"My dear Mary, did you never take a party of children into the country in the spring for the first time? If not, you never saw the prettiest and most innocent of intoxications. I had once to take the little Pyrtons to their place in the country one April and May, months that they had always spent in London; and I a.s.sure you they were perfectly mad, only with the air, the sight of the hawthorns, and all the smells.
I was obliged to be content with what they could do, not what ought to be done, of lessons. There was no sitting still on a fine morning. I was as bad myself; the blood seemed to dance in one"s veins, and a room to be a prison."
"This is not spring," said Mary.
"No, but she began in spring, and habits were formed."
"No doubt, but they cannot be good. They keep up flightiness and excitability."
"Oh, that"s grief, poor dear!"
"We bain"t carousing, we be dissembling grief, as the farmer told the clergyman who objected to merry-making after a funeral," said Mary, rather severely. Then she added, seeing Clara looked annoyed, "You think me hard on poor dear Carey, but indeed I am not doubting her affection or her grief."
"Remember, a woman with children cannot give herself entirely up to sorrow without doing them harm."
"Poor Carey, I am sure I do not want to see her given up to sorrow, only to have her a little more moderate, and perhaps select--so as not to do herself harm with her relations--who after all must be more important to her than any outsiders."
The artist"s wife could not but see things a little differently from the schoolmaster"s sister, who moreover knew nothing of Carey"s former life; and Clara made answer--
"Sending her down to these people was the greatest error of dear good Dr. Brownlow"s life."
"I am not sure of that. Blood is thicker than water."
"But between sisters-in-law it is apt to be only ill-blood, and very turbid."
"For shame, Clara."
"Well, Mary, you must allow something for human nature"s reluctance to be treated as something not quite worthy of a handshake from a little country town Serene Highness! I may be allowed to doubt whether Dr.
Brownlow would not have done better to leave her unbound to those who can never be congenial."
"Granting that (not that I do grant it, for the Colonel is worthy), should not she be persuaded to conform herself."
"To purr and lay eggs? My dear, that did not succeed with the ugly duckling, even in early life."
"Not after it had been among the swans? You vain Clara!"
"I only lay claim to having seen the swans--not to having brought many specimens down here."
"Such as _that_ Nita, or Mr. Hughes?"
"More like the other bird, certainly," said Clara, smiling; "but Mary, if you had but seen what that house was. Joe Brownlow was one of those men who make themselves esteemed and noted above their actual position.
He was much thought of as a lecturer, and would have had a much larger practice but for his appointment at the hospital. It was in the course of the work he had taken for a friend gone out of town that he caught the illness that killed him. His lectures brought men of science about him, and his practice had made him acquainted with us poor Bohemians, as you seem to think us. Old Mrs. Brownlow had means of her own, and theirs was quite a wealthy house among our set. Any of us were welcome to drop into five o"clock tea, or at nine at night, and the pleasantness and good influence were wonderful. The motherliness and yet the enthusiasm of Mrs. Brownlow made her the most delightful old lady I ever saw. I can"t describe how good she was about my marriage, and many more would say they owed all that was brightest and best in them to that house. And there was Carey, like a little sunshiny fairy, the darling of everyone.
No, not spoilt--I see what you are going to say."
"Only as we all spoilt her at school. n.o.body but her Serene Highness ever could help making a pet of her."
"That"s more reasonable, Mary," said Mrs. Acton, in a more placable voice; "she did plenty of hard work, and did not spare herself, or have what would seem indulgences to most women; but n.o.body could see the light of her eyes and smile without trying to make it sparkle up; and she was just the first thought in life to her husband and his mother.
I am sure in my governess days I used to think that house paradise, and her the undoubted queen of it. And now, that you should turn against her, Mary, when she is uncrowned, and unappreciated, and brow-beaten."
She had worked herself up, and had tears in her eyes.
Mary laughed a little.
"It is hard, when I only want to keep her from making herself be unappreciated."
"And I say it is in vain!" cried Clara, "for it is not in the nature of the people to appreciate her, and nothing will make them get on together."
Poor Mary! she had expected her friend to be more reasonable and less defensive; but she remembered that even at school Clara had always protected Caroline whenever she had attempted to lecture her. All she further tried to say was--
"Then you won"t help me to advise her to be more guarded, and not shock them?"
"I will not tease the poor little thing, when she has enough to torment her already. If you had known her husband, and watched her last winter, you would be only too thankful to see her a little more like herself."
Mary was silent, finding that she should only argue round and round if they went on, and feeling that Clara thought her old-maidish, and could not enter into her sense that, the balance-weight being gone, gusts of wind ought to be avoided. She sat wondering whether she herself was prim and old-maidish, or whether she was right in feeling it a duty to expostulate and deliver her testimony.
There was no doing it on this day. Carey was always surrounded by children and guests, and in an eager state of activity; but though again they all went home in the cool of the evening, an attempt to sing in the second-cla.s.s carriage, which they filled entirely, was quashed immediately--no one knew how, and nothing worse happened than that a very dusty set, carrying odd botanical, entomological, and artistic wares, trailed through the streets of Kenminster, just as Mrs.
Coffinkey, escorted by her maid, was walking primly home from drinking tea at the vicarage.
Still Mary"s reflections only strengthened her resolution. On the next day, which was Sunday, she ascended to the Folly, at about four o"clock in the afternoon, and found the family, including the parrot, spread out upon the lawn under the shade of the acacia, the mother reading to them.
"Oh, please don"t stop, mother," cried Babie; while the more courteous Armine exclaimed--
"Miss Ogilvie, don"t you like to hear about Bevis and Jocelin Joliffe?"
"You don"t mind waiting while we finish the chapter," added their mother; "then we break up our sitting."
"Pray go on with the chapter," said Mary, rather coolly, for she was a good deal taken aback at finding them reading "Woodstock" on a Sunday; "but afterwards, I do want to speak to you."
"Oh! don"t want to speak to me. The Colonel has been speaking to me,"
she said, with a cowering, shuddering sort of action, irresistibly comic.
"And he ate up half our day," bemoaned more than one of the boys.
Miss Ogilvie sat down a little way off, not wishing to listen to "Woodstock" on a Sunday, and trying to work out the difficult Sabbatarian question in her mind.
"There!" said Caroline, closing the book, amid exclamations of "I know who Lewis Kerneguy was." "Wasn"t Roger Wildrake jolly?" "O, mother, didn"t he cut off Trusty Tomkins" head?" "Do let us have a wee bit more, mother; Miss Ogilvie won"t mind."
But Carey saw that she did mind, and answered--
"Not now; there won"t be time to feed all the creatures, or to get nurse"s Sunday nosegays, if you don"t begin." Then, coming up to her guest, she said, "Now is your time, Mary; we shall have the Rays and Mr.
Hughes in presently; but you see we are too worldly and profane for the Kencroft boys on Sunday; and so they make experiments in smoking, with company less desirable, I must say, than Sir Harry Lee"s. Am I very bad to read what keeps mine round me?"
"Is it an old fashion with you?"
"Well, no; but then we had what was better than a thousand stories! And this is only a feeble attempt to keep up a little watery reflection of the old sunshine."
It was a watery reflection indeed!
"And could it not be with something that would be--"