SEQUEL. ANGLEBURY--ENCKWORTH--SANDBOURNE
Two years and a half after the marriage of Ethelberta and the eveningadventures which followed it, a man young in years, though considerablyolder in mood and expression, walked up to the 'Red Lion' Inn atAnglebury. The anachronism sat not unbecomingly upon him, and the voicewas precisely that of the Christopher Julian of heretofore. His way ofentering the inn and calling for a conveyance was more off-hand thanformerly; he was much less afraid of the sound of his own voice now thanwhen he had gone through the same performance on a certain chill eveningthe last time that he visited the spot. He wanted to be taken toKnollsea to meet the steamer there, and was not coming back by the samevehicle.
It was a very different day from that of his previous journey along thesame road; different in season; different in weather; and the humour ofthe observer differed yet more widely from its condition then than didthe landscape from its former hues. In due time they reached acommanding situation upon the road, from which were visible knots andplantations of trees on the Enckworth manor. Christopher broke thesilence.
'Lord Mountclere is still alive and well, I am told?'
'O ay. He'll live to be a hundred. Never such a change as has come overthe man of late years.'
'Indeed!'
'O, 'tis my lady. She's a one to put up with! Still, 'tis said here andthere that marrying her was the best day's work that he ever did in hislife, although she's got to be my lord and my lady both.'
'Is she happy with him?'
'She is very sharp with the pore man--about happy I don't know. He was agood-natured old man, for all his sins, and would sooner any day lay outmoney in new presents than pay it in old debts. But 'tis altered now.'Tisn't the same place. Ah, in the old times I have seen the floor ofthe servants' hall over the vamp of your boot in solid beer that we hadpoured aside from the horns because we couldn't see straight enough topour it in. See? No, we couldn't see a hole in a ladder! And now, evenat Christmas or Whitsuntide, when a man, if ever he desires to beovercome with a drop, would naturally wish it to be, you can walk out ofEnckworth as straight as you walked in. All her doings.'
'Then she holds the reins?'
'She do! There was a little tussle at first; but how could a old manhold his own against such a spry young body as that! She threatened torun away from him, and kicked up Bob's-a-dying, and I don't know whatall; and being the woman, of course she was sure to beat in the long run.Pore old nobleman, she marches him off to church every Sunday as regularas a clock, makes him read family prayers that haven't been read inEnckworth for the last thirty years to my certain knowledge, and keepshim down to three glasses of wine a day, strict, so that you never seehim any the more generous for liquor or a bit elevated at all, as it usedto be. There, 'tis true, it has done him good in one sense, for they sayhe'd have been dead in five years if he had gone on as he was going.'
'So that she's a good wife to him, after all.'
'Well, if she had been a little worse 'twould have been a little betterfor him in one sense, for he would have had his own way more. But he wasa curious feller at one time, as we all know and I suppose 'tis as muchas he can expect; but 'tis a strange reverse for him. It is said thatwhen he's asked out to dine, or to anything in the way of a jaunt, hiseye flies across to hers afore he answers: and if her eye says yes, hesays yes: and if her eye says no, he says no. 'Tis a sad condition forone who ruled womankind as he, that a woman should lead him in a stringwhether he will or no.'
'Sad indeed!'
'She's steward, and agent, and everything. She has got a room called "mylady's office," and great ledgers and cash-books you never see the like.In old times there were bailiffs to look after the workfolk, foremen tolook after the tradesmen, a building-steward to look after the foremen, aland-steward to look after the building-steward, and a dashing grandagent to look after the land-steward: fine times they had then, I assureye. My lady said they were eating out the property like a honeycomb, andthen there was a terrible row. Half of 'em were sent flying; and nowthere's only the agent, and the viscountess, and a sort of surveyor man,and of the three she does most work so 'tis said. She marks the trees tobe felled, settles what horses are to be sold and bought, and is out inall winds and weathers. There, if somebody hadn't looked into things'twould soon have been all up with his lordship, he was so veryextravagant. In one sense 'twas lucky for him that she was born inhumble life, because owing to it she knows the ins and outs ofcontriving, which he never did.'
'Then a man on the verge of bankruptcy will do better to marry a poor andsensible wife than a rich and stupid one. Well, here we are at the tenthmilestone. I will walk the remainder of the distance to Knollsea, asthere is ample time for meeting the last steamboat.'
When the man was gone Christopher proceeded slowly on foot down the hill,and reached that part of the highway at which he had stopped in the coldNovember breeze waiting for a woman who never came. He was older now,and he had ceased to wish that he had not been disappointed. There wasthe lodge, and around it were the trees, brilliant in the shining greensof June. Every twig sustained its bird, and every blossom its bee. Theroadside was not muffled in a garment of dead leaves as it had been then,and the lodge-gate was not open as it always used to be. He paused tolook through the bars. The drive was well kept and gravelled; the grassedgings, formerly marked by hoofs and ruts, and otherwise trodden away,were now green and luxuriant, bent sticks being placed at intervals as aprotection.
While he looked through the gate a woman stepped from the lodge to openit. In her haste she nearly swung the gate into his face, and would havecompletely done so had he not jumped back.
'I beg pardon, sir,' she said, on perceiving him. 'I was going to openit for my lady, and I didn't see you.'
Christopher moved round the corner. The perpetual snubbing that he hadreceived from Ethelberta ever since he had known her seemed about to becontinued through the medium of her dependents.
A trotting, accompanied by the sound of light wheels, had becomeperceptible; and then a vehicle came through the gate, and turned up theroad which he had come down. He saw the back of a basket carriage, drawnby a pair of piebald ponies. A lad in livery sat behind with foldedarms; the driver was a lady. He saw her bonnet, her shoulders, herhair--but no more. She lessened in his gaze, and was soon out of sight.
He stood a long time thinking; but he did not wish her his.
In this wholesome frame of mind he proceeded on his way, thankful that hehad escaped meeting her, though so narrowly. But perhaps at this remoteseason the embarrassment of a rencounter would not have been intense. AtKnollsea he entered the steamer for Sandbourne.
Mr. Chickerel and his family now lived at Firtop Villa, in that place, ahouse which, like many others, had been built since Julian's last visitto the town. He was directed to the outskirts, and into a fir plantationwhere drives and intersecting roads had been laid out, and where newvillas had sprung up like mushrooms. He entered by a swing gate, onwhich 'Firtop' was painted, and a maid-servant showed him into a neatly-furnished room, containing Mr. Chickerel, Mrs. Chickerel, and Picotee,the matron being reclined on a couch, which improved health had permittedher to substitute for a bed.
He had been expected, and all were glad to see again the sojourner inforeign lands, even down to the ladylike tabby, who was all purr andwarmth towards him except when she was all claws and nippers. But hadthe prime sentiment of the meeting shown itself it would have been theunqualified surprise of Christopher at seeing how much Picotee's face hadgrown to resemble her sister's: it was less a resemblance in contoursthan in expression and tone.
They had an early tea, and then Mr. Chickerel, sitting in a patriarchalchair, conversed pleasantly with his guest, being well acquainted withhim through other members of the family. They talked of Julian'sresidence at different Italian towns with his sister; of Faith, who wasat the present moment staying with some old friends in Melchester: and,as was inevitable, the discour
se hovered over and settled uponEthelberta, the prime ruler of the courses of them all, with littleexception, through recent years.
'It was a hard struggle for her,' said Chickerel, looking reflectivelyout at the fir trees. 'I never thought the girl would have got throughit. When she first entered the house everybody was against her. She hadto fight a whole host of them single-handed. There was the viscount'sbrother, other relations, lawyers, ladies, servants, not one of them washer friend; and not one who wouldn't rather have seen her arrive there inevil relationship with him than as she did come. But she stood herground. She was put upon her mettle; and one by one they got to feelthere was somebody among them whose little finger, if they insulted her,was thicker than a Mountclere's loins. She must have had a will of iron;it was a situation that would have broken the hearts of a dozen ordinarywomen, for everybody soon knew that we were of no family, and that's whatmade it so hard for her. But there she is as mistress now, and everybodyrespecting her. I sometimes fancy she is occasionally too severe withthe servants and I know what service is. But she says it is necessary,owing to her birth; and perhaps she is right.'
'I suppose she often comes to see you?'
'Four or five times a year,' said Picotee.
'She cannot come quite so often as she would,' said Mrs. Chickerel,'because of her lofty position, which has its juties. Well, as I alwayssay, Berta doesn't take after me. I couldn't have married the man eventhough he did bring a coronet with him.'
'I shouldn't have cared to let him ask ye,' said Chickerel. 'However,that's neither here nor there--all ended better than I expected. He'sfond of her.'
'And it is wonderful what can be done with an old man when you are hisdarling,' said Mrs. Chickerel.
'If I were Berta I should go to London oftener,' said Picotee, to turnthe conversation. 'But she lives mostly in the library. And, O, what doyou think? She is writing an epic poem, and employs Emmeline as herreader.'
'Dear me. And how are Sol and Dan? You mentioned them once in yourletters,' said Christopher.
'Berta has set them up as builders in London.'
'She bought a business for them,' said Chickerel. 'But Sol wouldn'taccept her help for a long time, and now he has only agreed to it oncondition of paying her back the money with interest, which he is doing.They have just signed a contract to build a hospital for twenty thousandpounds.'
Picotee broke in--'You knew that both Gwendoline and Cornelia married twoyears ago, and went to Queensland? They married two brothers, who werefarmers, and left England the following week. Georgie and Myrtle are atschool.'
'And Joey?'
'We are thinking of making Joseph a parson,' said Mrs. Chickerel.
'Indeed! a parson.'
'Yes; 'tis a genteel living for the boy. And he's talents that way.Since he has been under masters he knows all the strange sounds the oldRomans and Greeks used to make by way of talking, and the love stories ofthe ancient women as if they were his own. I assure you, Mr. Julian, ifyou could hear how beautiful the boy tells about little Cupid with hisbow and arrows, and the rows between that pagan apostle Jupiter and hiswife because of another woman, and the handsome young gods who kissedVenus, you'd say he deserved to be made a bishop at once!'
The evening advanced, and they walked in the garden. Here, by somemeans, Picotee and Christopher found themselves alone.
'Your letters to my sister have been charming,' said Christopher. 'Andso regular, too. It was as good as a birthday every time one arrived.'
Picotee blushed and said nothing.
Christopher had full assurance that her heart was where it always hadbeen. A suspicion of the fact had been the reason of his visit here to-day.
'Other letters were once written from England to Italy, and they acquiredgreat celebrity. Do you know whose?'
'Walpole's?' said Picotee timidly.
'Yes; but they never charmed me half as much as yours. You may restassured that one person in the world thinks Walpole your second.'
'You should not have read them; they were not written to you. But Isuppose you wished to hear of Ethelberta?'
'At first I did,' said Christopher. 'But, oddly enough, I got moreinterested in the writer than in her news. I don't know if ever beforethere has been an instance of loving by means of letters. If not, it isbecause there have never been such sweet ones written. At last I lookedfor them more anxiously than Faith.'
'You see, you knew me before.' Picotee would have withdrawn this remarkif she could, fearing that it seemed like a suggestion of her love longago.
'Then, on my return, I thought I would just call and see you, and go awayand think what would be best for me to do with a view to the future. Butsince I have been here I have felt that I could not go away to thinkwithout first asking you what you think on one point--whether you couldever marry me?'
'I thought you would ask that when I first saw you.'
'Did you. Why?'
'You looked at me as if you would.'
'Well,' continued Christopher, 'the worst of it is I am as poor as Job.Faith and I have three hundred a year between us, but only half is mine.So that before I get your promise I must let your father know how poor Iam. Besides what I mention, I have only my earnings by music. But I amto be installed as chief organist at Melchester soon, instead of deputy,as I used to be; which is something.'
'I am to have five hundred pounds when I marry. That was LordMountclere's arrangement with Ethelberta. He is extremely anxious that Ishould marry well.'
'That's unfortunate. A marriage with me will hardly be considered well.'
'O yes, it will,' said Picotee quickly, and then looked frightened.
Christopher drew her towards him, and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek, atwhich Picotee was not so wretched as she had been some years before whenhe mistook her for another in that performance.
'Berta will never let us come to want,' she said, with vivacity, when shehad recovered. 'She always gives me what is necessary.'
'We will endeavour not to trouble her,' said Christopher, amused byPicotee's utter dependence now as ever upon her sister, as upon aneternal Providence. 'However, it is well to be kin to a coach though younever ride in it. Now, shall we go indoors to your father? You think hewill not object?'
'I think he will be very glad,' replied Picotee. 'Berta will, I know.'
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