 
Transcriber's Notes:
COLLECTION | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.By the same Author, | |
| EAST LYNNE | 3 vols. |
| THE CHANNINGS | 2 vols. |
| MRS. HALLIBURTON'S TROUBLES | 2 vols. |
| VERNER'S PRIDE | 3 vols. |
| THE SHADOW OF ASHLYDYAT | 3 vols. |
| TREVLYN HOLD | 2 vols. |
| LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS | 2 vols. |
| OSWALD CRAY | 2 vols. |
| MILDRED ARKELL | 2 vols. |
| ST. MARTIN'S EVE | 2 vols. |
| ELSTER'S FOLLY | 2 vols. |
| LADY ADELAIDE'S OATH | 2 vol. |
| ORVILLE COLLEGE | 1 vol. |
| A LIFE'S SECRET | 1 vol. |
| ANNE HEREFORD | 2 vols. |
| ROLAND YORKE | 2 vols. |
THE
RED COURT FARM.
A NOVEL.
BY
MRS. HENRY WOOD,
AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "TREVLYN HOLD," ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1868.
The Right of Translation is reserved.
CONTENTSOF VOLUME I. | |
| CHAP. | |
| I. | Introduction. |
| II. | Robert Hunter and his Wife. |
| III. | Clara Lake's Dream. |
| IV. | The Accident. |
| V. | Red or Green. |
| VI. | Justice Thornycroft's Visit. |
| VII. | Going Fishing. |
| VIII. | Catching a Chill. |
| IX. | Colour Blindness. |
| X. | Mary Jupp's Explosion. |
| XI. | The Dream worked out. |
| XII. | Coastdown. |
| XIII. | What was the Fear? |
| XIV. | Superstitious Tales. |
| XV. | The New Mistress of the Red Court. |
THE RED COURT FARM.
PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction.
On a certain portion of the English coast, lying sufficiently convenient to that of France to have given rise to whispers of smuggling in the days gone by, there is a bleak plateau of land, rising high above the sea. It is a venturesome feat to walk close to its edge and gaze down the perpendicular cliffs to the beach below--enough to make a strong man dizzy. A small beach just there, called the Half-moon from its shape, nearly closed in by the projecting rocks, and accessible only from the sea at high water; at low water a very narrow path leads from it round the left projection of rock. It was a peculiar place altogether, this spot; and it is necessary to make it pretty clear to the imagination of those who read the story connected with it. The Half-moon itself was never under water, for the tide did not reach it, but the narrow path winding round to the left was; and that rendered the half-circular beach unapproachable by land at intervals in the four-and twenty hours. A few rude steps shelved down from this Half-moon to a small strip of lower beach underneath, whose ends were lost in the sea. The projecting rocks on either side, forming as may be said the corners of the Half-moon, went right into the sea. Those on your right hand (standing face to the sea) cut off all communication with the shore beyond, for a depth of water touched them always. Those on the left extended less far out, and the narrow path winding round them was dry when the tide was down. It thus arose that the Half-moon could be gained by this one narrow path only, or by a boat from the sea.
For all practical purposes it might just as well have been unattainable. Not once in a month--nay, it might be said, not once in twelve months--would any human being stray thither. Not only was there no end to be answered in going to it, but the place was said to be haunted; and the simple villagers around would sooner have spent the night watching in the church's vaults than have ventured to the Half-moon beach between sundown and cockcrow. The most superstitious race of men on the earth's surface are sailors; and fishermen partake of the peculiarity.
Turning round on the plateau now--it is called the plateau just as the beach below is called the Half-moon--with our backs to the sea, we look inland It is only the plateau that is high; the coast itself and the lands around lie rather low. On the left hand (remember that our hands have been reversed) a long line of dreary coast stretches onwards, not a habitation to be seen; on the right lies the village--Coastdown. Fishermen's huts are built on the side and top of the cliffs, not there so perpendicular; small cottages dot the low-lying grass lands; and an opening in the one poor street (if it can be called such) of the village, shows the real useable beach and the few fishing craft moored to it.
Standing still on the plateau, our backs to the sea, the eye falls on a landscape of cultivated plains, extending out for miles and miles. The only house near to the plateau is exactly opposite to it--a large redbrick house built in a dell. It may be a quarter of a mile distant from the edge of the plateau where we stand, but the gradual descent of the grassy land causes it to look very much nearer. This is the Red Court Farm. It is a low, long house, rather than a high one, and has been built on the site of an ancient castle, signs of whose ruins may be seen still. The plateau itself is but as wide as about a good stone's throw; and on its lower part, not far from where it joins the lands of the Red Court Farm, and the descent is rather abrupt, rises a dilapidated circular stone wall, breast high, with a narrow opening where the door used to be. This is called the Round Tower, and is supposed to have been the watch-tower of the castle.
The Red Court stands alone, the last house of the colony, some distance removed from any; its gates and door of entrance are at the end of the house, looking to the village. The nearest building to it is the small old church, St. Peter's, standing in the midst of a large graveyard dotted with graves; with its portico-entrance, and its square belfry, grey with age, green with patches of moss. The high road, advancing from the open country behind--it's hard to say whence, or from what bustling cities--comes winding by the entrance gates of the Red Court Farm with a sharp turn, and sees two roads branching off before it. It takes the one to the right, bearing round to the village, passes through it, and goes careering on to Jutpoint, a small town, some four or five miles distant, having the sea on the right all the way. The other branching road leads past the church to the heath, or common, on which are situated the handful of houses, all of moderate size, inhabited by the gentry of the place.
The only good house was the Red Court Farm. Thornycroft was the name of the family living in it. Mr. Thornycroft owned the Red Court and some of the land around it; and he rented more, which he farmed. Many years ago a gentleman had come down to look at the place, which was for sale, and bought it. He was named Thornycroft. His two sons, Richard and Harry, were fine powerful young men, but wild in their habits, and caused some scandal in the quiet place. Previous to the purchase, the house had been known as the Red Court, it was supposed from the deep red of the bricks of which it was built. Mr. Thornycroft at once added on the word "Farm"--the Red Court Farm. A right good farmer he proved himself to be, the extent of the land being about three hundred acres, comprising what he rented. Within a very few years of the purchase Mr. Thornycroft died, and Richard, the eldest son, came into possession. In the following year Richard also died, from the effects of an accident in France. Both the brothers were fond of taking continental trips, Richard especially.
Thus the place came into the hands of Harry Thornycroft, and he entered upon it with his wife and little son. His ostensible residence since his marriage had been in London; but he had stayed a great deal at the Red Court Farm. A second son was soon after born, and some five or six years later another boy and a girl. Mrs. Thornycroft, a gentle, ladylike, delicate woman, did not enjoy robust health. Something in her face and manner seemed to give the idea that she had an inward care--that skeleton in the closet from which so few of us are quite free. Whether it was so or not in her case none could tell. That Harry Thornycroft made her a fond and indulgent husband--that they were much attached to each other--there could be no doubt of. Her look of care may have arisen solely from her state of health; perhaps from the secret conviction that she should be called away early from her children. Years before she died Coastdown said she was fading away. Fade away she did, without any very tangible disorder, and was laid to rest in a corner of the churchyard. To those who know where to look for it, her large white tombstone may be distinguished from our standing-place on the plateau. That grief had been long over, and the Red Court itself again.
Mr. Thornycroft was a county magistrate, and rode in to Jutpoint, when the whim took him, and sat upon the bench there. There was no bench at Coastdown; but petty offenders were brought before him at the Red Court--partly because he was the only gentleman in the commission of the peace living at Coastdown, partly from the fact that he was more wealthy and influential than all the other residents put together. A lenient justice was he, never convicting when he could spare: many a fine, that he himself had imposed from the bench at Jutpoint, was mysteriously conveyed out of his pocket into the poor offender's to save the man from prison. To say that Justice Thornycroft--the title generally accorded him--was beloved in Coastdown, would be a poor word to define the feeling of the poorer people around. He had a liberal hand, an open heart; and no person carried a tale of trouble to him in vain. His great fault, said the small gentry around, was unreasonable liberality. Never was there a pleasanter companion than he, and his brother magistrates chuckled when they got an invitation to the Red Court dinners, for they loved the hearty welcome and the jolly cheer.
The two elder sons, Richard and Isaac, were fine towering men like himself--rather wild both, just what Harry Thornycroft and his elder brother had been in their young days. Richard was dark, stern, and resolute; but he would unbend to courtesy over his wine when guests were at table. The few who remembered the dead elder brother said Richard resembled him much more than he did his father, as is sometimes seen to be the case. Certainly in countenance Richard was not like the justice. Isaac was. It was his father's fair and handsome face over again, with its fine features, its dark-blue eyes, and its profusion of light curling hair. There was altogether a great charm in Isaac Thornycroft. His manners were winning; his form, strong and tall as Richard's, had a nameless grace and ease that Richard's lacked; and his heart and hand were open as his father's. The young one, Cyril, was less robust than his brothers--quiet, gentle, very much like his dead mother. Cyril's taste was all for books; to the out-of-door life favoured by Richard and Isaac he had never been given. Richard called him a "milksop;" Isaac would pet him almost as he might a girl; all indulged him. To Richard and Isaac no profession was given; as yet none was talked of for Cyril. The two elder occupied themselves on the land--ostensibly, at any rate; but half their time was spent in shooting, fishing, hunting, according to the seasons. "A thriving farm the Red Court must be," quoth the neighbours given to gossip, "for the old man to keep all his sons to it." But it was well known that Mr. Thornycroft must possess considerable private property; the style of living would alone prove that.
A broad gravel drive led straight from the gates to the entrance door. There were different gates and entrances at the back of the house, serving for farm vehicles, for servants, and for people on business generally. The kitchens and other domestic apartments were at the back, looking on to the various buildings behind--barns, stables, and such like. The further end of the stables joined some of the old ruins still standing--in fact, it may be said that part of the ruins were used as such. The young men kept their dog-cart there--a large, stylish affair, capable of containing no end of dogs--and the fleet, strong, fine horse that usually drew it. The front of the house (as already seen) faced the plateau and the sea--a wide handsome frontage enclosing handsome rooms. And it is quite time we entered them.
Through the portico, level with the ground, and up the two steps into the long but somewhat narrow hall--very narrow at the back, and shut in by a door--doors opened on either side of it. The first room on the right was the dining-room--a spacious apartment, warm and comfortable, bright pictures on its dark wainscoted walls, a rich Turkey carpet giving luxury to the tread. The windows were at the end, looking towards the village and the church belfry; and the fireplace was opposite the door. Passing up the hall, the next room was called familiarly the justice-room. Here Mr. Thornycroft sat when offenders were brought before him, and here he saw his farming people and kept his papers. Beyond this was the staircase, and a door, still on the right, opening on the passage leading to the domestic apartments. On the left-hand side of the entrance-hall was the large drawing-room, its windows facing the front; beyond it a smaller and plainer one, always in use. A snug little parlour adjoined this, in which Miss Thornycroft took her lessons: all these three faced the front. The door at the back of the hall opened on a passage and to some rooms used only by the gentlemen. The passage ran through to a side entrance, which was just opposite that portion of the stables built on the old ruins--this was convenient, since the young men, who had a habit of coming in at all hours of the day and night, could put up their horse and dog-cart and let themselves in with their latch-keys without sound or movement penetrating to the family and household.
It is with the study, or Miss Thornycroft's parlour, that we have to do today. Its window is thrown open to the hot July sun--to the green lawn and the shrubs underneath--to the bare plateau beyond, on whose edge a coastguardsman was pacing on duty--to the sparkling sea in the distance. The paper of the room was of white and gold, pretty drawings and landscapes in water-colours adorning it. Some of them had been done by Miss Thornycroft, some by her late mother. The carpet and chairs were green; the piano, cabinets, and other furniture were handsome; the white curtains waved in the gentle breeze--altogether it was a room pleasant to look upon.
Seated on the music-stool, her face to the door, was a little middle-aged, brown woman, unmistakably French, without her tongue, which was going fluently, a look of reproach on her naturally placid face. It was Mademoiselle Derode, the governess, resident now some five years at the Red Court. A simple-minded woman, accomplished though she was--good as gold, and timid as her own nature. Richard Thornycroft had related to her some of the ghostly tales connected with the Red Court--or rather with its immediate environs--and she would not have stirred out at night alone for the world. Her chamber window when she first came faced the plateau; after hearing the stories she begged and prayed to be removed into another. Mrs. Thornycroft, alive then, complied with a sad smile, and reproved Richard in her gentle manner for saying anything. If whispers were to be believed, these same ghostly rumours were even then helping to kill Mrs. Thornycroft.
Mademoiselle Derode was en colÈre this morning with her pupil. French, German, English; good music, harp, and piano; drawing and painting; she was thoroughly versed in all, and had as thoroughly taught. For her age, Miss Thornycroft was an exceedingly well-educated girl, but apt at times to be a rebellious one. In fact she was growing quite beyond the control of the little governess.
The young lady stood by the table facing the window--a tall, very handsome girl of nearly sixteen, with her brother Isaac's fair skin and bright features, and a suspicious look of Richard's resolute lip. She wore a blue muslin dress, blue ribbons in her fair hair; her pretty hands were tossing, not in play but petulance, a large white rose, broken short off from its stalk; her well-shaped head was thrown back; her light clear blue eyes looked out defiantly.
"As if there could be reason in it!" spoke mademoiselle in her quaint but well-pronounced English. "You did but the little half of your lessons yesterday; the other day before it you went out without saying to me the one word; and now this morning you want to go out again. You will not do any one little thing! I say, Miss Mary Anne, that it has not reason in it."
"I promised Captain Copp I would go, mademoiselle. Mrs. Copp will be waiting for me."
"And I promise you that you cannot go," returned the governess, decisively. "My faith! you go, you go, you go; yesterday, today, tomorrow; and where are your studies? I might as well take my departure; I am of no longer use."
"I wish I was that douanier," spoke the young lady with an angry stamp, looking out at the preventive man pacing the edge of the plateau.
"I wish you were--for one day; you would soon wish yourself back again into yourself, Miss Thornycroft. Will you sit down and begin your studies?"
"No; it is too hot to work. German would give me the headache today, mademoiselle."
"I wish your papa, Monsieur the Justice, was at home. I would appeal to him."
"So would I. I wish he was! Papa would not make me do lessons against my will."
"Will you come into the other room to your harp, then?"
"No," reiterated Miss Thornycroft. "When I don't want to work, I can't work; and, excuse me, mademoiselle, but I won't. There! I am invited out today, and I want to go. Mrs. Sam Copp is going to Jutpoint, and she is to take me."
Mademoiselle got up in despair. Day by day, she saw it well, her authority was getting less.
"Miss Mary Anne, hear me! I will not have you go. I defend you to quit the house."
Mary Anne laughed disobediently.
"I shall go if Captain Copp comes for me, mademoiselle."
Mademoiselle wrung her hands.
"I will go and find Mr. Richard. He is master here when the justice is not. I will lay the case before him and say, 'What am I to do with this rebellions child?'"
She quitted the room on her search. Miss Thornycroft went to the window and leaned out, wishing herself once more the preventive man, or anybody else who had not a governess. At that moment she saw her brother Isaac go running on to the plateau from the direction of the village, stand a minute talking with the coastguardsman, and then come vaulting down towards the house. It has not been mentioned that a line of light railings enclosed the plateau below the round tower--a boundary line between it and the Red Court grounds. Isaac Thornycroft leaped the railings, and saw his sister. She called to him in a voice of earnestness; he came round to the front entrance and entered the room.
Handsome in his careless grace, and bright as the summer's morning. He wore light cool clothes, his linen was curiously white and fine; looking altogether, as he always did, a noble gentleman. Richard would be in coarse things, unbrushed and shabby, for a week together; the brothers had quite opposite instincts.
Mary Anne went up to him with a pleading voice and tears in her eyes, all her assumption of will gone.
"Oh, Isaac!--dear Isaac! won't you help me? You are always kind."
"My little dove! what is it?"
She told her tale. Her engagement with Captain and Mrs. Copp, and mademoiselle's cruel hardheartedness. Isaac laughed outright.
"Cruel hardheartedness, indeed! worse than that of Barbara Allen. My pretty one!" he whispered, stooping until his lips touched her cheek.
"Well, Isaac?"
"Put on your things, and I'll smuggle you off. Quick"
She needed no second warning. In two minutes, down she was again, a white mantle on her shoulders, a straw hat with its blue ribbons shading her fair bright face. Isaac took her out at the front door, just before Mademoiselle Derode got back again.
"I have sent for your brother, Mr. Richard, Miss Mary Anne, and----Ella n'est pas ici?"
Mademoiselle called, and looked in this room and that. She had not finished when Richard strode in, his face dark and stern as usual, his shoes and gaiters dusty, his velveteen waistcoat buttoned close up, his coat soiled. He had been helping to fill in a pond.
"Lessons! of course she must learn her lessons. Where is she, mademoiselle?"
Mademoiselle was arriving at the conclusion that she was nowhere. One of the housemaids had seen her dress herself, and go downstairs. Of course she had gone. Gone in disobedience! Richard went back to his pond, and mademoiselle sat down and folded her arms.
In the course of an hour Mr. Thornycroft came in. A handsome man still, upright and grand; his features fair and pleasant, his smile rather free, no grey as yet mingling with his still luxuriant hair. Mademoiselle carried her grievance to him; as she had been obliged to do more than once of late.
"It is not to complain of her, monsieur; I'm sure you know that, I love her too well; but in her own interest I must speak. She is at the age when she most needs guidance and control; and she is showing that she has a will of her own, and will exercise it! It was always there."
"I suppose it was," said the justice. "I have a will myself. Richard and Isaac have wills."
"If I can no longer be obeyed, monsieur, better that I should go back to my little home in France, and make a place for a governess who will have control."
"No, no," said Mr. Thornycroft, very quickly. "That would not do. I'll have no fresh governess here."
"But what is to be done, monsieur?"
"I'll think of it," said Mr. Thornycroft.
CHAPTER II.
Robert Hunter and his Wife.
In the midst of the pretty and exclusive village of Katterley, an inland spot, from twenty to thirty miles away from the sea, there stands a charming residence, half-cottage, half-villa, called Katterley Lodge. Its rooms are warm in winter, cool in summer; it rises in the midst of a lovely garden, in view of magnificent scenery; and the sweetest roses and honeysuckles entwine themselves on its walls.
The evening August sun--July had just past--shone full on its entrance gate; on a lady, young and fair, who was leaning over it. She may have been about three-and-twenty, and she was dressed in white, with ribbons in her hair. There was a remarkable refinement and delicacy in her face, her manners, in her appearance altogether; and her soft dark eyes had a sad expression. Did you, who may be reading this, ever observe that peculiar, sad look--not a passing sadness, or one caused by present care--but a fixed mournful look, implanted in the eyes by nature? It is not a common expression, or one often seen; rely upon it, when you do see it, it is but an index that the spirit is, or will be, sad within.
Sauntering up the road towards the gate, encumbered with a basket, a rod, and other apparatus pertaining to the fishing art, strode a gentleman, carelessly switching the hedge as he passed it. No sad expression was there about him; rather the contrary. He was of middle height, very slender, with a frank pleasant face given to laughing, and dark auburn hair; his manner was light, his speech free and careless. Her face sparkled, at his approach, and she opened the gate long before he had gained it.
"What sport, Robert? What have you brought?"
"Brought you myself," was the gentleman's reply, as he passed in at the gate she held wide. "Thank you. How much is the toll?"
As he bent to take the "toll," a kiss, she glanced shyly in his face and blushed--blushed brightly; although she was his wife of nearly three years' standing. In a retiring, impassioned earnest nature such as hers, it takes a great deal ere love can die out--a convulsion sometimes. With her it had not begun to die.
His name was Robert Frederick Hunter. His wife liked the second name best, and generally called him by it, but as other people adhered to the first it may be best to do so here. His career already, young though he was, had seen changes. Reared in middle-class life in the North of England, practically educated, rather than fashionably, he had served his articles to a civil engineer. Ere they were quite out, and he free, a small fortune came to him through a relative. Mr. Robert Hunter thought he could not do better than take to a red-coat, and he purchased a lieutenancy in a home corps. Nearly simultaneously with this, he met with Clara Lake, of Katterley. He fell in love with her; at least he fancied so; she most unmistakably did with him, and the preliminaries for a marriage were arranged. Her father made it a proviso that he should quit the army; and that they should live with him after the marriage at Katterley Lodge. Robert Hunter assented, sold out, and the marriage took place. When his wife's father died shortly after, it was found that Katterley Lodge and money amounting to four or five hundred a year were left to her, with a condition that Mr. Hunter should take the name of Lake. So he was mostly called in Katterley, Lake, or Hunter-Lake; elsewhere he was as before Hunter. Just for the present we will call him Lake, but it must not be forgotten that Hunter was his real name.
Mr. Lake opened his basket as he got in and displayed the contents--some fine trout. Two were ordered to be dressed, and served with the tea. On the days of these fishing expeditions, Mrs. Lake dined early. Occasionally she went with him. Not very often. The sport wearied her, and but for him at whose side she sat, it would never have been endurable. "Sport, indeed!" she used laughingly to say, "I'd as soon be at a funeral."
"What have you been doing all the afternoon, Clara?"
"Oh, reading and working; and wishing it was time for you to come home."
"Silly girl!" laughed he, as he played with her curls. "Suppose I should be brought home to you some day fished out of the stream myself; drowned and dead."
"Don't joke, please," was her reply, given in a low voice.
"It had like to have been no joke this afternoon. I all but overbalanced myself. But for a friendly tree I should have been in; perhaps done for."
"Oh, Robert!" she exclaimed, the bright rose fading out of her cheeks.
"And there's a fierce bit of current there, and the river is at its deepest, and the mill-wheel a stone's throw lower down," he continued, as if he enjoyed the sport of teasing her; which perhaps he did. "I was an idiot never to learn to swim."
"Did you slip?" she asked in a half-whisper.
"No; I was leaning too forward and lost my balance. Oh, Clary! you are a little coward at best. Why your heart is beating fast; a vast deal faster than mine did, I can tell you. And where have your roses gone?"
She looked up with a faint smile.
To be affected in this manner, to agitation, merely at the recital of the possible danger, now past, was what Mr. Lake did not understand Neither did he understand the depth of her love, for no sentiment in his own heart echoed to it; the time for love, with him, had not come.
"It is simply foolish, child, to feel alarm now," he said, looking at her gravely.
"You must not go again, Robert."
The remark called forth a hearty laugh. "Not go again! What am I to do, then, until shooting comes in?"
What, indeed? Robert Lake was an idle man. One of those whose unhappy lot it is (the most unhappy lot on earth) to be obliged to "kill" time, or else find it hang on their hands with a heavy weight. To a man born to idleness, cradled in the lap of luxury, it is bad enough; but to Robert Lake, brought up to industry, it was simply unbearable. He was skilled and clever in his profession, and he loved it; the misfortune of his life was having the money left to him; the great mistake his quitting his profession. He saw it now; he had seen it nearly ever since. Another mistake, but a smaller one, was his retiring from the army; as he had entered it, he ought to have kept in it. That fault was not his, but old Mr. Lake's. Lieutenant Hunter was on a visit at his sister's when he met Clara Lake, also staying there, the heiress in a small way. They fell in love with each other; he, after his temperament, carelessly and lightly, a species of love that he had felt for others, and would feel for more; she with all the fervour, the lasting depth of an impassioned and poetic nature. When he came to speak of marriage, and the father--an old-fashioned man who had once worn a pig-tail--said "Yes, upon condition that you quit soldiering and settle down with me--I cannot part with my daughter," Robert Hunter acquiesced without a word of murmur. Nay, he rather liked the prospect; change of all sorts bears its charm of magic for the young. And he was very young; but a year or so older than his wife. They settled down in Katterley Lodge; he to idleness, and it brings danger sometimes; she to happiness, which she believed in as real, as a bliss that would last for ever. If there were a man more perfect than other men on earth, she believed her husband to be that man. A charming confidence, a safeguard for a wife's heart; but sometimes the trust gets rudely awakened. One great grief had come to Clara Lake--she lost her baby; but she was getting over that now.
How intolerable idleness had been to Robert Hunter at first, none save himself ever knew. Over and over again visions of resuming his work as a civil engineer, came pressing on him. But it was never done. In the first year of their marriage came old Mr. Lake's long illness and death; in the second year came the baby and a prolonged illness for Clara; in the third year, this, the idleness had grown upon him, and he cared less to exchange it for hard work. It is of all evils nearly the most insidious.
All the year long, from January to December, living at Katterley Lodge with nothing to do! And he was really beginning not to feel the sameness. Their income, about six hundred a year in all, was not sufficient to allow of their mixing in the great world's fair, the London season; and one visit only had they paid the seaside. The pretty cottage, with its roses and its honeysuckles for a bower, and fishing for recreation in the summer season! It had a monotonous charm, no doubt; but the young man's conscience sometimes warned him that he was wasting his life.
The tea and the fish came in, and they sat down to it, Mrs. Lake remarking that she had forgotten to mention his sister had been there.
"What has she come over for?"
"To see the Jupps. Some little matter of business, she said."
"Business with the Jupps! Gossiping, rather, Clary."
"She said she should remain to tea with them. I wanted her to come back and take it with us; I told her there would be some fish. The fish was a great temptation, she said, but she must stay at the Jupps'! Who's this?" continued Mrs. Lake as the gate was pushed open with a hasty hand "Why, here she is!"
"And now for a clatter." He alluded to his sister's voluble tongue, but he got up and went out to greet her, table-napkin in hand It was Mrs. Chester, his half-sister. She was ten years older than he, twenty times older in experience, and rather inclined to be dictatorial to him and his gentle wife. Her husband, a clergyman, had died a few months back, and she was not left well-off in the world. She had just taken a house at Guild, a place about seven miles from Katterley; though how she meant to pay expenses in it, she scarcely knew.
"Well, Clara! here I am back again!" she exclaimed as she came in; "like a piece of bad money returned."
"I am so glad to see you!" returned Mrs. Lake, in her warmth of courtesy, as she rose and brought forward a chair and rang the bell, and busied herself with other little signs of welcome.
Mrs. Chester threw off her widow's bonnet and black silk mantle. Her well-formed face was pale in general, but the hot August sun made it red now.
She was a little, restless woman, inclined to be stout, with shrewd grey eyes and brown hair, and a nose sharp at the end. The deep crape on her merino gown looked worn and shabby; her muslin collar and cuffs were tumbled. She told everybody she was twenty-eight; Mr. Lake knew her to be four-and-thirty.
"Such a mess it makes of one, travelling in this heat and dust!" she exclaimed rather fretfully, as she shook out her skirts and pulled her collar here and there before the chimney-glass. "I've nothing but my bonnet-cap here; you won't mind it."
It was a bit of plain muslin with a widow's gauffered border. Mrs. Chester untied the black strings of it as she turned round and fanned herself with her handkerchief.
"Did the fish bring you back, Penelope?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Not it. When I got to the Jupps' I found they were going to have a late dinner-party. They wanted me to stay for it. Fancy! in this dusty guise of a costume. How delicious those fish look!"
"Try them," said Mr. Lake, passing some to her. "I have not caught finer trout this season. Clara has some cold fowl in the house, I think, if you have not dined."
"I dined before I came over--that is, had a scrambling sort of cold-meat meal, half dinner, half lunch. Robert, I should like you to catch fish for me always."
"How are you getting on with the house, Penelope?" he asked. "Are you straight yet?"
"Oh, we are getting on. Anna's worth her weight in gold at that sort of thing. She has been used to contrive and work all her life, you know."
"She might be used to worse things," said Mr. Lake.
"I have got a--visitor coming to stay with me," resumed Mrs. Chester, making a pause before the word visitor, and then going on with a cough, as if a fish-bone had stuck in her throat.
"Who is it?"
"Lady Ellis."
"Lady Ellis!" echoed Mr. Lake, unaware that his sister had any one of the name on her visiting list. "Who on earth is Lady Ellis?"
"Well, she is a friend of the Jupps'."
"Oh. And why is she going to visit you?"
"Because I choose to ask her," returned Mrs. Chester, in a reproving tone meant for the public benefit, while she gave her brother a private kick under the table. "She is a widow lady, just come home from India in the depth of her sorrow; and she wants to find some quiet country seclusion to put her poor bereaved head into."
Mr. Lake concluded that the kick was intended as a warning against asking questions. He put a safe one.
"Is she staying with the Jupps?"
"Oh dear, no. She went to India a mere child, I fancy. She was very pretty, and was snapped up by some colonel, a K.C.B., and dreadfully old."
"Ellis by name, I presume?" carelessly remarked Mr. Lake, as he looked for another nice piece of fish for his sister's plate.
"Colonel Sir George Ellis," spoke Mrs. Chester, in a grandly reproving tone, as if the title were good for her mouth. "He is dead, and Lady Ellis has come home."
"With a lac of rupees?"
"With a lack of rupees," retorted Mrs. Chester, rubbing her sharp nose. "Sir George's property, every shilling of it, was settled on his first wife's children. Lady Ellis has money of her own--not very much."
"And why is she coming to you?"
"I have told you. She wants quiet and country air."
"Will she pay you?"
"Pay me! Good gracious, Robert, what mercenary ideas you have! Do you hear him, Clara? Oh, thank you; don't heap my plate like that, though I think I never did taste such fish. The Jupps have been praising her to the skies, one trying to out-talk the rest. Never were such talkers as the Jupp girls."
"Except yourself," put in Mr. Lake.
Mrs. Chester lifted her eyes in surprise.
"Myself! Why, I am remarkably silent. Nobody can say I talk."
He glanced at his wife as he suppressed a smile. The matter in regard to Lady Ellis puzzled him--at least, the proposed residence with Mrs. Chester; but he supposed he might not inquire further.
"Should you like to take home some trout, Penelope?"
"That I should. Have you any to give?"
"I'll have them put up for you, the fellow brace to these. Mind the youngsters don't get the bones in their throats."
"They must take their chance," was the philosophical reply. "Children were never sent for anything but our torment. I am going to pack the two young ones off to school."
"Have you further news from the Clergy Orphan School about James?"
"News! Yes. It is all cross together. There's not the least chance for him, they write me word, at the election in November; I must try again later. And now, Clara, I want you and your husband to come to me for Sunday and Monday. Will you promise? I came over purposely to ask you."
Mrs. Lake did not immediately answer.
"You can come on Sunday morning in time for church, and remain until Tuesday. I don't ask you to come on Saturday evening; we shall be busy until late. The Jupps are coming."
"All of them?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Not all. I don't know where I should put them. Some of the girls: Mary and Margaret for two; and Oliver. I have three spare bedrooms nearly ready."
"Three spare bedrooms? And you grumbling about the purse's shallowness!"
"Allow me to manage my own affairs," said Mrs. Chester, equably. "You will say 'Yes,' will you not, Clara? I want to show you my house; you have never seen it."
Clara Lake did say "Yes;" but at the same time there was a feeling in her heart prompting her to say "No." She neither listened to it nor gave way to it; and yet she was conscious that it was there, as she well remembered afterwards.
"And now I must be going," said Mrs. Chester, putting on her bonnet and mantle. "You will come with me to the station, Robert?"
They started together: he carrying the basket of fish: and walked slowly. As he remarked, they had plenty of time.
"I know it," she said. "I came on early to talk to you."
"About Lady Ellis and her projected visit?" he quickly rejoined. "I thought there was some scheme agate by the kick you gave me."
"Robert, I must scheme to live."
"I think you must if you are to keep three spare bedrooms for visitors."
"I am left a widow, Robert, with a fair amount of furniture, and a wretched pittance of two hundred a year. How am I to live like a lady and educate the children?"
"But why need you have taken so large a house?"
"What am I to do? How am I to eke out my means? I cannot lose caste. I can't go and open a shop; I can't turn Court milliner; I can't begin and speculate in the funds; I can't present myself to the Government or the Bank of England directors, and make a curtsey, and say, 'Please, gentlemen, double my income for me, and then perhaps I can manage to get along.' Can I?" added Mrs. Chester, fiercely.
"I never said you could."
"No; I have only got my own resources to look to, and my own headpiece to work upon. It has been ransacked pretty well of late, I can tell you. The first idea that suggested itself to me was to educate Fanny at home with Anna Chester's help, and to get half-a-dozen pupils as well, on the plan of a private family. But I hated the thought of it. I have no nerves and no patience; and I knew I should be worried out of my very existence. Besides, education gets more fantastical every day, and I am not up to the modern rubbish they call requirements: so I said, 'That won't do.' Next I thought of getting three or four gentlewomen to live with me, on the plan of a private family. Quite as visitors, you know; and the longer I dwelt on the scheme the better I liked it. I thought it would be a pleasant, social way of getting on; and I determined to carry it out. Now you know why I have taken a large house, and am putting it into good order."
"That is, you are going to take boarders?"
"If you choose to put it in that plain way. You are so very downright, Robert. Lady Ellis is the first coming."
"How did you hear of her?"
"Never you mind," returned Mrs. Chester, who did not choose to say she had advertised. "Friends are looking out for me in London and elsewhere. I have had some correspondence with Lady Ellis, and she comes to me the middle of next week. She wants quiet, she says--quiet and country air. A most exquisite little hand she writes, only you can't read it at sight."
"Have you references?"
"Of course. She referred me to some people in London, and also in Cheltenham, where she is now staying. In her last letter she mentioned that the Jupps of Katterley knew her, and that's the chief thing that brought me over today. Mind, Robert, I did not tell the Jupps she was coming to me as a boarder: only as a visitor. 'She writes me that you know her,' I carelessly said to the girls, and they immediately began to tell all they did know, as I knew they would."
"What did they say?"
"Well, the whole of it did not amount to much. At first they persisted they had never heard of her, till I said she was formerly a Miss Finch, having lost sight of her when she went to India. They are charmed to hear she has come back Lady Ellis, and think it will be delightful for me to have her with me."
"Unless you can get more boarders, Lady Ellis will prove a source of expense to you, Penelope, instead of a profit."
"You can't teach me," retorted Mrs. Chester. "I mean to get more."
"What is she to pay you?"
"Well, you know, Robert, I can't venture upon much style at first, wanting the means. I am unable to set up men-servants, and a service of plate, and a pony carriage, and that sort of thing: so at present my terms must be in accordance with my accommodation. Now what should you think fair?"
"I? Oh, nonsense! Don't ask me."
"Lady Ellis is to pay me a hundred pounds if she stays the year; if not, ten pounds per month. Now you see if I get four at that rate, permanent inmates," went on Mrs. Chester, rapidly, "it will bring my income up to six hundred pounds, which will be comfortable, and enable one to live."
"I suppose it will."
"You suppose it will!" snapped Mrs. Chester, who was resenting his indifferent demeanour. "It is as much as you and Clara possess. You live well."
"We have none too much. We spend it--all."
"And more imprudent of you to spend it all! as I have often thought of telling you, Robert Hunter. I wonder you can reconcile yourself to live up to the last penny of your income, and do nothing to increase it. How will it be when children come?"
"Ah, that's a question," said he, giving the fish-basket a twirl.
"You may have a large family yet; you are both young. What sort of a figure would your six hundred a year cut when everything had to come out of it? A dozen children to keep at home, and find in clothes, and doctors, and sundries, and a dozen children to provide for at school, would make your money look foolish."
"Let's see," cried he, gravely; "twelve at home and twelve at school would make twenty-four. Could you not have added twelve more while you were about it, and said thirty-six?"
"Don't be stupid! You know I meant twelve in all. They may come, for all you can tell; and they'll require both home expenses and school expenses, as you will find. It is a sin and a shame, Robert, for a young capable man like you, to live an idle life."
"I tell myself so every other morning, Penelope."
She glanced at him, uncertain whether he spoke in jest or earnest. His dark-blue eyes had a serious look in them, but there was a smile on his pleasant lips.
"If you don't think well to take up civil engineering again, try something else. There's nothing like providing for a rainy day; and a man who lives up to his income cannot be said to do it. You cannot be altogether without interest; perhaps you might get a post under Government."
"I'll apply for the lord-lieutenancy," said he. "The place is vacant."
"I know you always turn into ridicule any suggestion of mine," again retorted Mrs. Chester. "You might get into the board of works, and leave the lord-lieutenancy for your betters. There's the train, shrieking in the distance. Don't forget Sunday. I wish you and Clara to see how nice the house looks."
"All right, Penelope; we will not forget. But now I want to know why you could not have given your explanation before my wife."
"Her pride would have taken alarm."
"Indeed you cannot know Clara if you think that."
"I know her as well as you," returned Mrs. Chester. "I shall acquaint neither her nor the Jupps of the terms on which Lady Ellis is coming."
He said no more. To keep the fact from the clear-sighted, sensible Jupps would be just an impossibility; and he meant to tell his wife as soon as he got home. They passed through the waiting-room to the platform. Mrs. Chester took her seat in one of the carriages; he handed in the basket of trout, and stood back. Just before the train started, she suddenly beckoned to him.
"Robert," she began in a low voice, putting her head out at the window to speak, "I'm going to give you a caution. Don't you carry on any of that nonsensical flirting with Rose Jupp, should you ever happen to be together in the presence of Lady Ellis. You make yourself utterly ridiculous with that girl."
He looked very much amused. "A couple of sinful scapegoats! I am astonished you ever have us at your house!"
"There you are, mocking me again. You may think as you please, Robert, but it is excessively absurd in a married man. I saw you kiss Rose Jupp the other day."
He broke into a laugh.
"Anything of that before Lady Ellis would be an awful mistake. It might frighten her away again."
"Oh, we will both put on our best behaviour for the old Begum. Do not let doubts of us disturb your sleep, Penelope."
"She is not old, but I daresay she knows what propriety is," sharply concluded Mrs. Chester as the train puffed off. And Mr. Lake, quitting the station, went home laughing.
He found his wife in a reverie. The feeling, that she had done wrong to promise to go to Mrs. Chester's, was making itself unmistakably heard, and Clara tried to analyse it. Why should it be wrong? It was difficult to say. Sunday travelling? But she had gone several times before to spend Sunday with Mrs. Chester, gone and returned the same day; for Guild Rectory, where Mrs. Chester had lived, was short of bedrooms. No, it was not the idea of Sunday travelling that disturbed her, and she could find no other reason. Finally she gave up the trouble of guessing, and her husband came in.
"Were you not too early for the train, Robert?"
"I should think so. Penelope confessed that she wiled me out to talk of her plans. I'll tell you about them directly. What do you think she wound up with, Clara, just as the train was starting?"
He had sat down in a large armchair, and was holding his wife before him by the waist.
"With an injunction not to flirt so much with Rose Jupp! Which is absurd in itself, she says, and might frighten away the grand Indian Begum."
Clara Lake laughed. She was accustomed to witness her husband's free rattling manners with others, but not a shadow of jealousy had yet arisen. She believed his love to be hers, just as truly and exclusively as hers was his; and nothing as yet had shaken the belief.
CHAPTER III.
Clara Lake's Dream.[1]
Footnote 1: The dream is not fiction: it is but transcribed, even to the minutest particular.
It was certainly a singular dream, well worthy of being recorded. Taken in conjunction with its notable working out, few dreams have been so remarkable. At least, if it may be deemed that subsequent events did work it out. The reader must judge.
Mr. and Mrs. Lake retired to rest as usual, eating no supper. When they had fish or meat with tea, supper was not served. On this evening he drank some wine-and-water before going to bed; she touched nothing. Therefore it cannot be thought she suffered from nightmare.
It was a singular dream; let me repeat the assertion. And it was in the earlier part of the night that it visited her. How soon after she went to sleep, how late, there were no means of knowing.
Part of the evening's doings came to her again in her sleep. She thought that Mrs. Chester called, went on to the Jupps' house, returned to drink tea, and gave the invitation to go to her house at Guild on the Sunday--all just as it had been in reality. Clara also thought that she felt an insuperable objection to go, in spite of having accepted the invitation. Not the vague idea that had presented itself to her awake, the half-wish that she had not made the engagement, but a strong, irrepressible conviction that the going would bring her evil--but accompanied with a conviction, a knowledge, so to say, that she should go, that it was her fate to go, and that she could not avoid it. She dreamt that Mrs. Chester had departed, and that she was discussing the point with her husband They were in a kitchen, a large kitchen quite strange to her, and were standing by a small, round, dark-coloured table in its middle. The fireplace, as Clara stood, was behind her; the window, a wide one, with an ironing board underneath it, was in front; a dresser with shelves was on her left hand; and there were several doors, leading she did not know where. Altogether, the kitchen looked large and bleak, something like those we see in farm-houses: and, seated on a chair to the right, apparently engaged in sewing, and taking no notice of them, Clara suddenly saw Mrs. Chester. She and her husband were discussing earnestly--to go, or not to go. It appeared that both felt some evil was impending, but yet both knew they should go and encounter it, in spite of the hesitation: and yet Clara seemed to feel that her husband could have helped her to remain if he would. "What excuse can we make for declining?" she seemed to say to him, and then they both thought over various pleas, but none appeared to answer, and they came to the final conclusion that go they must; which they both had known throughout would be the conclusion. All the time they spoke, Mrs. Chester was sitting in her chair, listening, but taking no notice; and upon arriving at the decision Clara and her husband parted, he going towards one of the kitchen doors, she towards the window; but so sharp was the conviction that she was rushing upon evil, that she awoke.
Clara thought it a curious dream--curious because it represented what had actually occurred, and the bent of her own feelings; curious also because it was so unusually vivid, so like reality. She got out of bed quietly, not to disturb her husband, struck a wax match, and looked at the hanging watch. It was exactly three o'clock.
But the dream was not yet over. She went to sleep again, taking up the thread almost at the point where she had left it. She remembered all that had passed, both of dream and reality; she remembered that she awoke in the certainty that she could not go beside the dreaded expedition; all that was plain in this, her second sleep, but she now began making strenuous exertions to escape. She did not see her husband again, but Mary Ann and Margaret Jupp had joined Mrs. Chester, and the three seemed to be forcing her to go. Not by force of violence, but of argument, of persuasion; and she still seemed to know that they must prevail, that to withstand at the last would be beyond her power.
The time appeared to change to the morning of departure: or rather, with that inconsistency peculiar to dreams, it appeared to be the morning of the departure without having changed. Still she strove against it; not saying why, not hinting that she feared evil; of that, she had only spoken with her husband; but striving, not to go, by every possible argument, and by passive resistance. And--strange inconsistency!--it appeared that if she could have told them the reason of her reluctance, her dread of evil, all would have been well; but it was precisely to them she must not and dared not tell it.
To any who may fancy the description of the dream unnecessarily spun out, the small details too much dwelt upon, I would say just a word. It is difficult to shorten that real dream of midnight sufficiently for it to be told within reasonable bounds. No pen can trace its particulars as they appeared; no power of language describe them as they were pictured. And now to resume it.
Mrs. Chester and the Miss Jupps urged her to depart; were waiting for her. Clara Lake resisted. "There!" she suddenly exclaimed to them, "we cannot go. It is past ten: we have let the hour go by, and the train is gone." "Oh!" said Mrs. Chester, "we can get a carriage and overtake it." She went out with them--resistance appeared to be over; she felt that it was over, and that she could not help herself--went out to look for a carriage. They ran about, down lanes and in the open fields, and could not see one; but a butcher's cart came up in the lane; one of them said that would do as well as a carriage, and they all got into it. They seemed to fly, going along at a fearful pace, but through a most dreary-looking country, the skies gloomy, the scenery barren, and the road muddy, so muddy that it splashed up upon them as they sat: there were also shallow, dismal ponds through which they drove. All this haste seemed to be to catch the train, but suddenly a noise was heard behind them, and it was known that it was the train: they had gone so fast as to outstrip it. Their cart stopped to wait, and Clara, when the noise came close, looked behind, but could only distinguish something black which whirled by them, turned round, came back, turned again, and pulled up. "Why, it is a hearse!" she screamed out (but in surprise, not fear), to Mrs. Chester. Yes, it was a hearse, all black, and two men sat upon the box. Clara looked out, expecting to see the rest of their party on it, but there was no one but the two men: the one she could not see, for he seemed to hide his face; but she caught, fixed upon her, the strangely black eyes of the driver, the blackest eyes she ever saw in her life: of the rest of his face she remembered nothing. "Come," said he, "there's no time to lose;" and they all four descended from the cart. Clara got on to the hearse first, and was settling her cloak around her, when she heard the cart drive off, taking the road home again; and, seated in it as before, were Mrs. Chester and Mary and Margaret Jupp. "Why don't you come with me?" she called out; "why are you going back?" "No," said Mrs. Chester, "that hearse is for you, not for us;" and they drove off. The hearse also drove off the contrary way, and Mrs. Lake found herself sinking into its interior. She was calm enough for a moment, but suddenly she knew that she had been entrapped into it, and that she was being taken to her burial.
With a dreadful scream she awoke.
The scream awoke Mr. Lake. She was bathed in perspiration, and shaking as in an ague fit. In vain he asked what was the matter, whether she was ill: she could not speak to tell him, and it was several minutes before she was able in any degree to overcome the fright, or relate it to him.
Robert Lake had no belief in dreams; was given to scoff at them; but he had too much regard for his wife to attempt to scoff then, in her extremity of distress and agitation. He got up and lighted a lamp, for though morning was glimmering it could not be said to be yet light.
"I am quite certain that it is sent to me as a warning," she exclaimed; "and I will not go on Sunday to Guild."
"I never knew before that you could believe in dreams," he answered.
"I do not believe in dreams; I have never had any particular dreams to believe in. But you must acknowledge, Robert, that this one is beyond common. I cannot describe to you how vivid, how real everything appeared to me. And it was not one dream; it was two: that at least is unusual. The second dream was a continuation of the first."
"The one induced the other. I dare say you saw a hearse pass yesterday?"
"I have not seen a hearse for ever so long," she answered, still shivering. "But, go to your sister's, I will not. Thank heaven! though the power to refuse was not mine in the dream, it is in reality."
But that it was not the time to do it, he could have laughed outright at the superstitious folly. He spoke pleasant, loving words to her, almost as one would to a frightened child, trying to soothe her back to tranquillity.
"Clara; consider! the very fact of your being able to act as you please, which it seems you could not do in the dream, ought to convince you how void of meaning it was."
"I will not go to Mrs. Chester's," was all she reiterated, with a strange sigh of relief--a sense of thanksgiving that the option was assuredly hers.
"Wait for the morning sun," said he. "You will be in a different mood then."
She did not rise so soon as usual. She had got to sleep again at last, first of all making a firm inward resolution that no persuasion, no ridicule, no "morning sun"--in whose cheery rays things indeed wear a different aspect from what they do in the dark and weird night should suffice to alter her determination. The warning against going she fully believed to have been sent to her, and she would abide by it.
Mr. Lake waited breakfast for his wife. She came down in her delicate muslin dress, looking as pretty as usual. At first she made no allusion to the past night; neither did he--he hoped it was at an end; but when breakfast was about half over, she glanced up at him in her rather shy manner, speaking in a low tone.
"I have a request to beg of you, Robert--that you will not mention this dream to any one. I will make some other excuse for not going to Guild."
"Dream!" cried he, speaking with his mouth full. "Why, Clary, I had already forgotten it. And so will you before the day shall be over."
She shook her head.
"I shall send word to Penelope that I cannot go."
Mr. Lake put down his knife and fork and gazed at her in astonishment. To his sober, practical mind, his careless nature, this in truth savoured of the ridiculous.
"Clara, you will never be so foolish! I gave you credit for better sense. Dreams are all very well in their places--to amuse old women and children--but in these days they should not be allowed to influence actions. You can see the bright sunshine, the busy work-a-day world around you, and yet you can retain remembrance of a ridiculous dream! I thought dreams passed away with the night."
"Of course a great part of the vivid impression has passed with the night," she replied, confessing what was the actual fact; "but I will abide by the night's impression, nevertheless. I look at it in this light--my remaining at home can hurt no one, it cannot bring harm in any way, while my going may bring me harm; we cannot tell. I am fully decided," she continued, in a firm tone; "and do you eat your breakfast and cease staring at me."
"Perhaps you fear the train will come to grief, and pitch us all into coffins made to fit your hearse."
"Well, I don't know," returned Clara. "If I did get into the train on Sunday morning, I should be unusually pleased to find myself safe out of it again."
Mr. Lake said no more; in this frame of mind reasoning was useless. But he felt persuaded the fancy would wear away, and his wife go contentedly enough with the rest of them.
Nothing more was said that day, which was Friday. On the next day, Saturday, two of the Miss Jupps called on Clara, full of the following morning's excursion. A large family was that of the Jupps--six sons and six daughters, all living. The sons were out in the world--one in the army, one in the navy, one in the church, one reading for the bar, one here, one there; Oliver, the youngest of them, was just now at home. The six daughters were all at home, and marrying men seemed to fight shy of so large a host. Social, pleasant, chatty girls were they, the youngest two-and-twenty, the age of the eldest locked up in the church's register. Mr. and Mrs. Jupp were a quiet, inoffensive couple, completely eclipsed by their sons and daughters; not that any were undutiful, but the old people belonged to a bygone age, and were scarcely equal to the innovations of this. Mr. Jupp had once been high sheriff of the county: it was the one great event of the Jupps' life, imparting to them an importance which their pride never quite lost sight of. They lived in a large house abutting on the street of Katterley, about five minutes' walk from Mr. Lake's.
Mary Ann and Margaret Jupp had come to gossip about the proposed Sunday excursion. They were pleasant, voluble girls (to pay them the compliment of still calling them girls), with light hazel eyes and reddish hair. The sisters were all much alike--these two, the eldest; Louisa and Rose, the youngest. They had on flimsy skirts, nankeen-coloured jackets, and straw hats. They sat in the shady room open to the trailing honeysuckles, talking to Clara.
"Our plans are changed," spoke Mary. "Oliver, Louisa, and Rose go tomorrow, returning home to sleep, and I and Margaret go over the next day."
"We think it would be so truly unconscionable to inflict four of us on Mrs. Chester at once, with her few servants, that we have written to tell her we will divide ourselves," interrupted Margaret, who liked to have her share of tongue. "Mamma says she wondered at our thoughtlessness when she heard us making the bargain."
"Mrs. Chester would not have made a trouble of it," answered Clara. "She is not one to put herself out of the way."
"No, she is very good; but it would have been imposing on hospitality," said Mary Jupp. "For that very reason, as mamma observed, we ought to spare her. So Louisa and Rose spend Sunday with her; I and Margaret Monday; Oliver goes both days."
"But you will remain for Tuesday?"
"No. Until she has her house in complete order it would be unfair to trouble her with night guests. You and Mr. Lake of course will remain the whole time. And now to deliver Louisa's message. Shall they call for you here tomorrow morning, or will you be at the train?"
"I am not going," replied Mrs. Lake.
"Not going!" echoed Mary Jupp. "Good gracious! Why not?"
"It is not quite convenient. Mrs. Chester does not expect me."
"But she did expect you!" exclaimed Mary, in wonder. "Oliver saw Mr. Lake that night after he had taken Mrs. Chester to the train, and he told him you were going. Did you not?" she added, appealing to Mr. Lake, who sat perched on a side table doing something to a fishing-line.
"All right," nodded he.
"Yes, we did promise; but since then I have altered my mind, and have written to Mrs. Chester," said Clara. "I shall go later, when she is more settled."
"Well, I never heard of such a thing!" cried Margaret Jupp. "Oliver and the girls will be in a way! I don't think they care to go but for the pleasure of your company. Mr. Lake, why have you changed your minds?"