cheltenham.
Part the Second.
“Johnny, what can I do? What do you think I can do?”
In the pretty grey silk that she had worn at her father’s wedding, and with a whole world of perplexity in her soft brown eyes, Anne Lewis stood by me, and whispered the question. As soon as the bride and bridegroom had driven off, Anne was to depart for Maythorn Bank, with Julia and Fanny Podd; all three of them to remain there for the few days that Dr. and Mrs. Lewis purposed to be away. But now, no sooner had the sound of the bridal wheels died on our ears, and Anne had suggested that they should get ready for their journey home, than the two young ladies burst into a laugh, and said, Did she think they were going off to that dead-alive place! Not if they knew it. And, giving her an emphatic nod to prove they meant what they said, they waltzed to the other end of the room in their shining pink dresses to talk to Mr. Angerstyne.
Consternation sat in every line of Anne’s face. “I cannot go there alone, or stay there alone,” she said to me. “These things are not done in France.”
No: though Maythorn Bank was her own home, and though she was as thoroughly English as a girl can be, it could not be done. French customs and ideas did not permit it, and she had been brought up in them. It was certainly not nice behaviour of the girls. They should have objected before their mother left.
“I don’t know what you can do, Anne. Better ask Miss Dinah.”
“Not go with you, after the arrangements are made — and your servant Sally is expecting you all!” cried Miss Dinah Lake. “Oh, you must be mistaken,” she added; and went up to talk to them. Julia only laughed.
“Go to be buried alive at Maythorn Bank as long as mamma chooses to stay away!” she cried. “You won’t get either of us to do anything of the kind, Miss Dinah.”
“Mrs. Podd — I mean Mrs. Lewis — will be back to join you there in less than a week,” said Miss Dinah.
“Oh, will she, though! You don’t know mamma. She may be off to Paris and fifty other places before she turns her head homewards again. Anne Lewis can go home by herself, if she wants to go: I and Fanny mean to stay with you, Miss Dinah.”
So Anne had to stay also. She sat down and wrote two letters: one to Sally, saying their coming home was delayed; the other to Dr. Lewis, asking what she was to do.
“And the gain is mine,” observed Mr. Angerstyne. “What would the house have been without you?”
He appeared to speak to the girls generally. But his eyes and his smile evidently were directed to Anne. She saw it too, and blushed. Blushed! when she had not yet known him four-and-twenty hours. But he was just the fellow for a girl to fall in love with — and no disparagement to her to say so.
“Who is he?” I that evening asked Miss Dinah.
“A Mr. Angerstyne,” she answered. “I don’t know much of him, except that he is an independent gentleman with a beautiful estate in Essex, and a fashionable man. I see what you are thinking, Johnny: that it is curious a man of wealth and fashion should be staying at Lake’s boarding-house. But Mr. Angerstyne came over from Malvern to see Captain Bristow, the old invalid, who keeps his room upstairs, and when here the captain persuaded him to stay for a day or two, if we could give him a room. That’s how it was. Captain Bristow leaves us soon, and I suppose Mr. Angerstyne will be leaving too.”
I had expected to go home the following day; but that night up came two of the young Sankers, Dan and King, and said I was to go and stay a bit with them. Leave to do so was easily had from home; for just as our school at old Frost’s was reassembling, two boys who had stayed the holidays were taken with bad throats, and we were not to go back till goodness knew when. Tod, who was on a visit in Gloucestershire, thought it would be Michaelmas.
Back came letters from Cheltenham. Mrs. Lewis told her girls they might remain at Worcester if they liked. And Dr. Lewis wrote to Anne, saying she must not go home alone; and he enclosed a note to Mrs. Lake, asking her to be so kind as to take care of his daughter.
After that we had a jolly time. The Sankers and Lakes amalgamated well, and were always at one another’s houses. This does not apply to Mrs. Lake and Miss Dinah: as Miss Dinah put it, th
ey had no time for gadding down to Sanker’s. But Mr. Angerstyne (who had not left) grew quite familiar there; the Sankers, who never stood on the slightest ceremony, making no stranger of him. Captain Sanker discovered that two or three former naval chums of his were known to Mr. Angerstyne; one dead old gentleman in particular, who had been his bosom friend. This was quite enough. Mr. Angerstyne had, so to say, the key of the house given him, and went in and out of it at will.
Every one liked Mr. Angerstyne. And for all the pleasurable excursions that now fell to our lot, we were indebted to him. Without being ostentatious, he opened his purse freely; and there was a delicacy in his manner of doing it that prevented its being felt. On the plea of wanting, himself, to see some noted spot or place in the neighbourhood, he would order a large post-carriage from the Star or the Crown, and invite as many as it would hold to accompany him, and bring baskets of choice fruit, or dainties from the pastry-cook’s, to regale us on. Or he would tell the Sankers that King looked delicate: poor lame King, who was to die ere another year had flown. Down would come the carriage, ostensibly to take King for a drive; and a lot of us reaped the benefit. Mrs. Sanker was always of the party: without a chaperon, the young ladies could not have gone. Generally speaking the Miss Podds would come — they took care of that: and Anne Lewis always came — which I think Mr. Angerstyne took care of. The golden page of life was opening for Anne Lewis: she seemed to be entering on an Elysian pathway, every step of which was strewn with flowers.
One day we went to Holt Fleet. The carriage came down to the Sankers’ in the morning, Mr. Angerstyne in it, and the captain stepped out of doors, his face beaming, to see the start. Once in a way he would be of the party himself, but not often. Mr. Angerstyne handed Mrs Sanker in, and then called out for me. I held back, feeling uncomfortable at being always taken, and knowing that Fred and Dan thought me selfish for it. But it was of no use: Mr. Angerstyne had a way of carrying out his own will.
“Get up on the box, Johnny,” he said to me. And, close upon my heels, wanting to share the box with me, came Dan Sanker. Mr. Angerstyne pulled him back.
“Not you, Dan. I shall take King.”
“King has been ever so many times — little wretch!” grumbled Dan. “It’s my turn. It’s not fair, Mr. Angerstyne.”
“You, Dan, and Fred, and Toby, all the lot of you, shall have a carriage to yourselves for a whole day if you like, but King goes with me,” said Mr. Angerstyne, helping the lad up.
He got in himself, took his seat by Mrs. Sanker, and the post-boy touched up his horses. Mrs. Sanker, mildly delighted, for she liked these drives, sat in her ordinary costume: a fancy shawl of some thick kind of silk crape, all the colours of the rainbow blended into its pattern, and a black velvet bonnet with a turned-up brim and a rose in it, beneath which her light hair hung down in loose curls.
We stopped at Lake’s boarding-house to take up the three girls; who got in, and sat on the seat opposite Mrs. Sanker and Mr. Angerstyne: and then the post-boy started for Holt Fleet. “The place is nothing,” observed Captain Sanker, who had suggested it as an easy, pleasant drive to Mr. Angerstyne; “but the inn is comfortable, and the garden’s nice to sit or stroll in.”
We reached Holt Fleet at one o’clock. The first thing Mr. Angerstyne did was to order luncheon, anything they could conveniently give us, and to serve it in the garden. It proved to be ham and eggs; first-rate; we were all hungry, and he bade them keep on frying till further orders. At which the girl who waited on us laughed, as she drew the corks of some bottled perry.
I saw a bit of by-play later on. Strolling about to digest the ham and eggs, some in one part of the grounds, which in places had a wild and picturesque aspect, some in another, Mr. Angerstyne suddenly seized Anne, as if to save her from falling. She was standing in that high narrow pathway that is perched up aloft and looks so dangerous, steadying herself by a tree, and bending cautiously forwards to look down. The path may be gone now. The features of the whole place may be altered; perhaps even done away with altogether; for I am writing of years and years ago. He stole up and caught her by the waist.
“Oh, Mr. Angerstyne!” she exclaimed, blushing and starting.
“Were you going to take a leap?”
“No, no,” she smiled. “Would it kill me if I did?”
“Suppose I let you go — and send you over to try it?”
Ah, he would not do that. He was holding her all too safely. Anne made an effort to free herself; but her eyelids drooped over her tell-tale eyes, her conscious face betrayed what his presence was to her.
“How beautiful the river is from this, as we look up it!” she exclaimed.
“More than beautiful.”
Julia Podd rushed up to mar the harmony. Never does a fleeting moment of this kind set in but somebody does mar it. Julia flirted desperately with Mr. Angerstyne.
“Mr. Angerstyne, I have been looking for you everywhere. Mrs. Sanker wants to know if you will take us for a row on the water. The inn has a nice boat.”
“Mrs. Sanker does!” he exclaimed. “With pleasure. Are you fond of the water, Miss Lewis?”
Anne made no particular reply. She stood at a little distance now, apparently looking at the view; but I thought she wanted to hide her hot cheeks. Mr. Angerstyne caught her hand in his, playfully put his other hand within Miss Julia’s arm, and so piloted them down. Ah, he might flirt back again with Julia Podd, and did; with Fanny also; but it was not to them his thoughts were given.
“Go on the water!” said Mrs. Sanker, who was sitting under the shade of the trees, repeating one of her favourite ballads to King in a see-saw tone. “I! Julia Podd must have misunderstood me. To go on the water might be nice for those who would like it, I said. I don’t.”
“Will you go?” asked Mr. Angerstyne, turning to Anne.
Anne shook her head, confessing herself too much of a coward. She had never been on any water in her life until when crossing over from France, and never wished to be. And Mr. Angerstyne ungallantly let the boat alone, though Julia and Fanny told him they adored the water.
We sat down in the shade by Mrs. Sanker; some on the bench by her side, some on the grass at her feet, and she recited for us the time-worn ballad she had begun for King: just as the following year she would recite things to us, as already told of, sitting on the floor beam of the turret-room. It was called “Lord Thomas.” Should you like to hear it?
Lord Thomas he was a bold forester, And a keeper of the king’s deer; Fair Ellenor, she was a fair young lady, Lord Thomas he loved her dear.
“Come, read me a riddle, dear mother,” said he, “And riddle us both as one: Whether fair Ellen shall be mine — Or to bring the brown girl home?”
“The brown girl she hath both houses and lands; Fair Ellenor, she has none: Therefore I’d advise thee, on my blessing, To bring the brown girl home.”
Then he decked himself and he dressed himself, And his merry men, all in green: And as he rode through the town with them Folks took him to be some king.
When he came to fair Ellenor’s bower So boldly he did ring; There was none so ready as fair Ellen herself To loose Lord Thomas in.
“What news, what news, Lord Thomas, What news have you brought unto me?” “I’m come to invite you to my wedding; And that is bad news for thee.”
“Oh, now forbid,” fair Ellenor said, “That any such thing should be done: For I thought to have been the bride myself, And that you would have been the bridegroom.
“Come, read me a riddle, dear mother,” said she, “And riddle us both as one: Whether I shall go to Lord Thomas’s wedding, Or whether I shall tarry at home?”
“There’s one may be thy friend, I know; But twenty will be thy foe: Therefore I charge thee, on my blessing, To Lord Thomas’s wedding don’t go.”
“There’s one will be my friend, I know, Though twenty should be my foe: Betide me life, or betide me death, To Lord Thomas’s wedding I go.”
Then she went up into her chamber And dre
ssed herself all in green: And when she came downstairs again, They thought it must be some queen.
When she came to Lord Thomas’s castle So nobly she did ring: There was none so ready as Sir Thomas himself To loose this lady in.
Then he took her by her lily-white hand And led her across the hall; And he placed her on the daïs, Above the ladies all.
“Is this your bride, Lord Thomas? I think she looks wondrous brown: You might have had as fair a young maiden As ever trod English ground.”
“Despise her not,” said Lord Thomas; “Despise her not unto me; I love thy little finger, Ellen, Better than her whole body.”
The brown girl, having a knife in her hand, Which was both keen and sharp, Between the long ribs and the short, She pierced fair Ellenor’s heart.
“Oh, what’s the matter?” Lord Thomas said, “I think you look pale and wan: You used to have as fine a colour As ever the sun shone on.”
“What, are you blind, now, Thomas? Or can’t you very well see? Oh, can’t you see, and oh, can’t you see my own heart’s blood Run trickling down to my knee?”
Then Lord Thomas, he took the brown girl by the hand, And led her across the hall; And he took his own bride’s head off her shoulders, And dashed it against the wall.
Then Lord Thomas, he put the sword to the ground, The point against his heart: So there was an end of those three lovers, So sadly they did part!
* * * * *
Upon fair Ellenor’s grave grew a rose, And upon Lord Thomas’s a briar: And there they twixed and there they twined, till they came to the steeple-top; That all the world might plainly see, true love is never forgot.
“Oh, how delightful these old ballads are!” cried Anne, as Mrs. Sanker finished.
“Delightful!” retorted Julia Podd. “Why, they are full of queer phrases and outrageous metre and grammar!”
“My dears, it is, I suppose, how people wrote and spoke in those old days,” said Mrs. Sanker, who had given great force to every turn of the song, and seemed to feel its disasters as much as though she had been fair Ellen herself.