Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life Volume Ii Part 13

'You do not imagine that he wishes it?'

'I know he wishes I were not in Holy Orders. I knew he disliked it at the time of my ordination; but if he wished me to act according to his views, he should have given himself the right to dictate.'

'By not neglecting you all your youth.'

'Not that I regret or resent what concerns myself; but it was his leaving me a burden on my grandmother that drove me to become a clergyman, and a consistent one I will be, not an idle heir-apparent to this estate, receiving it as his gift, not my own birthright.'

'An idle clergyman! Never! never!' cried Isabel. 'I should not believe it was you! And the school--you could not leave it just as your plans are working, and the boys improving?'

'Certainly not; it would be fatal to abandon it to that stick, Powell.

Ah! Isabel,' as he looked at her beautiful countenance, 'how I pity the man who has not a high-minded wife! Suppose you came begging and imploring me not to give any umbrage to the man, because you so doted upon diamonds.'

'The less merit when one has learnt that they are very cold hard stones,' said Isabel, smiling.

Isabel was a high-minded wife, but she would have been a still better one if her loving admiration had allowed her to soften James, or to question whether pride and rancour did not lurk unperceived in the midst of the really high and sound motives that prompted him.

While their grandmother could only see Oliver on the best side, James and Isabel could only see him on the worst, and lost the greatness of the design in the mercenary habits that exclusive perseverance in it had produced. It had been a false greatness, but they could not grant the elevation of mind that had originally conceived it.

The following day was Sunday, and nothing worse took place than little skirmishes, in which the uncle and nephew's retort and rejoinder were so drolly similar, that Clara found herself thinking of Miss Faithfull's two sandy cats over a mouse; but she kept her simile to herself, finding that Isabel regarded the faintest, gentlest comparison of the two gentlemen almost as an affront. All actual debate was staved off by Mrs. Frost's entreaty that business discussion should be deferred. 'Humph!' said Oliver, 'you reign here, ma'am, but that's not the way we get on at Lima.'

'I dare say,' said James.

Mrs. Frost's joy was still undimmed. It was almost a trance of gladness, trembling in her smile, and overflowing in her eye, at every congratulation and squeeze of the hand from her friends.

'Dear Jemmy,' said she, taking his arm as they went home in the evening, 'did not that psalm seem meant for us?--'If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.''

James had been thinking it meant for some one; but, as he said, 'certainly not for you, dear granny.'

'Ah! snares of wealth were set far enough from me for a time! I never felt so covetous as when there was a report that there was to be an opposition school. But now your dear uncle is bringing prosperity back, I must take care not to set my heart even on what he has gained for me.'

'I defy riches to hurt you,' said James, smiling.

'Ah! Jemmy, you didn't know me as a county grandee,' she said, with a bright sad look, 'when your poor grandpapa used to dress me up. I'm an old woman now, past vanities, but I never could sit as loose to them as your own dear wife does. I never tried. Well, it will be changed enough; but I shall be glad to see poor old Cheveleigh. It does me good to hear poor Oliver call it home. If only we had your dear father!'

'To me Dynevor Terrace is home,' said James.

'A happy home it has been,' said the old lady.

''Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life!' And now, Oliver, whom I never thought to see again--oh! what can I do to be thankful enough! I knew what he was doing! I knew he was not what you all thought him! And roughing it has been no harm to you or Clara, and it is all over now! And the dear old place comes back to the old name.

Oh, James, I can sometimes hardly contain myself--that my poor boy has done it, and all for me, and his brother's children!'

James could scarcely find it in his heart to say a single word to damp her joy, and all his resolution enabled him to do was to say gently, 'You know, dear granny, we must not forget that I am a clergyman.'

'I know. I have been telling your uncle so; but we can do something.

You might take the curacy, and do a great deal of good. There used to be wild places sadly neglected in my time. I hope that, since it has been given back to us, we may feel it more as a stewards.h.i.+p than I did when it was mine.'

James sighed, and looked softened and thoughtful.

'Your uncle means to purchase an annuity for Jane,' she added; 'and if we could only think what to do for the Faithfulls! I wonder whether they would come and stay with us. At least they can never vex themselves again at not paying rent!'

After a pause--'Jem, my dear, could you manage to give your uncle the true account of your marriage? He admires Isabel very much, I can tell you, and is pleased at the connexion. But I fancy, though he will not say so, that Mr. Ponsonby has desired him to find out all he can about Louis; and unluckily they have persuaded themselves that poor Louis courted Isabel, supposing that she was to have Beauchastel, and, finding his error, betook himself to Mary.'

'Turning Isabel over to me! Extremely flattering.'

'Now, Jem, don't be angry. It is only foolish talk! But unluckily I can't persuade your uncle not to think the real story all my partiality; and you might do much more, if it be not too unpleasant to you.'

'Thank you, granny, it is out of the question. If it were as he does us the honour to imagine, I should be the last person to confess it. My evidence could be of no service to Fitzjocelyn, when my uncle's maxim is to place confidence in no one. The sole refutation in my power is the terms on which we meet.'

'Now, I have vexed you. I wish I had said nothing about it; but when dear Louis's happiness may depend on his report--'

'If I were base enough to have acted as he supposes, I should be base enough to deny it. There is not enough to be hoped to make me speak with unreserve on such a subject.'

He saved himself from saying--to such a man; but the shrewd, suspicious old bachelor was not an inviting confidant for the vicissitudes of delicate and tender feelings of such recent date, and Mrs. Frost reproached herself with asking too much of her proud, sensitive grandson.

The black gown and trencher cap by no means gratified Oliver, when James set off to school on Monday morning; but he consoled himself with observing, 'We shall soon put an end to that.'

'James is quite devoted to the school,' said Isabel, and she was answered by the dry growl.

'It will be a hard thing to transplant our young people,' said Mrs.

Frost, 'they have managed to be very happy here.'

'So hard of transplantation that I doubt the possibility,' said Isabel.

'You have made us take very deep root here.'

'Have you ever seen Cheveleigh, Mrs. Dynevor?'

'Never.'

'Poor Oliver! you and I think no place equal to our birthplace,' said Mrs. Frost.

'I should think Mrs. Roland Dynevor would find it compensation. How many beds did we make up, mother, the year my father was sheriff?'

'You must go to Jane for that,' said his mother, laughing. 'I'm sure I never knew.'

'I believe it was twenty-seven,' said Oliver, gravely. 'I know there were one hundred and eighty-five persons at the ball, and that the room was hung with blue brocade, mother; and you opened the ball with Lord Francis. I remember you had violet satin and white blonde.'

'My dear, how can you remember such things! You were a little bit of a schoolboy!'

'I was sixteen' said Oliver. 'It was the year '13. I will have the drawing-room hung with blue brocade, and I think Mrs. Roland Dynevor will own that nothing can exceed it.'

'Very likely,' said Isabel, indifferently; and she escaped, beckoning with her Clara, who was rather entertained with the reminiscences over which granny and Uncle Oliver seemed ready to linger for ever; and yet she was rather ashamed of her own amus.e.m.e.nt and interest, when she heard her sister-in-law say, 'If he did but know how weary I am of that hateful thing, a great house!'

'I hope Cheveleigh is not grander than Ormersfield,' said Clara, in an odd sort of voice.

The ladies, for the first time, did not sit together this morning.

Clara practised, and Isabel took the Chapel in the Valley out of her desk, and began a process of turning the Sir Roland into Sir Hubert.

Oliver and his mother were in the sitting-room, and, on James's return from school in the middle of the day, he was summoned thither. Mrs.

Frost was sitting by the fire, rather tearful and nervous, and her son stood full in the front, as dignified and magnanimous as size and features would permit, and the same demeanour was instantly and unconsciously a.s.sumed by his nephew, who was beyond measure chafed by the attempt at a grand coup.