A Charming Fellow Volume Ii Part 9

Lord Seely laboured under the disadvantage, in this crisis, of feeling for other persons with some keenness; a circ.u.mstance which frittered away his power considerably, and made him vacillating. Algernon's capacities for feeling were, on this occasion, steadily concentrated on himself, and this gave his behaviour a solid consistency, which was felt even beneath the surface-lightness of his manner.

"I hope," said Lord Seely, rather sadly than solemnly--"I do most earnestly hope, Ancram, that you will be happy in this marriage!"

"Your lords.h.i.+p is very good. I a.s.sure you, I feel your goodness."

He said it as if he had been accepting an invitation to dinner.

"And--and that you will do your best to make Castalia happy?"

"You may rely on my doing my best."

"There are discrepancies, perhaps--disparities--but but those marriages are not always the happiest in which the external circ.u.mstances on both sides seem to be best matched. You are young. You are untrammelled. You have no irrevocable past behind you to regret. I do not see--no, I do not see why, with mutual regard and respect, you should not make a good life of it."

"These are the most lugubrious nuptial felicitations that ever were offered to a bridegroom, I should fancy!" thought Algernon. And he had some difficulty in keeping his countenance, so vividly did he feel the ludicrous aspect of his lords.h.i.+p's well-meant effort at "impressing"

him.

"I should feel some sense of responsibility if--if things were not to turn out as brightly as we hope--and believe--and believe they will turn out."

"Oh, don't distress yourself about that, my lord!" cried Algernon. (He had very nearly said "don't apologise!") "There is the dressing-bell,"

he added, with alacrity, taking his hat up from the table. "If your lords.h.i.+p has no further commands, I think I----"

"Yes; go, Ancram. I will not detain you longer. Remember," said Lord Seely, taking the young man's hand between both his own, and speaking in a tremulous voice, "remember, Ancram, that I wish to serve you. My intention all along has been to do my best for you. You have been a very pleasant inmate in my home. Ancram, be good to Castalia. For good or for evil, you are her fate now. No one can come between you. Be good to her."

"My dear lord, I beg you to believe that I will make Castalia's happiness the study of my life. And--oh, I have no doubt we shall get on capitally. With your interest, it can't be long before we get into a better berth. I know you'll do your best for us, for Castalia's sake; oh, and mine, too, I am happy to believe. Yes, certainly. I really am in such a state of mud that I believe my very hair is splashed. It will take me all the time there remains for dressing to get myself presentably clean, positively. _Au revoir_, my lord. And thank you very, very much."

With his jauntiest step, and brightest smile, Algernon left the room.

Lord Seely returned to his chair before the hearth, resumed his moody, musing att.i.tude, and sat there, alone, with his head sunk on his breast until they called him to dinner.

CHAPTER VII.

In the first week of August Mrs. Errington returned to Whitford. She had got over her annoyance at not having been intrusted sooner with the news of Algernon's engagement to Miss Kilfinane. By dint of telling her friends so, she had at last persuaded herself that she had been in the secret all along; and, if she felt any other mortifications and disappointments connected with her son's marriage, she kept them to herself. But it is probable that she did not keenly feel any such. She was not sensitive; and she did believe that, by connecting himself so nearly with Lord Seely's family, Algernon was advancing his prospects of success in the world. These sources of comfort, combined with an excellent digestion, and the perennial gratification of contemplating her own claims to distinction as contrasted with those of her neighbours, kept the worthy lady in good spirits, and she returned to Whitford in a kind of full blow of cheerfulness and importance.

Her reception there, at the outset, was, however, far from being what she had looked forward to. She had written to Rhoda announcing the day and hour of her arrival, and requesting that James Maxfield should meet her at the "Blue Bell" inn, where the coach stopped, with a fly for the conveyance of herself and her luggage to her old quarters. Mrs.

Errington had not previously written to Rhoda from Westmoreland, but she had forwarded to her at different times two copies of the _Applethwaite Advertiser_. In one of these journals a preliminary announcement of Algernon's marriage had appeared under the heading of "Alliance in High Life." In the second there was an account of the wedding, and the breakfast, and the rejoicings in the village of Long Fells, which did much credit to the imaginative powers of the writer. According to the _Applethwaite Advertiser_, the ceremony had been imposing, the breakfast sumptuous, and the village demonstrations enthusiastic.

Mrs. Errington had bought twenty copies of the newspaper for distribution among her friends; and she pleased herself with thinking how grateful the Maxfields would be to her for sending them the papers with the interesting paragraphs marked in red ink. She also looked forward with much complacency to having Rhoda for a listener to all her narrations about the wedding and life at Long Fells, and the great people whom she had met there. Rhoda was such a capital listener! And then, besides and beyond all that, Mrs. Errington was fond of Rhoda, and had more motherly warmth of feeling for her than she had as yet attained to for her new daughter-in-law.

Mrs. Errington's head was stretched out of the coach-window as the vehicle clattered up the archway of the "Blue Bell" inn. It was about seven o'clock on a fine August evening, and there was ample light enough for the traveller to distinguish all the familiar features of the streets through which she pa.s.sed. "James will be standing in the inn-yard ready to receive me," she thought; "and I suppose the fly will be waiting at the corner by the booking-office. I wonder whether the driver will be the lame old man or young Simmons?" She was still debating this question when the coach turned sharply round under the archway, and stopped in the great rambling yard of the old-fas.h.i.+oned "Blue Bell" inn.

Mrs. Errington got down una.s.sisted; James Maxfield was not there. She looked round in bewilderment, standing hot, dusty, and tired in the yard, where, after a bustling waiter had tripped up to her to ask if she wanted a room, and tripped away again, no one took any heed of her.

A fly was not to be had in Whitford at a moment's notice. After waiting for some ten minutes, Mrs. Errington found there was nothing for it but to walk to her lodgings. She left her luggage in the coach-office to be called for, and set out carrying a rather heavy hand-bag, and hurrying through the streets at a pace much quicker than her usual dignified rate of moving. She wished not to be seen and recognised by any pa.s.sing acquaintance under circ.u.mstances so unfavourable to an impressive or triumphant demeanour.

Arrived at Jonathan Maxfield's house, the aspect of things was not much improved. Betty Grimshaw opened the door, and stared in surprise on seeing Mrs. Errington. She had not been expected. Mr. Maxfield was over at Duckwell at his son's farm. James was busy in the store-house. And as for Rhoda, she was away on a visit to Miss Bodkin at the seaside, and had been for some weeks. A letter? Oh, if a letter had come for Rhoda, her father would have sent it on to her. It was a two days' post from where she was to Whitford. And the newspapers? Betty did not know. She had not seen them. Her brother-in-law had had them, she supposed. Yes; she had heard that Mr. Algernon was married, or going to be married. The servants from Pudcombe Hall had spoken of it when they came into the shop. Jonathan had not said anything on the subject as far as she knew.

Mrs. Errington knew what Jonathan was. He never was given to much conversation. And it was Betty's opinion, delivered very frankly, that Jonathan grew crustier and closer as he got older. But wouldn't Mrs.

Errington like a cup of tea? Betty would have the kettle boiling in a few minutes.

Mrs. Errington felt rather forlorn, as she entered her old sitting-room and looked around her. It was trim and neat, indeed, and spotlessly clean; but it had the chill, repellent look of an uninhabited apartment.

The corner cupboard was locked, and its treasure of old china hidden from view. Algernon's books were gone from the shelf above the piano. A white cloth was spread over the sofa, and the hearth-rug was turned upside down, displaying a grey lining, instead of the gay-coloured sc.r.a.ps of cloth.

She missed Rhoda. She had become accustomed to Algernon's absence from the familiar room; but Rhoda's absence made a blank in it, that was depressing. And perhaps Mrs. Errington herself was surprised to find how dreary the place looked, without the girl's gentle face and modest figure. She gladly accepted Betty Grimshaw's invitation to take her tea downstairs in the comfortable, bright kitchen, instead of alone in the melancholy gentility of her own sitting-room. Betty was as wooden-faced, and grim, and rigid in her aspect as ever. But she was not unfriendly towards her old lodger. And, moreover, she was entirely respectful in her manner, holding it as a fixed article of her faith that "gentlefolks born" were intended by Providence to be treated with deference, and desiring to show that she herself had been trained to becoming behaviour under the roof of a person of quality.

It was little more than nine o'clock when Mrs. Errington rose to go to bed, being tired with her journey. As she did so, she said, "Mrs.

Grimshaw, will you get James to send a hand-cart for my luggage in good time to-morrow?"

"Oh, your luggage?" returned Betty. "Well, do you think it is worth while to send for it, if you're not going to stay?"

Mrs. Errington was so much astonished by this speech, that she sat down again on the chair she had just quitted. Then, after a minute's pause, her mind, which did not move very rapidly, arrived at what she supposed to be the explanation of Betty's words. "Oh, I see," she said; "you took it for granted that, on my son's marriage, I should leave you and join him. But it is not so, my good soul. My daughter-in-law has implored me to live with them, but I have refused. It is better for the young people to be by themselves; and I prefer my own independence also. No, my good Mrs. Grimshaw, I shall remain in my old quarters until Mr. Algernon leaves Whitford for good. And perhaps, even then, I may not give you up altogether, who knows?"

Betty hesitated for an instant before replying. "Then Jonathan has not said anything to you about giving up the rooms?"

"Good gracious, no! I have not heard from Mr. Maxfield at all!"

"I suppose he didn't expect you back quite so soon. And--there, I'm sure I won't take upon myself to speak for him. I shouldn't have got on with my brother-in-law all these years if I hadn't made it a rule to try for peace and quietness, and never interfere."

But Mrs. Errington persisting in her demand that Betty should explain herself more fully, the latter at length confessed that, during the past two or three weeks, Jonathan Maxfield had declared his intention of getting rid of his lodger, and of not letting the first floor of his house again. "Your sitting-room is to be kept as a kind of a drawing-room for Rhoda, as I understand Jonathan," said she.

A drawing-room for Rhoda! Mrs. Errington could not believe her senses.

"Why, what is Mr. Maxfield thinking of?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, you don't know what a fuss Jonathan has been making lately about Rhoda! Before you went away, you know, ma'am, as he had begun to spend a deal of money on her clothes. And since then, more and more; it's been all his talk as Rhoda was to be a lady. The notion has got stuck fast in his head, and wild horses wouldn't drag it out."

Mrs. Errington rose very majestically. "I much fear," she said, "I much fear that I am responsible for this delusion of your brother-in-law. I have a little spoiled the girl, and taken too much notice of her. I regret it now. But, really, Rhoda is such a sweet creature that I don't know that I have been so very much to blame, either. It is true I have introduced her to my friends, and brought her forward a little beyond her station; but I little thought a man of Mr. Maxfield's common sense would have been so utterly led away by kindly-meant patronage."

"Well, I don't know as it's so much that, ma'am," returned Betty, in a matter-of-fact tone, "as it is that Jonathan has latterly been thinking a deal about his money. And he knows money will do great things----"

"Money can never confer gentle birth, my good creature!"

"No, for sure, ma'am. That's what I say myself. I know my catechism, and I was brought up to respect my superiors. But, you see, Jonathan's heart is greatly set on his riches. He's a well-off man, is my brother-in-law; more so than many folks think. He's been a close man all his life. And, for that matter, he's close enough now in some things, and screws me down in the housekeeping pretty tight. But for Rhoda he seems to grudge nothing, and wants her to make a show and a splash almost--if you can fancy such a thing of Jonathan! But there's no saying how men will turn out; not even the old ones. I'm sure I often and often thank my stars I've kept single--no offence to you, ma'am."

Mrs. Errington went to bed in a bewildered frame of mind. Tired as she was, the news she had heard kept her awake for some time. Leave her lodgings! Leave old Max's house, which had been her home for so many years! It was incredible. And, indeed, before long she had made up her mind to resist old Max's intention of turning her out. "I shall give him a good talking to, to-morrow," she said to herself. "Stupid old man! He really must not be allowed to make himself so absurd." And then Mrs.

Errington fell asleep.

But the next day old Max did not return to be talked to; nor the day after that. James Maxfield went over to Duckwell, and came back bringing a formal notice to Mrs. Errington to quit the lodgings, signed by his father.

"What does this mean, James?" asked Mrs. Errington, with much emphasis, and wide-open eyes. James did not know what it meant. He did not apparently much care, either. He had never been on very friendly terms with the Erringtons (having, indeed, come but seldom in contact with them during all the time they had lived under the same roof with him), and had, perhaps, been a little jealous in his sullen, silent way, of their petting of Rhoda. At all events, on the present occasion, he was not communicative nor very civil. He had performed his father's behests, and he knew nothing more. His father was not coming back home just yet.

And James volunteered the opinion that he didn't mean to come back until Mrs. Errington should be gone.

All this was strange and disagreeable. But Mrs. Errington was not of an irritable or anxious temperament. And her self-complacency was of too solid a kind to be much affected even by ruder rubs than any which could be given by James Maxfield's uncouth bluntness. "I shall take no notice whatever of this," she said, with serene dignity. "When your father comes back, I shall talk to him. Meanwhile, I have a great many important things to do."

The good lady did in truth begin at once to busy herself in seeking a house for Algernon, and getting it furnished. There was but a month to make all arrangements in, and all Mrs. Errington's friends who could by any possibility be pressed into the service were required to a.s.sist her. The Docketts; Rose and Violet McDougall; Mrs. Smith, the surgeon's wife; and even Miss Chubb, were sent hither and thither, asked to write notes, to make inquiries, to have interviews with landlords, and to take as much trouble, and make as much fuss as possible, in the task of getting ready an abode for Mr. and the Honourable Mrs. Algernon Errington.

A house was found without much difficulty. It was a small isolated cottage on the outskirts of the town, with a garden behind it which ran down to the meadows bordering the Whit; and was the very house, belonging to Barker the chemist, of which Mrs. Errington had written to her friend Mrs. Bodkin.