Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 46

Her face looked no older. It was thin, eager, bright, and sunny, yet with an indescribable wistfulness in the sparkling eyes, and something worn in the expression, and, as usual, she moved with a quiet nimbleness peculiar to herself.

The breakfast-table, sparkling with silver and gla.s.s, around a magnificent orchid in the centre, and a rose by every plate, was spread in the dining-room, sweet sounds and scents coming in through the widely-opened gla.s.s doors of the conservatory, while a bright wood fire, still pleasant to look at, shone in the grate.

As she rang the bell, Bobus came in from the conservatory, book in hand, to receive the morning kiss, for which he had to bend to his little mother. He was not tall, but he had attained his full height, and had a well-knit st.u.r.dy figure which, together with his heavy brow and deep-set eyes, made him appear older than his real age--nineteen. His hair and upper lip were dark, and his eyes keen with a sense of ready power and strong will.

"Good morning, Bobus; I didn't see you all day yesterday," said his mother.

"No, I couldn't find you before you went out on Sat.u.r.day night, to tell you I was going to run down to Belforest with Bauerson. I wanted to enlighten his mind as to wild hyacinths. They are in splendid bloom all over the copses, and I thought he would have gone down on his knees to them, like Linnaeus to the gorse."

"I'm afraid he didn't go on his knees to anything else."

"Well, it is not much in his line."

"Then can he be a nice Sunday companion?"

"Now, mother, I expected credit for not scandalising the natives. We got out at Woodgate, and walked over, quite 'unknownst,' to Kenminster."

"I was not thinking of the natives, but of yourself."

"As you are a sensible woman, Mother Carey, wasn't it a more goodly and edifying thing to put a man like Bauerson in a trance over the bluebells, than to sit cramped up in foul air listening to the glorification of a wholesale ma.s.sacre."

"For shame, Bobus; you know I never allow you to say such things."

"Then you should not drag me to Church. Was it last Sunday that I was comparing the Prussians at Bazeille with--"

"Hush, my dear boy, you frighten me; you know it is all explained.

Fancy, if we had to deal with a nation of Thugs, and no means of guarding them--a different dispensation and all. But here come the children, so hush."

Bobus gave a nod and smile, which his mother understood only too well as intimating acquiescence with wishes which he deemed feminine and conventional.

"My poor boy," she said to herself, with vague alarm and terror, "what has he not picked up? I must read up these things, and be able to talk it over with him by the time he comes back from Norway."

There, however, came the morning greeting of Elvira and Barbara, girls of fourteen and eleven, with floating hair and short dresses, the one growing up into all the splendid beauty of her early promise, the other thin and brown, but with a speaking face and lovely eyes. They were followed by Miss Ogilvie, as trim and self-possessed as ever, but with more ease and expansiveness of manner.

"So Babie," said her brother, "you've earned your breakfast; I heard you hammering away."

"Like a nuthatch," was the merry answer.

"And Elfie?" asked Mrs. Brownlow.

"I'm not so late as Janet," she answered; and the others laughed at the self-defence before the attack.

"It is a lazy little Elf in town," said Miss Ogilvie; "in the country she is up and out at impossible hours."

"Good morning, Janet," said Bobus, at that moment, "or rather, 'Marry come up, mistress mine, good lack, nothing is lacking to thee save a pointed hood graceless.'"

For Janet was arrayed in a close-fitting pale blue dress, cut in semblance of an ancient kirtle, and with a huge chatelaine, from which ma.s.sive chains dangled, not to say clattered--not merely the ordinary appendages of a young lady, but a pair of compa.s.ses, a safety inkstand, and a microscope. Her dark hair was strained back from a face not calculated to bear exposure, and was wound round a silver arrow.

Elfie shook with laughter, murmuring--

"Oh dear! what a fright!" in accents which Miss Ogilvie tried to hush; while Babie observed, as a sort of excuse, "Janet always is a figure of fun when she is picturesque."

"My dear, I hope you are not going to show yourself to any one in that dress," added her mother.

"It is perfectly correct," said Janet, "studied from an old Italian costume."

"The Marchioness of Carabbas, in my old fairy-tale book. Oh, yes, I see!" and Babie went off again in an ecstatic fit of laughter.

"I hope you've got boots and a tail ready for George," added Bobus.

"Being a tiger already, he may serve as cat."

Therewith the post came in, and broke up the discourse; for Babie had a letter from Eton, from Armine who was shut up with a sore throat.

Her mother was less happy. She had asked a holiday for the next day for her two Eton boys and their cousin John, and the reply had been that though for two of the party there could be no objection, her elder boy was under punishment for one of the wild escapades to which he was too apt to pervert his excellent abilities.

"Are not they coming, mother?" asked Babie. "Armie does not say."

"Unfortunately Jock has got kept in again."

"Poor Jock!" said Bobus; "sixpence a day, and no expectations, would have been better pasture for his brains."

"Yes," said his mother with a sigh, "I doubt if we are any of us much the better or the wiser for Belforest."

"The wiser, I'm sure, because we've got Miss Ogilvie," cried Babie.

"Do I hear babes uttering the words of wisdom?" asked Allen, coming into the room, and pretending to pull her hair, as the school-room party rose from the breakfast-table, and he met them with outstretched hands.

"Ay, to despise Lag-last," said Elvira, darting out of his reach, and tossing her dark locks at him as she hid behind a fern plant in the window; and there was a laughing scuffle, ended by Miss Ogilvie, who swept the children away to the school-room, while Allen came to the table, where his mother had poured out his coffee, and still waited to preside over his breakfast, though she had long finished her own.

Allen Brownlow, at twenty, was emphatically the Eton and Christchurch production, just well made and good-looking enough to do full justice to his training and general getting up, without too much individual personality of his own. He looked only so much of a man as was needful for looking a perfect gentleman, and his dress and equipments were in the most perfect quietly exquisite style, as costly as possible, yet with no display, and nothing to catch the eye.

"Well, Bobus," he said, "you made out your expedition. How did the place look?"

"Wasting its sweetness," said his mother; "it is tantalising to think of it."

"It could hardly be said to be wasted," said Bobus; "the natives were disporting themselves all over it."

"Where?" asked Allen, with displeased animation.

"O, Essie and Ellie were promenading a select party about the gardens. I could almost hear Mackintyre gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth at their inroads on the forced strawberries, and the park and Elmwood Spinney were dotted so thick with people, that we had to look sharp not to fall in with any one."

"Elmwood Spinney!" exclaimed Allen; "you don't mean that they were running riot over the preserves?"

"I don't think there were more than half-a-dozen there. Bauerson was quite edified. He said, 'So! they had on your English Sunday quite falsely me informed.' There were a couple of lovers spooning and some children gathering flowers, and it had just the Arcadian look dear to the German eye."

"Children," cried Allen, as if they were vipers. "That's just what I told you, mother. If you will persist in throwing open the park, we shall not have a pheasant on the place."

"My dear boy, I have seen them running about like chickens in a farmyard."