Magnum Bonum

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  "That depends. That poor little mite is the youngest but one, and the nurse likes boys best. So she peaked and pined, and was bullied by Edmund above and Harry below, and was always in trouble. Nobody but Johnny and Essie ever had a good word for her. This autumn it came to a crisis. You know we had a great meeting of the two families at Walmer, and there, the shock of bathing nearly took out of her all the little life there was. I believe she would have gone into fits if mother had not heard her screams, and dashed on the nurse like a vindictive mermaid, and then made uncle Robert believe her. My aunt trusts the nurse, you must know, and lets her ride rough-shod over every one in the nursery. The poor little thing was always whining and fretting whenever she was not in Essie's arms or the Monk's, till the Monk declared she had a spine, and he and mother gave uncle and aunt no peace till they brought her here for advice, and sure enough her poor little spine is all wrong, and will never be good for anything without a regular course of watching and treatment. So we have her here with Essie to look after her for as long as Sir Edward Fane wants to keep her under him, and you can't think what a nice little mortal she turns out to be now she is rescued from nurse and those little ruffians of brothers."

  "That's first-rate," remarked Cecil.

  "The eucharis and maiden-hair, is it not? I must keep some sprays for our hairs to-night."

  "Is any one coming to-night?"

  "The promiscuous herd. Oh, didn't you know? Our Johns told mother it would be no end of kindness to let them bring in a sprinkling of their fellow-students-poor lads that live poked up in lodgings, and never see a lady or any civilisation all through the term. So she took to having them on Thursday once a fortnight, and Dr. Medlicott was perfectly delighted, and said she could not do a better work; and it is such fun! We don't have them unmitigated, we get other people to enliven them. The Actons are coming, and I hope Mr. Esdale is coming to-night to show us his photographs of the lost cities in Central America. You'll stay, won't you?"

  "If Mrs. Brownlow will let me. I hope your toasting-fork woman has not spirited her away?"

  "Under the eyes of your horse and man."

  "Are you all at home? And has Allen finished his novel?"

  Babie laughed, and said-

  "Poor Ali! You see there comes a fresh blight whenever it begins to bud."

  "What has that wretched girl been doing now?"

  "Oh, don't you know? The yacht had to be overhauled, so they went to Florence instead, and have been wandering about in all the resorts of rather shady people, where Lisette can cut a figure. Mr. Wakefield is terribly afraid that even poor Mr. Gould himself is taking to gambling for want of something to do. There are always reports coming of Elfie taking up with some count or baron. It was a Russian prince last time, and then Ali goes down into the very lowest depths, and can't do anything but smoke. You know that's good for blighted beings. I cure my plants by putting them into his room surreptitiously."

  "You are a hard-hearted little mortal, Babie. Ah, there's the bell!"

  Mrs. Brownlow came in with the two Johns, who had joined her just as she had finished talking to the poor woman; Jock carried off his friend to dress, and Babie, after finishing her arrangements and making the most of every fragment of flower or leaf, repaired with a selection of delicate sprays, to the room where Esther, having put her little sister to bed, was dressing for dinner. She was eager to tell of her alarm at the invasion, and of Captain Evelyn's good nature when she had expected him to be proud and disagreeable.

  "He wanted to be," said Babie, "but honest nature was too strong for him."

  "Johnny was so angry at the way he treated Jock."

  "O, we quite forget all that. Poor fellow! it was a mistaken reading of noblesse oblige, and he is very much ashamed of it. There, let me put this fern and fuchsia into your hair. I'll try to do it as well as Ellie would."

  She did so, and better, being more dainty-fingered, and having more taste. It really was an artistic pleasure to deal with such beautiful hair, and such a lovely lay figure as Esther's. With all her queenly beauty and grace, the girl had that simplicity and sedateness which often goes with regularity of feature, and was hardly conscious of the admiration she excited. Her good looks were those of the family, and Kenminster was used to them. This was her first evening of company, for on the only previous occasion her little sister had been unwell, sleepless and miserable in the strange house, and she had begged off. She was very shy now, and could not go down without Barbara's protection, so, at the last moment before dinner, the little brown fairy led in the tall, stately maiden, all in white, with the bright fuchsias and delicate fern in her dark hair, and a creamy rose, set off by a few more in her bosom.

  Babie exulted in her work, and as her mother beheld Cecil's raptured glance and the incarnadine glow it called up, she guessed all that would follow in one rapid prevision, accompanied by a sharp pang for her son in Japan. It was not in her maternal heart not to hope almost against her will that some fibre had been touched by Bobus that would be irresponsive to others, but duty and loyalty alike forbade the slightest attempt to revive the thought of the poor absentee, and she must steel herself to see things take their course, and own it for the best.

  Esther was a silent damsel. The clash of keen wits and exchange of family repartee were quite beyond her. She had often wondered whether her cousins were quarrelling, and had been only reassured by seeing them so merry and friendly, and her own brother bearing his part as naturally as the rest. She was more scandalised than ever to-day, for it absolutely seemed to her that they were all treating Captain Evelyn, long moustache and all, like a mere family butt, certainly worse than they would have treated one of her own brothers, for Rob would have sulked, and Joe, or any of the younger ones, might have been dangerous, whereas this distinguished-looking personage bore all as angelically as befitted one called by such a charming appellation as the Honourable Cecil Evelyn.

  "How about the shooting, Cecil? Sydney said you had not very good sport."

  "Why-no, not till I joined Rainsforth's party."

  "Where was your moor?"

  "In Lanarkshire," rather unwillingly.

  "Eh," said Allen, in a peculiar soft languid tone, that meant diversion. "Near L--?"

  "Yes."

  Then Jock burst out into laughter inexplicable at first, but Allen made his voice gentler and graver, as he said, "You don't mean Kilnaught?" and then he too joined Jock in laughter, as the latter cried-

  "Another victim to McNab of Kilnaught! He certainly is the canniest of Scots."

  "He revenges the wrongs of Scotland on innocent young Guardsmen."

  "Well, I'm sure there could not be a more promising advertisement."

  "That's just it!" said Jock. "Moor and moss. How many acres of heather?"

  "How was I to expect a man of family to be a regular swindler?"

  "Hush! hush, my dear fellow! Roderick Dhu was a man of family. It is the modern form."

  "But I saw his keeper."

  "Oh!" cried Allen. "I know! Old Rory! Tells you a long story in broad Scotch, of which you understand one word here and there about his Grace the Deuke, and how many miles-miles Scots-he walked."

  "I can see Evelyn listening, and saying 'yes,' at polite intervals!"

  "How many birds did you actually see?"

  "Well, I killed two brace and a half the first day."

  "Hatched under a hen, and let out for a foretaste."

  "And there was one old blackcock."

  "That blackcock! There are serious doubts whether it is a phantom bird, or whether Rory keeps it tame as a decoy. You didn't kill it?"

  "No."

  "If you had, you might have boasted of an achievement," said Allen.

  "The spell would have been destroyed," added Jock. "But you did not let him finish. Did you say you saw the blackcock?"

  "I am not sure; I think I heard it rise once, but the keeper was always seeing it."

  Everybody but Essie was in fits of laughing at Cecil'
s frank air of good-humoured, self-defensive simplicity, and Armine observed--

  "There's a fine subject for a ballad for the 'Traveller's Joy,' Babie. 'The Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught!'"

  Babie extemporised at once, amid great applause-

  "The hills are high, the laird's purse dry, Come out in the morning early; McNabs are keen, the Guards are green, The blackcock's tail is curly.

  "The Southron's spoil 'tis worthy toil, Come out in the morning early; Come take my house and kill my grouse, The blackcock's tail is curly.

  "Come out, come out, quoth Rory stout, Come out in the morning early, Sir Captain mark, he rises! hark, The blackcock's tail is curly."

  "Repetition, Babie," said her mother; "too like the Montjoie S. Denis poem."

  "It saves so much trouble, mother."

  "And a recall to the freshness and innocence of childhood is so pleasing," added Jock.

  "How much did the man of family let his moor for?" asked Allen.

  There Cecil saw the pitiful and indignant face opposite to him, would have sulked, and began looking at her for sympathy, exclaiming at last-

  "Haven't you a word to say for me, Miss Brownlow?"

  "I don't like it at all. I don't think it is fair," broke from Essie, as she coloured crimson at the laugh.

  "He likes it, my dear," said Babie.

  "It is a gentle titillation," said Allen.

  "He can't get on without it," said the Friar.

  "And comes for it like the cattle to the scrubbing-stones," said the Skipjack.

  "Yes," said Armine; "but he tries to get pitied, like Chico walking on three legs when some one is looking at him."

  "You deal in most elegant comparisons," said the mother.

  "Only to get him a little more pitied," said Jock. "He is as grateful as possible for being made so interesting."

  "Hark, there's a knock!" cried Allen. "Can't you instruct your cubs not to punish the door so severely, Jock? I believe they think that the more row they make, the more they proclaim their nobility!"

  "The obvious derivation of the word stunning," said Mother Carey, as she rose to meet her guests in the drawing-room, and Cecil to hold the door for her.

  "Stay, Evelyn," said Allen. "This is the night when unlicked cubs do disport themselves in our precincts. A mistaken sense of philanthropy has led my mother to make this house the fortnightly salon bleu of St. Thomas's. But there's a pipe at your service in my room."

  "Dr. Medlicott is coming," said Babie, who had tarried behind the Johns, "and perhaps Mr. Grinstead, and we are sure to have Mr. Esdale's photographs. It is never all students, medical or otherwise. Much better than Allen's smoke, Cecil."

  "I am coming of course," he said. "I was only waiting for the Infanta."

  It may be doubted whether the photographs, Dr. Medlicott, or even Jock were the attraction. He was much more fond of using his privilege of dropping in when the family were alone, than of finding himself in the midst of what an American guest had called Mrs. Brownlow's surprise parties. They were on regular evenings, but no one knew who was coming, from scientific peers to daily governesses, from royal academicians to medical students, from a philanthropic countess to a city missionary. To listen to an exposition of the microphone, to share in a Shakespeare reading, or worse still, in a paper game, was, in the Captain's eyes, such a bore that he generally had only haunted Collingwood Street on home days and on Sundays, when, for his mother's sake and his own, an exception was made in his favour.

  He followed Babie with unusual alacrity, and found Mrs. Brownlow shaking hands with a youth whom Jock upheld as a genius, but who laboured under the double misfortune of always coming too soon, and never knowing what to do with his arms and legs. He at once perceived Captain Evelyn to be an "awful swell," and became trebly wretched-in contrast to Jock's open-hearted, genial young dalesman, who stood towering over every one with his broad shoulders and hearty face, perfectly at his ease (as he would have been in Buckingham Palace), and only wondering a little that Brownlow could stand an empty-headed military fop like that; while Cecil himself, after gazing about vaguely, muttered to Babie something about her cousin.

  "She is gone to see whether Lina is asleep, and will be too shy to come down again if I don't drag her."

  So away flew Babie, and more eyes than Cecil Evelyn's were struck when in ten minutes' time she again led in her cousin.

  Mr. Acton, who was talking to Mrs. Brownlow, said in an undertone-

  "Your model? Another niece?"

  "Yes; you remember Jessie?"

  "This is a more ideal face."

  It was true. Esther had lived much less than her elder sister in the Coffinkey atmosphere, and there was nothing to mar the peculiar dignified innocence and perfect unconsciousness of her sweet maidenly bloom. She never guessed that every man, and every woman too, was admiring her, except the strong-minded one who saw in her the true inane Raffaelesque Madonna on whom George Eliot is so severe.

  Nor did the lady alter her opinion when, at the end of a very curious speculation about primeval American civilisation, Captain Evelyn and Miss Brownlow were discovered studying family photographs in a corner, apparently much more interested whether a hideous half-faded brown shadow had resembled John at fourteen, than to what century and what nation those odd curly-whirleys on stone belonged, and what they were meant to express.

  Babie was scandalised.

  "You didn't listen! It was most wonderful! Why Armie went down and fetched up Allen to hear about those wonderful walled towns!"

  "I don't go in for improving my mind," said Cecil.

  "Then you should not hinder Essie from improving hers! Think of letting her go home having seen nothing but all the repeated photographs of her brothers and sisters!"

  "Well, what should she like to see?" cried Cecil. "I'm good for anything you want to go to before the others are free."

  "The Ethiopian serenaders, or, may be, Punch," said Jock. "Madame Tussaud would be too intellectual."

  "When Lina is strong enough she is to see Madame Tussaud," said Essie gravely. "Georgie once went, and she has wished for it ever since."

  "Oh, we'll get up Madame Tussaud for her at home, free gratis, for nothing at all!" cried Armine, whose hard work inspirited him to fun and frolic.

  So in the twilight hour two days later there was a grand exhibition of human waxworks, in which Babie explained tableaux represented by the two Johns, Armine, and Cecil, supposed to be adapted to Lina's capacity. With the timid child it was not a success, the disguises frightened her, and gave her an uncanny feeling that her friends were transformed; she sat most of the time on her aunt's lap, with her face hidden, and barely hindered from crying by the false assurance that it was all for her pleasure.

  But there was no doubt that Esther was a pleased spectator of the show, and her gratitude far more than sufficient to cover the little one's ingratitude.

  Those two drifted together. In every gathering, when strangers had departed they were found tete-a-tete. Cecil's horses knew the way to Collingwood Street better than anywhere else, and he took to appearing there at times when he was fully aware Jock would be at the night-school or Mutual Improvement Society.

  Though strongly wishing, on poor Bobus's account, that it should not go much farther under her own auspices; day after day it was more borne in upon Mrs. Brownlow that her house held an irresistible attraction to the young officer, and she wondered over her duty to the parents who had trusted her. Acting on impulse at last, she took council with John, securing him as her companion in the gaslit walk from a concert.

  "Do you see what is going on there?" she asked, indicating the pair before them.

  "What do you mean? Oh, I never thought of that!"

  "I don't think! I have seen. Ever since the night of the Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught. He did his work on Essie."

  "Essie rather thinks he is after the Infanta."

  "It looks like it! What could have put it into her head? It did not originat
e there!"

  "Something my mother said about Babie being a viscountess."

  "You know better, Friar!"

  "I thought so; but I only told her it was no such thing, and I believe the child thought I meant to rebuke her for mentioning such frivolities, for she turned scarlet and held her peace."

  "Perhaps the delusion has kept her unconscious, and made her the sweeter. But the question is, whether this ought to go on without letting your people know?"

  "I suppose they would have no objection?" said John. "There's no harm in Evelyn, and he shows his sense by running after Jock. He hasn't got the family health either. I'd rather have him than an old stick like Jessie's General."

  "Yes, if all were settled, I believe your mother would be very well pleased. The question is, whether it is using her fairly not to let her know in the meantime?"

  "Well, what is the code among you parents and guardians?"

  "I don't know that there is any, but I think that though the crisis might be pleasing enough, yet if your mother found out what was going on, she might be vexed at not having been informed."

  John considered a moment, and then proposed that if things looked "like it" at the end of the week, he should go down on Saturday and give a hint of preparation to his father, letting him understand the merits of the case. However, in the existing state of affairs, a week was a long time, and that very Sunday brought the crisis.

  The recollection of former London Sundays, of Mary Ogilvie's quiet protests, and of the effect on her two eldest children, had strengthened Mrs. Brownlow's resolution to make it impossible to fill the afternoon with aimless visiting and gossiping; and plenty of other occupations had sprung up.

  Thus on this particular afternoon she and Barbara were with their Girls' Friendly Society Classes, of which Babie took the clever one, and she the stupid. Armine was reading with Percy Stagg, and a party of School Board pupil-teachers, whom that youth had brought him, as very anxious for the religious instruction they knew not how to obtain. Jock had taken the Friar's Bible Class of young men, and Allen had, as a great favour, undertaken to sit with Dr. and Mrs. Lucas till he could look in on them. So that Esther and Lina were the sole occupants of the drawing-room when Captain Evelyn rang at the door, knowing very well that he was only permitted up stairs an hour later in time for a cup of tea before evensong. He did look into Allen's sitting-room as a matter of form, but finding it empty, and hearing a buzz of voices elsewhere, he took licence to go upstairs, and there he found Esther telling her little sister such histories of Arundel Society engravings as she could comprehend.