Wenderholme Part 17

If any rational and worldly-minded adviser had said to Philip Stanburne a month before, "Why don't you look out for some well-to-do cotton-spinner's daughter in Sootythorn? you might pick up a good fortune, that would mend the Stanithburn property, and you might find a nice well-educated girl, who would do you quite as much credit as if she belonged to one of the old families"--if any counsel of this kind had been offered to Philip Stanburne then, before he saw Alice Stedman, he would have rejected it at once as being altogether inadmissible. _He_, the representative of the house of Stanburne, connect himself with a family of cotton-spinners! He, the dutiful son of the Church, ally himself with a member of one of those heretical sects who insult her in her affliction! Our general views of things may, however, be very decided, and admit, nevertheless, of exception in favor of persons who are known to us. To hate Protestants in general--to despise the commercial cla.s.ses as a body--is one thing; but to hate and despise a gentle maiden, whose voice sounds sweetly in our ears, is quite another thing.

"She's as perfect a lady as any I ever saw," thought Philip, as she walked before him in the garden at Arkwright Lodge. A closer social critic might have answered, that although Alice Stedman was a very admirable and good young woman, absolutely free from the least taint of vulgarity, she lacked the style and "go" of a young lady of the world.

Her deficiency in this respect may, however, have gone far to produce the charm which attracted Philip. Alice had not the _aplomb_ of a fine lady, nor the brilliance of a clever woman; but nature had given her a stamp of genuineness which is sometimes effaced by the attrition of society.

"It's wrong of me to have taken possession of you, Captain Stanburne,"

said Margaret Anison; "I see you are longing to be with Alice Stedman--you would be a great deal happier with her;" and, without consulting him further, she called her sister, adding, "I beg pardon, Lissy, but I want to say something to Sarah."

Of course, as Miss Anison had some private communication to make to her sister, Philip and Alice had nothing to do but _s'eloigner_. The young gentleman offered his arm, which was accepted, and they went on down a deviously winding walk. Alice looked round, and seeing n.o.body, said, "Hadn't we better wait, or go back a little? we have been walking faster than they have." Philip did as he was bid, not precisely knowing or caring which way he went. But the young ladies were not there.

"I think," he said at last, "we should do better to go in our first direction, as they will expect us to do. Very likely Miss Anison may have taken her sister to the house, to show her something, and they will meet us in the garden again, if we go in the direction they calculate upon." So they turned round and walked down the winding path again.

"You often come to this place, I believe," said Philip. "The Anisons are old friends of yours, are they not, Miss Stedman?"

"Oh yes; I come to stay here very often. The Anisons are very kind to me."

"They are kind to me also, Miss Stedman, and yet I have no claim of old acquaintance. A fortnight since I did not even know their name, and yet it seems to me now as if I had known them for years. _You_ are rather an older acquaintance, Miss Stedman. I had the pleasure of seeing you at Sootythorn before I came to Whittlecup."

Alice looked up at her companion rather archly, and said, "You mean in the bookseller's shop?"

"Yes, when you came to buy a book of sermons. Shall I tell you what book you ordered? I remember the name perfectly. It was 'Blunting's Sermons on Popery.'"

"So you were listening, were you?"

"I wasn't listening when I heard your voice for the first time, but I listened very attentively afterwards. My attention was attracted by the t.i.tle of the book. You know that I am a Catholic, Miss Stedman?"

"Yes," said Alice, very briefly, and in a tone which seemed to endeavor not to imply disapprobation.

"And perhaps you know that Catholics don't quite like to hear their religion called 'Popery.' So I was a little irritated; but then I reflected that as the t.i.tle of the book was so, you could not order it by another name than the name upon its t.i.tlepage." Here there was a pause, as Alice did not speak. Philip resumed,--

"Do you live _in_ Sootythorn, Miss Stedman?"

"Not far out of the town. Indeed our house is surrounded by buildings now. It used to be quite in the country."

"I--I should like to call upon Mr. Stedman very much when I am quite well again."

For some seconds there was no answer. Then Alice said in a low tone, almost inaudible, "I should be very glad to see you again."

A heavy and rapid step on the gravel behind them abruptly ended this interesting conversation.

It was not Madge Anison's step. They stopped and looked round. The Reverend Abel Blunting confronted them.

If poor Alice had not had that miserable habit of blus.h.i.+ng, the reverend gentleman would have perceived nothing beyond the simple fact that the young lady was walking in a garden with Mr. Philip Stanburne. But Alice's face was suffused with crimson, and the knowledge that it was so made her so uncomfortable that she blushed more than ever. In spite of his manhood, there was a slightly heightened color on Philip's cheek also, but a good deal of this may be attributed to vexation at what he was disposed to consider an ill-timed and unwarrantable intrusion.

"Good morning, Miss Alice! I hope you are quite well: and you, sir, I wish you good morning; I hope I see you well."

Philip bowed, a little stiffly, and Alice proceeded to make hasty inquiries about her papa. Did Mr. Blunting know if her papa had changed his intentions?

Mr. Blunting was always very polite, the defect in his manners (betraying that he was not quite a gentleman) being that they were only too deferential. He had a fatherly affection for Alice Stedman, whose spiritual guide he had been from her infancy, and it was certainly the very first time in her life that she had seen him without feelings of unmingled satisfaction.

"I have come to fetch you myself, Miss Alice. I met your papa in Sootythorn this morning as I was leaving in my gig, and he asked if I were coming to Whittlecup. So he requested me to offer you the vacant seat, Miss Alice, which I now do with great pleasure." Here Mr. Blunting made a sort of a bow. There was an unctuousness in his courtesy that irritated Philip, but perhaps Philip envied him his place in the gig.

"Are we going to leave immediately, then?" inquired Miss Stedman, in a tone which did not imply the most perfect satisfaction with these arrangements.

"Mrs. Anison has been so kind as to invite me to dine, and I have accepted." Mr. Blunting was too honest to say that Miss Alice ought to dine before her drive. He accepted avowedly in his own interest. He had a large body to nourish, he had to supply energies for an enormous amount of work, and the dinners at the Sootythorn parsonage were not always very succulent. He therefore thought it not wrong to accept effective aid in his labors when it offered itself in the shape of hospitality.

At dessert the clergyman found an opportunity of conveying, not too directly, a little hint or lesson which he felt it his duty to convey, and which had been tormenting him since the meeting in the garden. The conversation, which at Whittlecup, as elsewhere, very generally ran upon people known to the speakers, had turned to a case of separation between a neighboring country gentleman and his wife, who were, or had been, of different religions.

"Marriages of that kind," said Mr. Blunting, "between people of different religions, seldom turn out happily, and it is a great imprudence to contract them."

Mrs. Anison expressed a hearty concurrence in this view, but certain young persons present believed that, however just Mr. Blunting's observation might be, considered generally, there must be exceptions to a rule so discouraging.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WENDERHOLME COACH.

The distance from Wenderholme to Sootythorn was rather inconveniently great, being about twenty miles; and as there was no railway in that direction, the Colonel determined to set up a four-in-hand, which he facetiously ent.i.tled "The Wenderholme Coach." The immediate purpose of the Wenderholme coach was to enable the officers to enjoy more frequently the hospitalities of the Hall; but it may be admitted that John Stanburne had a natural gift for driving, and also a cultivated taste for that amus.e.m.e.nt, which may have had their influence in deciding him to add this item to his establishment. He had driven his tandem so long now, that, though it was still very agreeable to him, it no longer offered any excitement; but his experience of a four-in-hand was much more limited, and it therefore presented many of the allurements of novelty. Nothing is more agreeable than a perfect harmony between our duties towards others and our private tastes and predilections. It was clearly a duty to offer hospitality to the officers; and the hospitality would be so much more graceful if Wenderholme were brought nearer to Sootythorn by a capacious conveyance travelling at high speed, and with the style befitting a company of officers and gentlemen. At the same time, when John Stanburne imagined the charms of driving a four-in-hand, his fingers tingled with antic.i.p.ations of their delight in holding "the ribbons." Like all men of a perfectly healthy nature, he still retained a great deal of the boy (alas for him whose boyhood is at an end for ever!), and he was still capable of joyously antic.i.p.ating a new pleasure. The _idea_ of the four-in-hand was not new to him. He had long secretly aspired to its realization, but then Lady Helena (who had not the sacred fire) was not likely to see the thing quite in the same light. John Stanburne had never precisely consulted her upon the subject--he had never even gone so far as to say that he should like a four-in-hand if he could afford it; but he had expatiated on the delights of driving other people's teams, and his enthusiasm had met with no answering warmth in Helena's unresponsive breast. She had known for years that her husband had a hankering after a four-in-hand, and had discouraged it in her own way--namely, by steadily avoiding the least expression (even of simple politeness) which might be construed into approbation. In this negative way, without once speaking openly about the matter, she had clearly conveyed to the Colonel's mind her opinion thereupon. The reader, no doubt, approves her ladys.h.i.+p's wisdom and economy. But Lady Helena was not on all points wise and economical. Her qualities of this order shone most conspicuously with reference to pleasures which she did not personally appreciate. It is with sins of extravagance as with most other sins--we compound for those which we're inclined to by condemning those that we've no mind to. On the other hand, it may most reasonably be argued, in favor of her ladys.h.i.+p and other good women who criticise their husbands' expenditure on this excellent old principle, that if they not only encouraged the outlay which procures them the things they like, but also outlay for things they are indifferent about, the general household expenditure would be ruinously augmented.

The Colonel's manner of proceeding about the four-in-hand was characteristic of a husband in his peculiar position. He knew by experience the strength of the _fait accompli_. He wrote privily to a knowing friend of his who was spending the pleasant month of May amidst the joys of the London season, to purchase for him at once the commodious vehicle destined to become afterwards famous as the Wenderholme coach. He wrote for it on that Monday evening when Alice Stedman returned from her interrupted visit to Whittlecup; and as it was sent down on a truck attached to a pa.s.senger train, it arrived at the Sootythorn station within forty-eight hours of the writing of the letter, and was brought to the Thorn Inn by two of Mr. Garley's hacks.

The officers turned out to look at it after mess, and as it was known to have been selected by a man of high repute in the sporting world, its merits were unanimously allowed. There was a complete set of silver-mounted harness for four horses in the boot, carefully wrapped up in three sorts of paper; and London celerity had even found time to emblazon the Stanburne arms on the panels. It is true that they were exceedingly simple, like the arms of most old families, and the painter had omitted to impale them with the bearings of her ladys.h.i.+p--an accident which might also be considered ominous under the circ.u.mstances, since it seemed to imply that in this extravagance of the Colonel's his wife had no part nor lot.

As the mess was just over when the coach entered Mr. Garley's yard, the Colonel, with the boyish impulsiveness which he did not attempt to conceal, said, "Let's have a drive in the Wenderholme coach! Where shall we go to? Let's go and look up Lieutenant Ogden at Whittlecup, and see what he's doing!" So the two tandem horses and two of Mr. Garley's hacks were clothed in the splendors of the new harness, and attached to the great vehicle, whilst a dozen officers mounted to the lofty outside places. They wore the mess costume (red sh.e.l.l-jacket, &c.), and looked something like a lot of scarlet geraniums on the top of a horticulturist's van.

Just as they were starting, and as the Colonel was beginning to feel his reins properly, a youthful lieutenant who possessed a cornet-a-piston, and had privily carried it with him as he climbed to his place behind, filled the streets of Sootythorn with triumphant trumpet-notes. The sound caused many of the inhabitants to come to their windows, and amongst others Miss Mellor and her friend, Mrs. Ogden, who had been drinking tea with her that evening. "Why," said Miss Mellor, "it's a new coach!" "And it's boun' to'rd Whittlecup, I declare," added Mrs. Ogden.

She had already put her things on, intending to walk back to Whittlecup with little Jacob in the cool of the evening, for it was quite contrary to Mrs. Ogden's character (at once courageous and economical) to hire a fly for so short a distance as four miles. But when she saw the coach, it occurred to her that here was a golden mean betwixt the extravagance of fly-hiring and the fatigues of pedestrianism; so she clapped little Jacob's cap on his head (in a manner unsatisfactory to that young gentleman, for n.o.body can put a boy's cap on to suit him except himself), and dragged him out at the front door, hardly taking time to say good night to the worthy lady by whom she had just been so hospitably entertained.

When the Colonel saw Mrs. Ogden making signs with her parasol, he recognized her at once, and good-naturedly drew up his horses that she might get inside. Fyser got down to open the door, and the following conversation, which was clearly overheard by several of the officers, and partially by the Colonel himself, took place between Fyser and Mrs.

Ogden.

"Is this Whittlecup coach?"

"Yes, mum."

"Is there room inside for me and this 'ere little lad?"

"Plenty of room, mum. Step in, please; the horses is waitin'."

"Stop a bit. What's the fare as far as Whittlecup?"

"One s.h.i.+lling, mum," said Fyser, who ventured thus far, from his knowledge of the Colonel's indulgent disposition when a joke was in the wind.

"The childt'll be half-price?" said Mrs. Ogden, mixing the affirmative with the interrogative.

"Very well, mum," said Fyser, and shut the door on Mrs. Ogden and little Jacob.

The Colonel, since the box-seat was on the other side of the vehicle, had not heard the whole of this colloquy; and when it was reported to him amidst roars of laughter, he looked rather graver than was expected.