'That is over now,' said Oliver, consequentially; and as his mother presented to him 'poor Henry's little Clara,' he kissed her affectionately, saying, 'Well-grown young lady, upon my word! Like her father-that's right.'
'Here is almost another grandchild,' said Mrs. Frost-'Louis Fitzjocelyn-not much like the Fitzjocelyn you remember, but a new M.P. as he was then.'
'Humph!' said Oliver, with a dry sound, apparently expressing, 'So that is what our Parliament is made of. Father well?' he asked.
'Quite well, thank you, sir.'
Oliver levelled his keen eyes on him, as though noting down observations, while he was burning for tidings of Mary, yet held back by reserve and sense of the uncongeniality of the man. His aunt, however, in the midst of her own joy, marked his restless eye, and put the question, whether Mary Ponsonby had arrived?
'Ha! you let her go, did you?' said Oliver, turning on Louis. 'I told her father you'd be no such fool. He was in a proper rage at your letter, but it would have blown over if you had stuck by her, and he is worth enough to set you all on your legs.'
Louis could not bring himself to make any answer, and his mother interrupted by a question as to Dona Rosita.
'Like all the rest. Eyes and feet, that's all. Foolish business! But what possessed Ormersfield to make such a blunder? I never saw Ponsonby in such a tantrum, and his are no trifles.'
'It was all the fault of your clerk, Robson,' said James; 'he would not refute the story.'
'Sharp fellow, Robson,' chuckled Oliver; 'couldn't refute it. No; as he told me, he knew the way Ponsonby had gone on ever since his wife went home, and of late he had sent him to Guayaquil, about the Equatorial Navigation-so he had seen nothing;-and, says he to me, he had no notion of bringing out poor Miss Ponsonby-did not know whether her father would thank him; and yet the best of it is, that he pacifies Ponsonby with talking of difficulty of dealing with preconceived notions. Knows how to get hold of him. Marriage would never have been if he had been there, but it was the less damage. Mary would have had more reason to have turned about, if she had not found him married.'
'But, Oliver,' said his mother, 'I thought this Robson was an honest man, in whom you had entire confidence!'
'Ha! ha! D'ye think I'd put that in _any_ man? No, no; he knows how far to go with me. I've plenty of checks on him. Can't get business done but by a wide-awake chap like that.'
'Is Madison under him?' asked Louis, feeling as if he had been apprenticing the boy to a chief of banditti.
'The lad you sent out? Ay. Left him up at the mines. Sharp fellow, but too raw for the office yet.'
'Too scrupulous!' said James, in an undertone, while his uncle was explaining to his mother that he could not have come away without leaving Robson to manage his affairs, and Mr. Ponsonby, and telling exultingly some stories of the favourite clerk's sharp practice.
The party went down together in a not very congenial state.
Next to Mrs. Frost's unalloyed gladness, the most pleasant spectacle was old Jane, who volunteered her services in helping to wait, that she might have the delight of hovering about Master Oliver, to whom she attended exclusively, and would not let Charlotte so much as offer him the potatoes. And Charlotte was in rather an excited state at the presence of a Peruvian production, and the flutter of expecting a letter which would make her repent of the smiles and blushes she had expended over an elaborate Valentine, admired as an original production, and valued the more, alas! because poor Marianne had received none. Charlotte was just beginning to repent of her ungenerous triumph, and agitation made her waiting less deft and pretty than usual; but this mattered the less, since to Oliver any attendance by women-servants was a shock, as were the small table and plain fare; and he looked round uneasily.
'Here is an old friend, Oliver,' said his mother, taking up a curious old soup-ladle.
'I see. It will take some time to get up the stock of plate. I shall give an order as I pass through London. To be engraved with the Dynevor crest as before, or would you prefer the lozenge, ma'am?'
'Oh, my dear, don't talk of it now! I am only sorry this is nothing but mutton-broth; but that's what comes of sudden arrivals, Oliver.'
'It shall be remedied at home,' said Oliver, as if he considered mutton-broth as one degree from famine.
'I know you had it for me,' said Louis. 'If Jane excels in one art before all others, it is in mutton-broth.'
Oliver darted a glance as if he imagined this compliment to be mere derision of his mother and Jane.
Things went on in this style all the evening. Oliver had two ideas- Cheveleigh, and the Equatorial Steam Navigation Company-and on these he rang the changes.
There was something striking in his devotion of a lifetime to redeem his mother's fortunes, but the grandeur was not easily visible in the detail. He came down on Dynevor Terrace as a consequential, moneyed man, contemptuous of the poverty which he might have alleviated, and obtruding tardy and oppressive patronage. He rubbed against the new generation in too many places for charity or gratitude to be easy. He was utterly at variance with taste, and openly broached unworthy sentiments and opinions, and his kindness and his displeasure were equally irksome. If such repugnance to him were felt even by Louis, the least personally affected, and the best able to sympathize with his aunt; it was far stronger in James, abhorring patronage, sensible that, happen what might, his present perfect felicity must be disturbed, and devoid of any sentiment for Cheveleigh that could make the restoration compensate for the obligation so unpleasantly enforced; and Isabel's fastidious taste made her willing to hold aloof as far as might be without vexing the old lady.
There was no amalgamation. Fitzjocelyn and Isabel were near the window, talking over her former home and her sisters, and all the particulars of the society which she had left, and he had entered; highly interesting to themselves and to the listening Clara, but to the uninitiated sounding rather like 'taste, Shakspeare, and the musical glasses.'
Oliver and his mother, sitting close together, were living in an old world; asking and answering many a melancholy question on friends, dead or lost sight of, and yet these last they always made sure that they should find when they went home to Cheveleigh-that home to which the son reverted with unbroken allegiance; while the whole was interspersed with accounts of his plans, and explanations of his vast designs for the renovation of the old place.
James hovered on the outskirts of both parties, too little at ease to attach himself to either; fretted by his wife's interest in a world to which he was a stranger, impatient of his uncle's plans, and trebly angered by observing the shrewd curious glances which the old man cast from time to time towards the pair by the window. Fortunately, Mrs. Frost was still too absolutely wrapt in maternal transport to mark the clouds that were gathering over her peace. To look at her son, wait on him, and hear his voice, so fully satisfied her, that as yet it made little difference what that voice said, and it never entered her mind to suppose that all her dear ones were not sharing her bliss.
'You were the first to tell me,' she said, as she bade Louis good night with fondness additional to her messenger of good news; but, as he pressed her dear old trembling hand, his heart misgave him whether her joy might not be turned to pain; and when he congratulated Jane, and heard her call it a blessed day, he longed to be certain that it would prove so.
And, before he could sleep that night, he wrote a letter to Tom Madison, warning him to let no temptation nor bad example lead him aside from strict justice and fair dealing; and advising him rather to come home, and give up all prospects of rising, than not preserve his integrity.
James and Isabel were not merciful to their uncle when they could speak of him without restraint; and began to conjecture his intentions with regard to them.
'You don't wish to become an appendage to Cheveleigh?' said James, fondly.
'I! who never knew happiness till I came here!'
'I do not know what my uncle may propose,' said James, 'but I know you coi
ncide in my determination that he shall never interfere with the duties of my office.'
'You do not imagine that he wishes it?'
'I know he wishes I were not in Holy Orders. I knew he disliked it at the time of my ordination; but if he wished me to act according to his views, he should have given himself the right to dictate.'
'By not neglecting you all your youth.'
'Not that I regret or resent what concerns myself; but it was his leaving me a burden on my grandmother that drove me to become a clergyman, and a consistent one I will be, not an idle heir-apparent to this estate, receiving it as his gift, not my own birthright.'
'An idle clergyman! Never! never!' cried Isabel. 'I should not believe it was you! And the school-you could not leave it just as your plans are working, and the boys improving?'
'Certainly not; it would be fatal to abandon it to that stick, Powell. Ah! Isabel,' as he looked at her beautiful countenance, 'how I pity the man who has not a high-minded wife! Suppose you came begging and imploring me not to give any umbrage to the man, because you so doted upon diamonds.'
'The less merit when one has learnt that they are very cold hard stones,' said Isabel, smiling.
Isabel was a high-minded wife, but she would have been a still better one if her loving admiration had allowed her to soften James, or to question whether pride and rancour did not lurk unperceived in the midst of the really high and sound motives that prompted him.
While their grandmother could only see Oliver on the best side, James and Isabel could only see him on the worst, and lost the greatness of the design in the mercenary habits that exclusive perseverance in it had produced. It had been a false greatness, but they could not grant the elevation of mind that had originally conceived it.
The following day was Sunday, and nothing worse took place than little skirmishes, in which the uncle and nephew's retort and rejoinder were so drolly similar, that Clara found herself thinking of Miss Faithfull's two sandy cats over a mouse; but she kept her simile to herself, finding that Isabel regarded the faintest, gentlest comparison of the two gentlemen almost as an affront. All actual debate was staved off by Mrs. Frost's entreaty that business discussion should be deferred. 'Humph!' said Oliver, 'you reign here, ma'am, but that's not the way we get on at Lima.'
'I dare say,' said James.
Mrs. Frost's joy was still undimmed. It was almost a trance of gladness, trembling in her smile, and overflowing in her eye, at every congratulation and squeeze of the hand from her friends.
'Dear Jemmy,' said she, taking his arm as they went home in the evening, 'did not that psalm seem meant for us?-'If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.''
James had been thinking it meant for some one; but, as he said, 'certainly not for you, dear granny.'
'Ah! snares of wealth were set far enough from me for a time! I never felt so covetous as when there was a report that there was to be an opposition school. But now your dear uncle is bringing prosperity back, I must take care not to set my heart even on what he has gained for me.'
'I defy riches to hurt you,' said James, smiling.
'Ah! Jemmy, you didn't know me as a county grandee,' she said, with a bright sad look, 'when your poor grandpapa used to dress me up. I'm an old woman now, past vanities, but I never could sit as loose to them as your own dear wife does. I never tried. Well, it will be changed enough; but I shall be glad to see poor old Cheveleigh. It does me good to hear poor Oliver call it home. If only we had your dear father!'
'To me Dynevor Terrace is home,' said James.
'A happy home it has been,' said the old lady.
''Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life!' And now, Oliver, whom I never thought to see again-oh! what can I do to be thankful enough! I knew what he was doing! I knew he was not what you all thought him! And roughing it has been no harm to you or Clara, and it is all over now! And the dear old place comes back to the old name. Oh, James, I can sometimes hardly contain myself-that my poor boy has done it, and all for me, and his brother's children!'
James could scarcely find it in his heart to say a single word to damp her joy, and all his resolution enabled him to do was to say gently, 'You know, dear granny, we must not forget that I am a clergyman.'
'I know. I have been telling your uncle so; but we can do something. You might take the curacy, and do a great deal of good. There used to be wild places sadly neglected in my time. I hope that, since it has been given back to us, we may feel it more as a stewardship than I did when it was mine.'
James sighed, and looked softened and thoughtful.
'Your uncle means to purchase an annuity for Jane,' she added; 'and if we could only think what to do for the Faithfulls! I wonder whether they would come and stay with us. At least they can never vex themselves again at not paying rent!'
After a pause-'Jem, my dear, could you manage to give your uncle the true account of your marriage? He admires Isabel very much, I can tell you, and is pleased at the connexion. But I fancy, though he will not say so, that Mr. Ponsonby has desired him to find out all he can about Louis; and unluckily they have persuaded themselves that poor Louis courted Isabel, supposing that she was to have Beauchastel, and, finding his error, betook himself to Mary.'
'Turning Isabel over to me! Extremely flattering.'
'Now, Jem, don't be angry. It is only foolish talk! But unluckily I can't persuade your uncle not to think the real story all my partiality; and you might do much more, if it be not too unpleasant to you.'
'Thank you, granny, it is out of the question. If it were as he does us the honour to imagine, I should be the last person to confess it. My evidence could be of no service to Fitzjocelyn, when my uncle's maxim is to place confidence in no one. The sole refutation in my power is the terms on which we meet.'
'Now, I have vexed you. I wish I had said nothing about it; but when dear Louis's happiness may depend on his report-'
'If I were base enough to have acted as he supposes, I should be base enough to deny it. There is not enough to be hoped to make me speak with unreserve on such a subject.'
He saved himself from saying-to such a man; but the shrewd, suspicious old bachelor was not an inviting confidant for the vicissitudes of delicate and tender feelings of such recent date, and Mrs. Frost reproached herself with asking too much of her proud, sensitive grandson.
The black gown and trencher cap by no means gratified Oliver, when James set off to school on Monday morning; but he consoled himself with observing, 'We shall soon put an end to that.'
'James is quite devoted to the school,' said Isabel, and she was answered by the dry growl.
'It will be a hard thing to transplant our young people,' said Mrs. Frost, 'they have managed to be very happy here.'
'So hard of transplantation that I doubt the possibility,' said Isabel. 'You have made us take very deep root here.'
'Have you ever seen Cheveleigh, Mrs. Dynevor?'
'Never.'
'Poor Oliver! you and I think no place equal to our birthplace,' said Mrs. Frost.
'I should think Mrs. Roland Dynevor would find it compensation. How many beds did we make up, mother, the year my father was sheriff?'
'You must go to Jane for that,' said his mother, laughing. 'I'm sure I never knew.'
'I believe it was twenty-seven,' said Oliver, gravely. 'I know there were one hundred and eighty-five persons at the ball, and that the room was hung with blue brocade, mother; and you opened the ball with Lord Francis. I remember you had violet satin and white blonde.'
'My dear, how can you remember such things! You were a little bit of a schoolboy!'
'I was sixteen' said Oliver. 'It was the year '13. I will have the drawing-room hung with blue brocade, and I think Mrs. Roland Dynevor will own that nothing can exceed it.'
'Very likely,' said Isabel, indifferently; and she escaped, beckoning with her Clara, who was rather entertained with the reminiscences over which granny and Uncle Oliver seemed ready to linger for
ever; and yet she was rather ashamed of her own amusement and interest, when she heard her sister-in-law say, 'If he did but know how weary I am of that hateful thing, a great house!'
'I hope Cheveleigh is not grander than Ormersfield,' said Clara, in an odd sort of voice.
The ladies, for the first time, did not sit together this morning. Clara practised, and Isabel took the Chapel in the Valley out of her desk, and began a process of turning the Sir Roland into Sir Hubert.
Oliver and his mother were in the sitting-room, and, on James's return from school in the middle of the day, he was summoned thither. Mrs. Frost was sitting by the fire, rather tearful and nervous, and her son stood full in the front, as dignified and magnanimous as size and features would permit, and the same demeanour was instantly and unconsciously assumed by his nephew, who was beyond measure chafed by the attempt at a grand coup,
'I have requested your presence,' began Oliver, 'as the eldest son of my elder brother, and thus, after my mother, the head of our family. You are aware that when unfortunate circumstances involved my mother's property, it was my determination to restore the inheritance to her, and to my dear brother Henry. For this object, I have worked for the last thirty-four years, and a fortunate accident having brought our family estate into the market, I have been enabled to secure it. I am now ready to make it over to my mother, with entail to yourself and your heirs, as representatives of my brother Henry, and settling five thousand pounds on your sister, as the portion to which the younger children of our family have always been entitled. If you are willing to reside at our family seat with my mother, I will assure you of a suitable allowance during her lifetime, and-'
Nothing was more intolerable to a man like James than a shower of obligations; and his spirit, angered at the very length of the address, caught at the first opening for avoiding gratitude, and beheld in the last proposal an absolute bribe to make him sacrifice his sacred ministry, and he burst forth, 'Sir, I am much obliged to you, but no offers shall induce me to forsake the duties of my calling.'
Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) Page 9