There was a regular outcry at this, and Mrs. Morton declared her poor dear boy should not suffer, but she would make it up to him, and Herbert added that ‘it had been unlucky, half of it was that they were riled with him, first because he had shot a ridiculous rook with white wings that my lady made no end of a fuss about.’
‘Ah, then it is her spite,’ said Ida. ‘She’s a sly cat, with all her meek ways.’
p. 122Herbert was not displeased with this evening’s sympathy, as he lay outspread on the sofa, with the admiring and pitying eyes of his mother and sister upon him; but he soon began to feel—when he had had his grumble out, and could take his swing at home—that there could be too much of it.
It was all very well to ease his own mind by complaining, but when he heard of Ida announcing that he had been shamefully treated, all out of spite for killing a white rook, his sense of justice made him declare that the notion was nothing but girl’s folly, such as no person with a grain of sense could believe.
The more his mother and her friends persisted in treating him as an ill-used individual, the victim of his uncle’s avarice and his aunt’s spite, the more his better nature revolted and acknowledged inwardly and sometimes outwardly the kindness and justice he had met with. It was really provoking that any attempt to defend them, or explain the facts, were only treated as proofs of his own generous feeling. Ida’s partisanship really did him more good than half a dozen lectures would have done, and he steadily adhered to his promise not to bet, though on the regatta day Ida and her friend Sibyl derided him for not choosing to risk even a pair of gloves; and while one pitied him, the other declared that he was growing a skinflint like his uncle.
He talked and laughed noisily enough to Ida’s friends, but he had seen enough at Northmoor to feel the difference, and he told his sister that there was not a lady amongst the whole kit of them, except Rose Rollstone, who was coming down for her holiday.
p. 123‘Rose!’ cried Ida, tossing her head. ‘A servant’s daughter and a hand at a shop! What will you say next, I wonder?’
‘Lady is as lady acts,’ said Herbert, making a new proverb, whereat his mother and sister in chorus rebuked him, and demanded to know whether Ida were not a perfect lady.
At which he laughed with a sound of scoffing, and being tired of the discussion sauntered out of the house to that inexhaustible occupation of watching the boats come in, and smoking with old acquaintances, who were still congenial to him, and declared that he had not become stuck-up, though he was turned into an awful swell! Perhaps they were less bad for him than Stanhope, for they inspired no spirit of imitation.
When he came back a later post had arrived, bringing the news of Constance’s successes and of the invitation to her to share the expedition of her uncle and aunt. There was no question about letting her go, but the feeling was scarcely of congratulation.
‘Well, little Conny knows how to play her cards!’
‘Stuff—child wouldn’t know what it meant,’ said Herbert glumly.
‘Well,’ said his sister, ‘she always was the favourite, and I call it a shame.’
‘What, because you’ve been such a good girl, and got such honours and prizes?’ demanded Herbert.
‘Nonsense, Herbert,’ said his mother. ‘Ida’s education was finished, you know.’
‘Oh, she wasn’t a bit older than Conny is now.’
p. 124‘And I don’t hold with all that study, science and logic, and what d’ye call it; that’s no use to any one,’ continued his mother. ‘It’s not as if your sisters had to be governesses. Give me a girl who can play a tune on the piano and make herself agreeable. Your uncle may do as he pleases, but he’ll have Constance on his hands. The men don’t fancy a girl that is always after books and lectures.’
‘Not of your sort, perhaps,’ said Herbert, ‘but I don’t care what I bet that Conny gets a better husband than Ida.’
‘It stands to reason,’ Ida said, almost crying, ‘when uncle takes her about to all these fine places and sets her up to be the favourite—just the youngest. It’s not fair.’
‘As if she wasn’t by a long chalk the better of the two,’ said Herbert.
‘Now, Bertie,’ interposed his mother, ‘I’ll not have you teasing and running down your sister, though I do say it is a shame and a slight to pick out the youngest, when poor Ida is so delicate, and both of you two have ever so much better a right to favours.’
‘That’s a good one!’ muttered Herbert, while Ida exclaimed—
‘Of course, you know, aunt has always been nasty to me, ever since I said ma said I was not strong enough to be bothered with that horrid school; and as to poor Herbert, they have spited him because he shot that—’
‘Shut up, Ida,’ shouted Herbert. ‘I wouldn’t go with them if they went down on their knees to me! What should I do, loafing about among a p. 125lot of disputing frog-eaters, without a word of a Christian language, and old Frank with his nose in a guide-book wanting me to look at beastly pictures and rum old cathedrals. You would be a fish out of water, too, Ida. Now Conny will take to it like a house afire, and what’s more, she deserves it!’
‘Well, ma,’ put in the provoked Ida, ‘I wonder you let Conny go, when it would do me so much good, and it is so unfair.’
‘My dear, you don’t understand a mother’s feelings. I feel the slight for you, but your uncle must be allowed to have his way. He is at all the expense, and to refuse for Conny would do you no good.’
‘Except that she will be more set up than ever,’ murmured Ida.
‘Oh, come now! I wonder which looks more like the set-up one,’ said Herbert, whose wider range had resulted in making him much alive to Ida’s shortcomings, and who looked on at her noisy style of flirtation with the eye of a grave censor. Whatever he might be himself, he knew what a young lady ought to be.
He triumphed a little when, during the few days spent in London, Constance wrote of a delightful evening when, while her uncle and aunt and Miss Morton had gone to an entertainment for Bertha’s match-box makers, she had been permitted to have Rose Rollstone to spend the time with her, the carriage, by their kind contrivance, fetching the girl both in going and coming.
The two young things had been thoroughly happy together. Rose had gone on improving p. 126herself; her companions in the art embroidery line were girls of a good class, with a few ladies among them, and their tone was good and refined. It was the fashion among them to attend the classes, Bible and secular, put in their way, and their employers conscientiously attended to their welfare, so that Rose was by no means an unfitting companion for the High School maiden, and they most happily compared notes over their very different lives, when they were not engaged in playing with little Cea, as the unwieldy name of Miss Morton’s protйgйe had been softened. She was a very pretty little creature, with big blue eyes and hair that could be called golden, and very full of life and drollery, so that she was a treat to both; and when the housemaid, whose charge she was, insisted on her coming to bed, they begged to superintend her evening toilet, and would have played antics with her in her crib half the night if they had not been inexorably chased away.
Then they sat down on low stools in the balcony, among the flowers, in convenient proximity for the caresses they had not yet outgrown, and had what they called ‘a sweet talk.’
Constance had been much impressed with the beauty of the embroidery, and thought it must be delightful to do such things.
‘Yes, for the forewoman,’ said Rose, ‘but there’s plenty of dull work; the same over and over again, and one little stitch ever so small gone amiss throws all wrong. Miss Grey told us to recollect it was just like our lives!’
‘That’s nice!’ said Constance. ‘And it is for the Church and Almighty God’s service?’
p. 127‘Some of it,’ said Rose, ‘but there’s a good deal only for dresses, and furniture, and screens.’
‘Don’t you feel like Sunday when you are doing altar-cloths and stools?’ asked C
onstance reverently.
‘I wish I did,’ said Rose; ‘but I don’t do much of that kind yet, and one can’t keep up the being serious over it always, you know. Indeed, Miss Grey does not wish us to be dull; she reads to us when there is time, and explains the symbols that have to be done; but part of the time it is an amusing book, and she says she does not mind cheerful talk, only she trusts us not to have gossip she would not like to hear.’
‘I wonder,’ said Constance, ‘whether I should have come with you if all this had not happened? It must be very nice.’
‘But your school is nice?’
‘Oh yes. I do love study, and those Saturdays and Sundays at Northmoor, they are delicious! Uncle Frank reads with me about religion, you know.’
‘Like our dear Bible class?’
‘Yes; I never understood or felt anything before; he puts it so as it comes home,’ said Constance, striving to express herself. ‘Then I have a dear little class at the Sunday school.’
‘I am to have one, by and by.’
‘Mine are sweet little things, and I work for them on Saturdays, while Aunt Mary reads to me. I do like teaching—and, do you know, Rose, I think I shall be a High School teacher!’
‘Oh, Conny, I thought you were all so rich and grand!’
p. 128‘No, we are not,’ said Constance lazily; ‘we have nothing but what Uncle Frank gives us, and I can’t bear the way mamma and Ida are always trying to get more out of him, when I know he can’t always do what he likes, and nasty people think him shabby. I am sure I ought to work for myself.’
‘But if Herbert is a lord?’
‘I hope he won’t be for a long long time,’ cried Constance. ‘Besides, I am sure he would want all his money for himself! And as to being a teacher, Aunt Mary was, and Miss Arden, who is so wise and good, is one. If I was like them I think it would be doing real work for God and good—wouldn’t it, Rose? Oh dear, oh dear, there’s the carriage stopping for you!’
p. 129CHAPTER XIX
THE DOLOMITES
The summer was a very hot one, and the travellers, in spite of the charm of new scenes, and the wonders of everything to their unsophisticated eyes, found it trying. Constance indeed was in a state of constant felicity and admiration, undimmed except by the flagging of her two fellow-travellers in the heated and close German railway cars. Her uncle’s head suffered much, and Lady Northmoor secretly thought her maid’s refusal to accompany them showed her to be a prudent woman. However, the first breath of mountain air was a grand revival to Lord Northmoor, and at Innsbruck he was quite alive, and walked about in fervent delight, not desisting till he and Constance had made out every statue on Maximilian’s monument. His wife was so much tired and worn-out, that she heartily rejoiced in having provided him with such a good little companion, though she was disappointed at being obliged to fail him, and get what rest she could at the hotel. But then, as she told him, if he learnt his way about it now, he would be able p. 130to show it all to her when they had both gained strength at Ratzes.
Bertha had obtained full instructions and a welcome for them from Mrs. Bury, a kindly person, who, having married off her children while still in full health and vigour, remained at the service of any relation who needed her, and in the meantime resorted to out-of-the-way places abroad.
The railway took them to Botzen, which was hotter still, and thence on to Castelruth, whence there was no means of reaching Ratzes but by mule or chaise а porteux. Both alike were terrible to poor Mary; however, she made up her mind to the latter, and all the long way was to her a dream of terror and discomfort, and of trying to admire—what she knew she ought to admire—the wonderful pinnacle-like aiguilles of the Schern cleaving the air. For some time the way lay over the great plateau of the Scisser Alp—a sea of rich grass, full of cattle, where her husband and niece kept on trying to bring their mules alongside of her to make her participate in their ecstasy, and partake of their spoils—mountain pink, celestially blue gentian, brilliant poppy, or the like. Here the principal annoyance was that their mules were so obstinately bent on not approaching her that she was in constant alarm for them, while Constance was absolutely wild with delight, and even grave Frank was exhilarated by the mountain air into boyish spirits, such as impressed her, though she resolutely prevented herself from lowering them by manifesting want of sympathy, though the aiguilles that they p. 131admired seemed to her savage, and the descent, along a perilous winding road, cut out among precipices, horrified her—on, on, through endless pine forests, where the mules insisted on keeping her in solitude, and where nothing could be seen beyond the rough jolting path. At last, when a whole day had gone by, and even Constance sat her mule in silence and looked very tired, the fir trees grew more scanty. The aiguilles seemed in all their wildness to be nodding overhead; there was a small bowling-green, a sort of chвlet in two divisions, united by a gallery: but Mary saw no more, for at that moment a loose slippery stone gave way, and the bearers stumbled and fell, dragging the chair so that it tipped over.
Constance, who had ridden on in front with her uncle, first heard a cry of dismay, and as both leaped off and rushed back, they saw her aunt had fallen, and partly entangled in the chair.
‘Do not touch her!’ cried Frank, forgetting that he could not be understood, and raising her in his arms, as the chair was withdrawn; but she did not speak or move, and there was a distressing throng and confusion of strange voices, seeming to hem them in as Constance looked round, unable to call up a single word of German, or to understand the exclamations. Then, as she always said, it was like an angel’s voice that said, ‘What is it?’ as through the crowd came a tall lady in a white hat and black gown, and knelt down by the prostrate figure, saying, ‘I hope she is only stunned; let us carry her in. It will be better to let her come round there.’
p. 132The lady gave vigorous aid, and, giving a few orders in German, helped Lord Northmoor to carry the inanimate form into the hotel, a low building of stone, with a high-pitched shingle roof. Constance followed in a bewilderment of fright, together with Lenchen, the Swiss maid, who, as well as could be made out, was declaring that a Swiss bearer never made a false step.
Lady Northmoor was carried into a bedroom, and Constance was shut out into a room that photographed itself on her memory, even in that moment—a room like a box, with a rough table, a few folding-chairs, an easel, water-coloured drawings hung about in all directions, a big travelling-case, a few books, a writing-case, Mrs. Bury’s sitting-room in fact, which, as a regular sojourner, she had been able to secure and furnish after her need. From the window, tall, narrow, latticed, with a heavy outside shutter, she saw a village green, a little church with a sharp steeple, and pointed-roof houses covered with shingle, groups of people, a few in picturesque Tyrolese costume, but others in the ordinary badly cut edition of cosmopolitan human nature. There was a priest in a big hat and white bordered bands discussing a newspaper with a man with a big red umbrella; a party drinking coffee under a pine tree, and beyond, those strange wild pointed aiguilles pointing up purple and red against the sky.
How delightful it would all have been if this quarter of an hour could be annihilated! She could find out nothing. Lenchen and the good-natured-looking landlady came in and out and fetched p. 133things, but they never stayed long enough to give her any real information, the landlady shouting for ‘Hemzel,’ etc., and Lenchen calling loudly in German for the boxes, which had been slung on mules. She heard nothing definite till her uncle came out, looking pale and anxious.
‘She is better now,’ he said, with a gasp of relief, throwing himself into a chair, and holding out his hand to Constance, who could hardly frame her question. ‘Yes, quite sensible—came round quickly. The blow on the head seems to be of no consequence; but there may be a strain, or it may be only the being worn out and overdone. They are going to undress her and put her to bed now. Mrs. Bury is kindness itself. I did not look after her enough on that dreadful road.’
‘Isn’t there a
doctor?’ Constance ventured to ask.
‘No such thing within I know not how many miles of these paths! But Mrs. Bury seems to think it not likely to be needed. Over-fatigue and the shake! What was I about? This air and all the rest were like an intoxication, making me forget my poor Mary!’
He passed his hand over his face with a gesture as if he were very much shocked and grieved at himself, and Constance suggested that it was all the mule’s fault, and Aunt Mary never complained.
‘The more reason she should not have been neglected,’ he said; and it was well for the excluded pair that just then the boxes were reported as arrived, and he was called on for the keys, so p. 134that wild searching for things demanded occupied them.
After a considerable time, Mrs. Bury came and told Lord Northmoor that he might go and look at his wife for a few moments, but that she must be kept perfectly quiet and not talked to or agitated. Constance was not to go in at all, but was conducted off by the good lady to her own tiny room, to get herself ready for the much-needed meal that was imminent.
They met again in the outer room. There was a great Speise saal, a separate building, where the bathers dived en masse; but since Mrs. Bury had made the place her haunt, she had led to the erection of an additional building where there was a little accommodation for the travellers of the better class who had of late discovered the glories of the Dolomites, though the baths were scarcely ever used except by artizans and farmers. She had this sitting-room chiefly made at her own expense with these few comforts, in the way of easy folding-chairs, a vase of exquisite flowers on the table, a few delicate carvings, an easel, and drawings of the mountain peaks and ravines suspended everywhere.
Besides this there were only the bedrooms, as small as they well could be.
They were summoned down to the evening meal, and the maid Lenchen was left with Lady Northmoor. There was only one other guest, a spectacled and rather silent German, and Constance presently gathered that Mrs. Bury was trying to encourage and inspirit Lord Northmoor, but seemed to think p. 135there might be some delay before a move would be possible.
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