'Will you excuse me, and I will call them into the hall?' said Sir Jasper.
This was effected, and Master George had to identify the boys, after which Sir Jasper elicited that Petros had seen the dirty envelope come out of his brother's letter, and that his sister had put it into another, which she addressed as he described, and gave into his charge to deliver. Then came the account of the way he had been refused admittance by the porter.
'Why didn't you give him the letter?' demanded Mr. Stebbing.
'Catch us,' responded Sydney Grove, rejoiced at the opportunity, 'when what we got was, "Get out, you young rascals!"'
Petros more discreetly added-
'My sister wanted it to be given to Mr. Stebbing, so we went up to the house to wait for him, but it got late for school, and I saw the postman drop the letters into the slit in the door, so I thought that would be all right.'
'Did you see him do so?' asked Sir Jasper of the independent witness.
'Yes, sir, and he there'-pointing to George-'saw it too, and-'
'Did you?'
'Ay, and thought it like their impudence.'
'That will do, my boys,' said Sir Jasper. 'Now run away.'
Mr. White put something into each paw as the door was opened and the pair made their exit.
If Sir Jasper acted as advocate, Mr. White seemed to take the position of judge.
'There can be no doubt,' he said, 'that the letter containing the notes reached this house.'
'No,' said Mr. Stebbing hotly. 'Why was I not told? Who cleared the letter-box?'
It was the page's business, but to remember any particular letter on any particular day was quite beyond him, and he only stared wildly and said, 'Dun no,' on which he was dismissed to the lower regions.
'The address was "Francis Stebbing, Esq.,"' said Sir Jasper meditatively, perhaps like a spider pulling his cord. 'Francis-your son's name. Can he-'
'Mr. White, I'll thank you to take care what you say of my son!' exclaimed Mrs. Stebbing; but there was a blank look of alarm on the father's face.
'Where is he?' asked Mr. White.
'He may be able to explain'-courtesy and pity made the General add.
'No, no,' burst out the mother. 'He knows nothing of it. Mr. Stebbing, can't you stand up for your own son?'
'Perhaps,' began the poor man, his tone faltering with a terrible anxiety, but his wife exclaimed hastily-
'He never saw nor heard of it. I put it in the fire.'
There was a general hush, broken by Mr. Stebbing saying slowly-
'You-put-it-in-the-fire.'
'Yes; I saw those disreputable-looking boys put it into the box. I wasn't going to have that bold girl sending billy-doos on the sly to my son.'
'Under these circumstances,' drily said Sir Jasper, 'I presume that you will think it expedient to withdraw the prosecution.'
'Certainly, certainly,' said Mr. Stebbing, in the tone of one delivered from great alarm. 'I will write at once to my solicitor at Avoncester.' Then turning on his wife, 'How was it that I never heard this before, and you let me go and make a fool of myself?'
'How was I to know, Mr. Stebbing? You started off without a word to me, and all you told me when you came back was that the young man said he had posted the letter to his sister. I should like to know why he could not send it himself to the proper place!'
'Well, Mrs. Stebbing,' said her husband, 'I hope it will be a lesson to you against making free with other people's letters.'
She tossed her head, and was about to retire, when Sir Jasper said-
'Before leaving us, madam, in justice to my old friend's daughter, I should be much obliged if you would let me know your grounds for believing the letter to be what you say.'
'Why-why, Sir Jasper, it has been going on this year or more! She has perfectly infatuated the poor boy.'
'I am not asking about your son's sentiments but can you adduce any proof of their being encouraged!'
'Sir Jasper! a young man doesn't go on in that way without encouragement.'
'What encouragement can you prove?'
'Didn't I surprise a letter from her-?'
'Well'-checked the tone of triumphant conviction.
'A refusal, yes, but we all know what that means, and that there must have been something to lead to it'-and as there was an unconvinced silence-'Besides-oh, why, every one knew of her arts. You did, Mr. Stebbing, and of poor Frank's infatuation. It was the reason of her dismissal.'
'I knew what you told me, Mrs. Stebbing,' he answered grimly, not at all inclined to support her at this moment of anger. 'I am sure I wish I had never listened to you. I never saw anything amiss in the girl's behaviour, and they are all at sixes and sevens without her at the mosaic work-though she is only absent from her mother's illness at present.'
'You! of course she would not show her goings on before you, said the lady.
'Is Master Frank in the house?' put in Mr. White; 'I should like to put the question before him.'
'You can't expect a young man to make mortifying admissions,' exclaimed the mother, and as she saw smiles in answer she added, 'Of course, the girl has played the modest and proper throughout! That was her art, to draw him on, till he did not know what he was about.'
'Setting aside the supposed purpose,' said Sir Jasper, 'you admit, Mrs. Stebbing, that of your own knowledge, Miss White has never encouraged your son's attentions.'
'N-no; but we all know what those girls are.'
'Fatherless and unprotected,' said Sir Jasper, 'dependent on their own character and exertion, and therefore in especial need of kind construction. Good morning, Mrs. Stebbing; I have learnt all that I wish to know.'
Overpowered, but not convinced, Mrs. Stebbing saw her visitors depart.
'And I hope her husband will give it to her well,' said Mr. White, as they left the house.
They looked in at Beechcroft Cottage with the tidings.
'All safe, I see!' cried Miss Jane. 'Is the money found?'
'No; Mrs. Stebbing burnt it, under the impression that it was a love- letter,' drily said Sir Jasper.
Miss Mohun led the way in the hearty fit of laughter, to which the gentlemen gave way the more heartily for recent suppression; and Mr. White added-
'I assure you, it was as good as a play to hear Sir Jasper worm it out. One would think he had been bred a lawyer.'
'And now,' said the General, 'I must go and relieve that poor girl's suspense.'
'I will come with you,' volunteered Mr. White. 'I fully believe that she is a good girl, though this business and Master Richard's applications staggered me; and this soldier fellow must be an ass if he is not a scamp.'
'Scarcely that, I think,' said Miss Adelaide, with her pleading smile.
'Well, discipline will be as good for him as for his father,' said Mr. White. 'He has done for himself, but that was a nice little lad that you had up-too good for a common national school.'
Wherewith they departed, and found that Kalliope must have been on the watch, for she ran down to open the door to them, and the gladness which irradiated her face as Sir Jasper's first 'All right,' lighted up her features, which were so unlike the shop-girl prettiness that Mr. White expected as quite to startle him.
Richard was in the parlour in a cloud of smoke, and began to do the honours.
'Our acknowledgments are truly due to Sir Jasper. Mr. White, we are much honoured. Pray be seated, please to excuse-'
They paid little attention to him, while Sir Jasper told as much to his sister as could well be explained as to the fate of her envelope, and added-
'You will not be wanted at Avoncester, as the case will not come on. I shall go and see all safe, then on to town, but I mean to see your brother's commanding officer, and you may tell your mother that I have no doubt that he will be allowed a furlough.'
'But, Sir Jasper' broke in Richard, 'I beg your pardon; but there is a family from Leeds at Bellevue, the Nortons, and imagine what it would be if they reported me as connect
ed with a common private soldier, just out of prison too!'
'Let him come to me then,' exclaimed Mr. White.
In spite of appearances of disgust, Richard took the invitation to himself, and looked amiable and gratified.
'Thank you, Mr. White, that will obviate the difficulty. When shall I move up?'
'You, sir? Did you think I meant you?' said Mr. White contemptuously. 'No; I prefer a fool to a knave!'
'Mr. White,' interposed Sir Jasper, 'whatever you may have to say to Richard White, consider his sister. Or had you not better report our success to your mother, my dear?'
'One moment,' said Mr. White. 'Tell me, young lady, if you do not object, what assistance have you ever received from me.'
'You have most kindly employed us, and paid for Maura's education,' said Kalliope.
'Is that all? Has nothing been transmitted through this brother?'
'I do not understand,' said Kalliope, trembling, as Richard scowled at her.
'Sir,' said he, 'I always intended, but unforeseen circumstances-'
'That's enough for the present, sir,' said Mr. White. 'I have heard all I wish, and more too.'
'Sir,' said Kalliope, still trembling, 'indeed, Richard is a kind son and brother. My mother is much attached to him. I am generally out all day, and it is quite possible that she did not tell me all that passed between them, as she knew that I did not like you to be applied to.'
'That will do, my dear,' said Mr. White. 'I don't want to say any more about it. You shall have your brother to-morrow, if Sir Jasper can manage it. I will bring him back to Rockstone as my guest, so that his brother need not be molested with his company.'
CHAPTER XX. IVINGHOE TERRACE
On an east-windy Friday afternoon Valetta and Fergus were in a crowning state of ecstasy. Rigdum Funnidos was in a hutch in the small garden under the cliff, Begum and two small gray kittens were in a basket under the kitchen stairs, Aga was purring under everybody's feet, Cocky was turning out the guard upon his perch-in short, Il Lido was made as like Silverfold as circumstances would permit. Aunt Ada with Miss Vincent was sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room, with a newly-worked cosy, like a giant's fez, over the teapot, and Valetta's crewel cushion fully displayed. She was patiently enduring a rush in and out of the room of both children and Quiz once every minute, and had only requested that it should not be more than once, and that the door should neither be slammed nor left open.
Macrae and the Silverfold carriage were actually gone to the station, and, oh! oh! oh! here it really was with papa on the box, and heaps of luggage, and here were Primrose and Gillian and mamma and Mrs. Halfpenny, all emerging one after another, and Primrose, looking-oh dear! more like a schoolroom than a nursery girl-such a great piece of black leg below the little crimson skirt; but the dear little face as plump as ever.
That was the first apparent fact after the disengaging from the general embrace, when all had subsided into different seats, and Aunt Jane, who had appeared from somewhere in her little round sealskin hat, had begun to pour out the tea. The first sentence that emerged from the melee of greetings and intelligence was-
'Fly met her mother at the station; how well she looks!'
'Then Victoria came down with you?'
'Yes; I am glad we went to her. I really do like her very much.'
Then Primrose and Valetta varied the scene by each laying a kitten in their mother's lap; and Begum, jumping after her progeny, brushed Lady Merrifield's face with her bushy tail, interrupting the information about names.
'Come, children,' said Sir Jasper, 'that's enough; take away the cats.' It was kindly said, but it was plain that liberties with mamma would not continue before him.
'The Whites?' was Gillian's question, as she pressed up to Aunt Jane.
'Poor Mrs. White died the night before last,' was the return. 'I have just come from Kally. She is in a stunned state now-actually too busy to think and feel, for the funeral must be to-morrow.'
Sir Jasper heard, and came to ask further questions.
'She saw Alexis,' went on Miss Mohun. 'They dressed him in his own clothes, and she seemed greatly satisfied when he came to sit by her, and had forgotten all that went before. However, the end came very suddenly at last, and all those poor children show their southern nature in tremendous outbursts of grief-all except Kalliope, who seems not to venture on giving way, will not talk, or be comforted, and is, as it were, dried up for the present. The big brothers give way quite as much as the children, in gusts, that is to say. Poor Alexis reproaches himself with having hastened it, and I am afraid his brother does not spare him. But Mr. White has bought his discharge.'
'You don't mean it.'
'Yes; whether it was the contrast between Alexis's air of refinement and his private soldier's turn-out, or the poor fellow's patience and submission, or the brother's horrid behaviour to him, Mr. White has taken him up, and bought him out.'
'All because of Richard's brutal speech. That is good! Though I confess I should have let the lad have at least a year's discipline for his own good, since he had put himself into it; but I can't be sorry. There is something engaging about the boy.'
'And Mr. White is the right man to dispose of them.'
No more passed, for here were the children eager and important, doing the honours of the new house, and intensely happy at the sense of home, which with them depended more on persons than on place.
One schoolroom again,' said Mysie. 'One again with Val and Prim and Miss Vincent. Oh, it is happiness!'
Even Mrs. Halfpenny was a delightful sight, perhaps the more so that her rightful dominion was over; the nursery was no more, and she was only to preside in the workroom, be generally useful, wait on my lady, and look after Primrose as far as was needful.
The bustle and excitement of settling in prevented much thought of the Whites, even from Gillian, during that evening and the next morning; and she was ashamed of her own oblivion of her friend in the new current of ideas, when she found that her father meant to attend the funeral out of respect to his old fellow-soldier.
Rockquay had outgrown its churchyard, and had a cemetery half a mile off, so that people had to go in carriages. Mr. White had made himself responsible for expenses, and thus things were not so utterly dreary as poverty might have made them. It was a dreary, gusty March day, with driving rushes of rain, which had played wildly with Gillian's waterproof while she was getting such blossoms and evergreen leaves as her aunt's garden afforded, not out of love for the poor Queen of the White Ants herself, but thinking the attention might gratify the daughters; and her elders moralised a little on the use and abuse of wreaths, and how the manifestation of tender affection and respect had in many cases been imitated in empty and expensive compliment.
'The world spoils everything with its coarse finger,' said Lady Merrifield.
'I hope the custom will not be exaggerated altogether out of fashion,' said Jane. 'It is a real comfort to poor little children at funerals to have one to carry, and it is as Mrs. Gaskell's Margaret said of mourning, something to prevent settling to doing nothing but crying; besides that afterwards there is a wholesome sweetness in thus keeping up the memory.'
Sir Jasper shared a carriage with Mr. White, and returned somewhat wet and very cold, and saying that it had been sadly bleak and wretched for the poor young people, who stood trembling, so far as he could see; and he was anxious to know how the poor girls were after it. It had seemed to him as if Kalliope could scarcely stand. He proved to be right. Kalliope had said nothing, not wept demonstratively, perhaps not at all; but when the carriage stopped at the door, she proved to be sunk back in her corner in a dead faint. She was very long in reviving, and no sooner tried to move than she swooned again, and this time it lasted so long that the doctor was sent for. Miss Mohun arrived just as he had partially restored her, and they had a conversation.
'They must get that poor girl to bed as soon as it is possible to undress her,' he said. 'I have seen that she must break
down sooner or later, and I'm afraid she is in for a serious illness; but as yet there is no knowing.'
Nursing was not among Jane's accomplishments, except of her sister Ada's chronic, though not severe ailments; but she fetched Mrs. Halfpenny as the most effective person within reach, trusting to that good woman's Scotch height, strong arms, great decision, and the tenderness which real illness always elicited.
Nor was she wrong. Not only did Mrs. Halfpenny get the half- unconscious girl into bed, but she stayed till evening, and then came back to snatch a meal and say-
'My leddy, if you have no objection, I will sit up with that puir lassie the night. They are all men-folk or bairns there, except the lodger-lady, who is worn out with helping the mother, and they want some one with a head on her shoulders.'
Lady Merrifield consented with all her heart; but the Sunday morning's report was no better, when Mrs. Halfpenny came home to dress Primrose, and see her lady.
'That eldest brother, set him up, the idle loon, was off by the mail train that night, and naething wad serve him but to come in and bid good-bye to his sister just as I had gotten her off into something more like a sleep. It startled her up, and she went off her head again, poor dearie, and began to talk about prison and disgrace, and what not, till she fainted again; and when she came to, I was fain to call the other lad to pacify her, for I could see the trouble in her puir een, though she could scarce win breath to speak.'
'Is Alexis there?'
'Surely he is, my leddy; he's no the lad to leave his sister in sic a strait. It was all I could do to gar him lie down when she dozed off again, but there's sair stress setting in for all of them, puir things. I have sent the little laddie off to beg the doctor to look in as soon as he can, for I am much mistaken if there be not fever coming on.'
'Indeed! And what can those poor children do?'
'That's what I'm thinking, my leddy. And since 'tis your pleasure that the nursery be done awa' wi', and I have not ta'en any fresh work, I should like weel to see the puir lassie through wi' it. Ye'll no mind that Captain White and my puir Halfpenny listed the same time, and always forgathered as became douce lads. The twa of them got their stripes thegither, and when Halfpenny got his sunstroke in that weary march, 'twas White who gave him his last sup of water, and brought me his bit Bible. So I'd be fain to tend his daughter in her sickness, if you could spare me, my leddy, and I'd aye rin home to dress Missie Primrose and pit her to bed, and see to matters here.'
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