"You have not brought him back!"
"I should rather think not!"
"Janet"s husband! Oh, Jock, it is very dreadful! My poor child!"
She had been a little lioness in face of the enemy, but she was trembling so hopelessly that Jock put her on a couch and knelt with his arm round her while she laid her head on his strong young shoulder.
"Let me fetch you some wine, mother darling," he said.
"No, no--to feel you is better than anything," putting his arm closer--
"What was it all about, mother?"
"Ah! you don"t know, yet you went straight to the point, my dear champion."
"He was bullying you, that was enough. I thought for a moment the brute was going to strike you."
"That was only gesticulation. I"m glad you didn"t knock him down when you made in to the rescue."
She could laugh a little now.
"I should like to have done it. What did he want? Money, of course?"
"Not solely. I can"t tell you all about it; but Janet saw some memoranda of your father"s, and he wants to get hold of them."
"To pervert them to some quackery?"
"If not, I do him great injustice."
"Give them up to a rogue like that! I should guess not! It will be some little time before he tries again. Well done, little mother!"
"If he will not turn upon her."
"What a speculation he must have thought her."
"Don"t talk of it, Jock; I can"t bear to think of her in such hands."
"Janet has a spirit of her own. I should think she could get her way with her subtle Athenian. Where did he drop from?"
"He overtook me on my way back from the Church, for indeed I did not mean to break my appointment. I don"t think the servants knew who was here. And Jock, if you mention it to the others, don"t speak of this matter of the papers. Call it, as you may with truth, an attempt to extort money."
"Very well," he gravely said.
"It is true," she continued, "that I have valuable memoranda of your father"s in my charge; but you must trust me when I say that I am not at liberty to tell you more."
"Of course I do. So the mother was really coming, like a good little Red-riding-hood, to bring her son"s dinner into the forest, when she met with the wolf! Pray, has he eaten up the two kids at a mouthful?"
"No, Miss Parsons had done that already. They are making the Church so beautiful, and it did not seem possible to spare them, though I hope Armine may get home in time to get his work done for Bobus."
"Is not he worked rather hard between the two? He does not seem to thrive on it."
"Jock, I can say it to you. I don"t know what to do. The poor boy"s heart is in these Church matters, and he is so bitterly grieved at the failure of all his plans that I cannot bear to check him in doing all he can. It is just what I ought to have been doing all these years; I only saw my duties as they were being taken away from me, and so I deserve the way Miss Parsons treats me."
"What way?"
"You need not bristle up. She is very civil; but when I hint that Armine has study and health to consider, I see that in her eyes I am the worldly obstructive mother who serves as a trial to the hero."
"If she makes Armine think so--"
"Armie is too loyal for that. Yet it may be only too true, and only my worldliness that wishes for a little discretion. Still, I don"t think a sensible woman, if she were ever so good and devoted, would encourage his fretting over the disappointment, or lead him to waste his time when so much depends on his diligence. I am sure the focus of her mind must be distorted, and she is twisting his the same way."
"And her brother follows suit?"
"I think they go in parallel grooves, and he lets her alone. It is very unlucky, for they are a constant irritation to Bobus, and he fancies them average specimens of good people. He sneers, and I can"t say but that much of what he says is true, but there is the envenomed drop in it which makes his good sense shocking to Armine, and I fear Babie relishes it more than is good for her. So they make one another worse, and so they will as long as we are here. It was a great mistake to stay on, and your uncle must feel it so."
"Could you not go to Dieppe, or some cheap place?"
"I don"t feel justified in any more expense. Here the house costs nothing, and our personal expenditure does not go beyond our proper means; but to pay for lodging elsewhere would soon bring me in excess of it, at least as long as Allen keeps up the yacht. Then poor Janet must have something, and I don"t know what bills may be in store for me, and there"s your outfit, and Bobus"s."
"Never mind mine."
"My dear, that"s fine talking, but you can"t go like Sir Charles Napier, with one shirt and a bit of soap."
"No, but I shall get something for the exchange. Besides, my kit was costly even for the Guards, and will amply cover all that."
"And you have sold your horses?"
"And have been living on them ever since! Come, won"t that encourage you to make a little jaunt, just to break the spell?"
"I wish it could, my dear, but it does not seem possible while those bills are such a dreadful uncertainty. I never know what Allen may have been ordering."
"Surely the Evelyns would be glad to have you."
"No, Jock, that can"t be. Promise me that you will do nothing to lead to an invitation. You are to meet some of them, are you not?"
"Yes, on Thursday week, at Roland Hampton"s wedding. Cecil and I and a whole lot of us go down in the morning to it, and Sydney is to be a bridesmaid. What are you going to do now, mother?"
"I don"t quite know. I feel regularly foolish. I shall have a headache if I don"t keep quiet, but I can"t persuade myself to stay in the house lest that man should come back."
"What! not with me for garrison?"
"O nonsense, my dear. You must go and catch up the sportsmen."
"Not when I can get my Mother Carey all to myself. You go and lie down in the dressing-room, and I"ll come as soon as I have taken off my boots and ordered some coffee for you."
He returned with the step of one treading on eggs, expecting to find her half asleep; but her eyes were glittering, and there were red spots on her cheeks, for her nerves were excited, and when he came in she began to talk. She told him, not of present troubles, but of the letters between his father and grandmother, which, in her busy, restless life, she had never before looked at, but which had come before her in her preparations for vacating Belforest. Perhaps it was only now that she had grown into appreciation of the relations between that mother and son, as she read the letters, preserved on each side, and revealing the full beauty and greatness of her husband"s nature, his perfect confidence in his mother, and a guiding influence from her, which she herself had never thought of exerting. Does not many an old correspondence thus put the present generation to shame?
Jock was the first person with whom she had shared these letters, and it was good to watch his face as he read the words of the father whom he remembered chiefly as the best of playfellows. He was of an age and in a mood to enter into them with all his heart, though he uttered little more than an occasional question, or some murmured remark when anything struck him. Both he and his mother were so occupied that they never observed that the sky clouded over and rain began to fall, nor did they think of any other object till Bobus opened the door in search of them.