The Three Brides

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  "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.

&
nbsp; "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."