“As an essential of the old English gentleman?” asked Julius.
“At any rate, the poor old fellow has been punished enough,” said Charlie.
“But what is it? Tell me all about it,” said Cecil. “I am sure my father would not wish me to associate with dissipated people.”
“Ah! Cecil,” said Rosamond. “You’ll have to take refuge with the military, after all!”
“It is just this,” said Charlie. “Sir Harry and his only son were always extravagant, one as bad as the other—weren’t they, Julius? Phil Bowater told me all about it, and how Tom Vivian lost fifteen thousand pounds one Derby Day, and was found dead in his chambers the next morning, they said from an over-dose of chloroform for neuralgia. Then the estate was so dipped that Sir Harry had to give up the estate to his creditors, and live on an allowance abroad or at watering-places till now, when he has managed to come home. That is to say, the house is really leased to Lady Tyrrell, and he is in a measure her guest—very queer it must be for him in his own house.”
“Is Lady Tyrrell that woman?” asked Rosamond.
“I conclude so,” said Charlie. “She was the eldest daughter, and married Lord Tyrrell, who died about two years ago. She has no children, so she has taken the family in charge, patches up Sir Harry’s affairs with her jointure, and chaperons her sister.”
“What is she like?”
“Ask Frank,” said Charlie, slyly.
“No!” said Frank, with dignity. “I shall say no more, I only excite prejudice.”
“You are right, Frank,” said Julius, who had evidently recovered from the shock. “It is not fair to judge people now from what they were eleven years ago. They have had some terrible lessons, and may be much changed.”
“Ay,” said Frank; “and they have been living in an atmosphere congenial to you, at Rockpier, and are hand and glove with all the St. Chrysostom folk there. What do you say to that, Julius? I can tell you they are enchanted with your curate!”
“They are not in this parish.”
“No, but they turn up here—the ladies, at least—at all the services at odd times that Bindon has begun with.”
“Ah! by the bye, is Herbert Bowater come?”
“Yes, the whole family came over to his installation in Mrs. Hornblower’s lodgings.”
“I saw him this morning, poor old Herbs,” added Frank, “looking uncommonly as if he felt himself in a strait waistcoat.”
“What, are there two curates?” demanded Cecil, in a tone of reprobation.
Julius made a gesture of assent, with a certain humorous air of deprecation, which, however, was lost upon her.
“We never let Mr. Venn have one,” continued Cecil, “except one winter when he was ill, and then not a young one. Papa says idle young clergymen are not to be encouraged.”
“I am entirely of Mr. Charnock’s opinion. But if I have exceeded the Dunstone standard, it was not willingly. Herbert Bowater is the son of some old friends of my mother’s, who wanted to keep their son near home, and made it their request that I would give him a title.”
“And the Bowaters are the great feature in the neighbourhood,” added Frank. “Herbert tells me there are wonderful designs for entertaining the brides.”
“What do they consist of?” asked Rosamond.
“All the component parts of a family,” said Frank. “The eldest daughter is a sort of sheet-anchor to my mother, as well as her own. The eldest son is at home now. He is in the army.”
“In the Light Dragoons?” asked Rosamond. “Oh! then I knew him at Edinburgh! A man with yellow whiskers, and the next thing to a stutter.”
“I declare, Julius, she is as good as any army list,” exclaimed Charlie.
“There’s praise!” cried Frank. “The army list is his one book! What a piece of luck to have you to coach him up in it!”
“I dare say Rosamond can tell me lots of wrinkles for my outfit,” said Charles.
“I should hope so, having rigged out Dick for the line, and Maurice for the artillery!”
Charlie came and leant on the mantel-shelf, and commenced a conversation sotto voce on the subject nearest his heart; while Cecil continued her catechism.
“Are the Bowaters intellectual?”
“Jenny is very well read,” said Julius, “a very sensible person.”
“Yes,” said Frank; “she was the only person here that so much as tried to read Browning. But if Cecil wants intellect, she had better take to the Duncombes, the queerest firm I ever fell in with. He makes the turf a regular profession, actually gets a livelihood out of his betting-book; and she is in the strong-minded line—woman’s rights, and all the rest of it.”
“We never had such people at Dunstone,” said Cecil. “Papa always said that the evil of being in parliament was the having to be civil to everybody.”
Just then Raymond came back with intelligence that his mother was about to go to bed, and to call his wife to wish her good night. All went in succession to do the same.
“My dear,” she said to Anne, “I hoped you were in bed.”
“I thought I would wait for family worship.”
“I am afraid we don’t have prayers at night, my dear. We must resume them in the morning, now Raymond and Julius are come.”
Poor Anne looked all the whiter, and only mumbled out a few answers to the kind counsels lavished upon her. Mrs. Poynsett was left to think over her daughters-in-law.
Lady Rosamond did not occupy her much. There was evidently plenty of good strong love between her and her husband; and though her training might not have been the best for a clergyman’s wife, there was substance enough in both to shake down together in time.
But it was Raymond who made her uneasy—Raymond, who ever since his father’s death had been more than all her other sons to her. She had armed herself against the pang of not being first with him, and now she was full of vague anxiety at the sense that she still held her old position. Had he not sat all the evening in his own place by her sofa, as if it were the very kernel of home and of repose? And whenever a sense of duty prompted her to suggest fetching his wife, had he not lingered, and gone on talking? It was indeed of Cecil; but how would she have liked his father, at the honeymoon’s end, to prefer talking of her to talking with her? “She has been most carefully brought up, and is very intelligent and industrious,” said Raymond. His mother could not help wondering whether a Roman son might not thus have described a highly accomplished Greek slave, just brought home for his mother’s use.
CHAPTER III
Parish Explorations
A cry more tuneable
Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
Judge, when you hear.—But, soft; what nymphs are these?
Midsummer Night’s Dream
It was quite true that Cecil Charnock Poynsett was a very intelligent industrious creature, very carefully brought up—nay, if possible, a little too much so. “A little wholesome neglect” had been lacking.
The only child of her parents who had lived to