The Pillars of the House Part 47

'One comfort is, n.o.body knows your coolness. n.o.body comes for all your ringing.'

'Reason good! Every living soul in the house is in the Bishop's meadow, barring the old cat; I seen 'em with their cap-strings flying. But that's nothing. I know where Mother Harewood keeps her tea and sugar;' and he pounced on a tea-caddy of Indian aspect.

'Lance, if you did that to Mettie--'

'Exactly so. I don't;' and he ran out of the room, while Cherry sat up on her sofa, her petulance quite banished between amus.e.m.e.nt and desperation at such proceedings in a strange house. He came back presently with two cups, saucers, and plates, apparently picked up at hap-hazard, as no two were alike. 'My dear Lance, where have you been?'

'In the kitchen. Such a jolly arched old hole. Bill and I have done no end of Welsh rabbits there. Once when we were melting some lead, Bill let it drop into the pudding, and the Pater got it at dinner, and said it was the heaviest morsel he ever had to digest.'

'But wasn't it poison?'

'I suppose not, for you see he isn't dead. Another time, when we were melting glue, we upset a whole lot of fat, and the chimney caught fire; and wasn't that a go? Bill got a pistol out of Jack's room, and fired it up the chimney to bring the soot down; and down it came with a vengeance! He was regularly singed, and I do think the place would have been burned if it had not been too old! All the Shapcotes ran out into the court, hallooing Fire! and the engine came, but there was nothing for it to do. Oh, the face Wilmet would make to see that kitchen. Kettle's biling--I must run.'

He came back with an enormous metal tea-pot in one hand, and a boiling kettle in the other, a cloud of vapour about his head.

'You appear in a cloud, like a Greek divinity,' said Cherry, beginning to enter into the humour of the thing.

'Bringing nectar and ambrosia,' said Lance, depositing the kettle amid the furbelows of paper in the grate, and proceeding to brew the tea. 'Excuse the small trifles of milk and cream, and as to bread, I can't find it, but here are the cakes you had for luncheon, shunted off into the pa.s.sage window. Sugar, Cherry! Fingers were made before tongs. Now I call this jolly.'

'I only hope this isn't a great liberty.'

'If you fired off a cannon under Mrs. Harewood's nose, she would not call it a liberty.'

'So it appears. But Mr. Harewood does not look--like that.'

'Oh, he's well broken in. He is the pink of orderliness in his own study and the library, but as long as no one meddles there, he minds nothing. It just keeps him alive; but I believe the Shapcotes think this house a mild lunatic asylum.'

'Who are the Shapcotes?'

'He's registrar. They live in the other half of this place--the old infirmary, Mr. Harewood calls it. Such a contrast! He is a tremendous old Turk in his house, and she is a little mincing woman; and they've made Gus--he's one of us, you know--a horrid sneak, and think it's all my bad company and Bill's. By-the-by, Cherry, Gus Shapcote asked me if my senior wasn't spoony about--'

'I nope you told him to mind his own business!' cried Geraldine, with a great start of indignation.

'I told him he was a sheep,' said Lance. 'But, I say, Cherry, I want to know what you think of it.'

'Think? I'm not so ready to think nonsense!'

'Well, when the old giant was getting some tea for _her_, I saw two ladies look at one another and wink.'

'Abominably ill-mannered,' she cried, growing ruddier than the cherry.

'But had you any notion of it?'

'Impossible!' she said breathlessly. 'He is only kind and civil to her, as he is to everybody. Think how young he is!'

'I'm sure I never thought old Blunderbore much younger than Methuselah. Twenty-one! Isn't it about the age one does such things?'

'Not when one has twelve brothers and sisters on one's back,' sighed Geraldine. 'Poor Felix! No, there can't be anything in it. Don't let us think of foolish nonsense this wonderful day. What a glorious hymn that was!'

Lance laid his head lovingly on the sofa-cus.h.i.+on, and discussed the enjoyment of the day with his skilled appreciation of music.

Geraldine's receptive power was not inferior to his own, though she had none of that of expression, nor of the science in which he was trained. He was like another being from the merry rattle he was at other times; and she had more glimpses than she ever had before of the high nature and deep enthusiasm that were growing in him.

'Hark! there's somebody coming,' she cried, starting.

'Let him come. Oh, it is the Pater.--Here is some capital tea, Mr.

Harewood. Have some? I'll get a cup.'

'You are taking care of your sister. That is right. A good colonist you would make.--Come in, Lee,' said Mr. Harewood, who, to Cherry's increased consternation, was followed by another clergyman. 'We are better off than I dared to expect, thanks to this young gentleman.

Miss Geraldine Underwood--Mr. Lee.--You knew her father, I think.'

'Not poor Underwood of Bexley? Indeed! I knew him. I always wished I could have seen more of him,' said Mr. Lee, coming up and heartily shaking hands with Cherry, and asking whether she was staying there, etc.

Meantime Lance had fetched a blue china soup-plate, a white cup and pink spotted saucer; another plate labelled 'Nursery,' a coffee-cup and saucer, one brown and the other blue, and as tidily as if he had been lady of the house or parlour-maid, presented his provisions, Mr.

Harewood accepting with a certain quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. His remarkable trim neatness of appearance, and old-school precision of manner, made his quiet humorous acquiescence in the wild ways of his household all the more droll. After a little clerical talk, that reminded Cherry of the old times when she used to lie on her couch, supposed not to understand, but dreamily taking in much more than any one knew--it appeared that Mr. Lee wanted to see something in the Library, and Mr.

Harewood asked her whether she would like to come and see Coeur de Lion's seal.

She was fully rested, and greatly pleased. Lance's arm was quite sufficient now, and she studied the Cathedral and its precincts in a superexcellent manner. Mr. Harewood, who had spent almost his whole life under its shadow, and knew the history of almost every stone or quarry of gla.s.s, was the best of lionisers, and gave her much attention when he perceived how intelligent and appreciative she was.

He showed her the plan of the old conventual buildings, and she began to unravel the labyrinth through which she had been hurried. The Close and Deanery were modernised, but he valued the quaint old corner where he lived for its genuine age. The old house now divided between him and Mr. Shapcote had been the infirmary; and the long narrow building opposite, between the Bailey and the cloister, had been the lodgings either of lay-brothers or servants. There being few boarders at the Cathedral school, they had always been lodged in the long narrow room, with the second master in a little closet shut off from them. Cherry was favoured with a glance at Lance's little corner, with the old-fas.h.i.+oned black oak bedstead, solid but unsteady table and stool, the equally old press, and the book-case he had made himself with boards begged from his friend the carpenter. A photograph and drawing or two, and a bat, completed the plenis.h.i.+ng.

She thought it very uncomfortable, but Lance called it his castle; and Mr. Harewood, pointing to the was.h.i.+ng apparatus, related that in his day the c.o.c.k in the Bailey was the only provision for such purposes. The boys were safely locked in at eight every night when the curfew rang, and the Bailey door was shut, there being no other access to the rooms, except by the Cathedral, through the Library, and the private door that led into the pa.s.sage common to the Harewoods and Shapcotes.

The loveliness of the Cloister, the n.o.ble vault of the Chapterhouse, the various beauties and wonders of the Cathedral, and lastly the curiosities of the Library--where Mr. Harewood enthroned her in his own chair, unlocked the cases, brought her the treasures, and turned over the illuminated ma.n.u.scripts for her as if she had been a princess--made Geraldine forget time, weariness, and anxiety, until, as the summer sun was at last taking leave, a voice called at the window, 'Here she is! I thought Papa would have her here!' and the freckled face of a Miss Harewood was seen peering in.

There the truants were, eager, hurried, afraid for the train, full of compunction, for the long abandonment: Alice, most apologetic; Wilmet, most quiet; Felix, most attentive; Robina, still ecstatic; and Angela, tired out--there they all were. It was all one hasty scramble to the crowded station, and then one merry discussion and comparison of notes all the way home, Geraldine maintaining that she had enjoyed herself the best of all; and Alice incredulous of the pleasure of sitting in a musty old library with an old gentleman of at least sixty; while Felix was so much delighted to find that she had been so happy, that he almost believed that the delay had been solely out of consideration for her.

Mr. Froggatt was safe at the station in his basket, full of delight at the enjoyment of his young people, and of anecdotes of Bernard and Stella; and Geraldine found herself safely deposited at home, but with one last private apology from Wilmet as she was putting her to bed. 'I did not know how to help it,' she said; Alice was so wild with delight, that I could not get her away; and Felix was enjoying his holiday so thoroughly, I knew that you would be sorry it should be shortened.'

'Indeed I am very glad you stayed. It would be too bad to enc.u.mber you.'

'I wanted to come and see after you, but I had promised Miss Pearson not to lose sight of Alice. And then Lance offered to take care of you.'

'O Wilmet, I never half knew what a dear boy Lance is! What boy would have come, when all that was going on, to stay with a lame cross thing like me? And how nice for him to have such kind friends as the Harewoods!'

'They seem very fond of him,' said Wilmet; 'but I wish he had taken up with the Shapcotes. I never saw such a house. It is enough to ruin all sense of order! But they were very kind to us; and if you were well off, it was all right. I never saw Felix look so like his bright old self as to-day; and it is his birthday, after all.'

So Wilmet was innocent of all suspicions--wise experienced Wilmet!

That was enough to make Cherry forget that little thorn of jealousy, especially as things subsided into their usual course, and she had no more food for conjecture.

CHAPTER XII

GIANT DESPAIR'S CASTLE

'Who haplesse and eke hopelesse all in vaine, Did to him pace sad battle to darrayne; Disarmd, disgraste, and inwardly dismayde, And eke so faint in every ioynt and vayne, Through that fraile fountaine which him feeble made.'

SPENSER.