"I wish it could, my dear, but it does not seem possible while those bills are such a dreadful uncertainty. I never know what Allen may have been ordering."
"Surely the Evelyns would be glad to have you."
"No, Jock, that can't be. Promise me that you will do nothing to lead to an invitation. You are to meet some of them, are you not?"
"Yes, on Thursday week, at Roland Hampton's wedding. Cecil and I and a whole lot of us go down in the morning to it, and Sydney is to be a bridesmaid. What are you going to do now, mother?"
"I don't quite know. I feel regularly foolish. I shall have a headache if I don't keep quiet, but I can't persuade myself to stay in the house lest that man should come back."
"What! not with me for garrison?"
"O nonsense, my dear. You must go and catch up the sportsmen."
"Not when I can get my Mother Carey all to myself. You go and lie down in the dressing-room, and I'll come as soon as I have taken off my boots and ordered some coffee for you."
He returned with the step of one treading on eggs, expecting to find her half asleep; but her eyes were glittering, and there were red spots on her cheeks, for her nerves were excited, and when he came in she began to talk. She told him, not of present troubles, but of the letters between his father and grandmother, which, in her busy, restless life, she had never before looked at, but which had come before her in her preparations for vacating Belforest. Perhaps it was only now that she had grown into appreciation of the relations between that mother and son, as she read the letters, preserved on each side, and revealing the full beauty and greatness of her husband's nature, his perfect confidence in his mother, and a guiding influence from her, which she herself had never thought of exerting. Does not many an old correspondence thus put the present generation to shame?
Jock was the first person with whom she had shared these letters, and it was good to watch his face as he read the words of the father whom he remembered chiefly as the best of playfellows. He was of an age and in a mood to enter into them with all his heart, though he uttered little more than an occasional question, or some murmured remark when anything struck him. Both he and his mother were so occupied that they never observed that the sky clouded over and rain began to fall, nor did they think of any other object till Bobus opened the door in search of them.
"Halloo, you deserter!"
"Hush! Mother has a headache."
"Not now, you have cured it."
"Well, you've missed an encounter with the most impudent rascal I ever came across."
"You didn't meet Hermann?"
"Well, perhaps I have found his match; but you shall hear. Grimes said he heard guns, and we came upon the scoundrel in Lewis Acre, two brace on his shoulder."
"The vultures are gathering to the prey," said his mother.
"I'm not arrived at lying still to be devoured!" said Bobus. "I gave him the benefit of a doubt, and sent Grimes to warn him off; but the fellow sent his card-_his_ card forsooth, 'Mr. Gilbert Gould, R.N.,'-and information that he had Miss Menella's permission."
"Not credible," said Jock.
"Mrs. Lisette's more likely," said his mother. "I think he is her brother."
"I sent Grimes back to tell him that Miss Menella had as much power to give leave as my old pointer, and if he did not retire at once, we should gently remove his gun and send out a summons."
"Why did you not do so at once?" cried Jock.
"Because I have brains enough not to complicate matters by a personal row with the Goulds," said Bobus, "though I could wish not to have been there, when the keepers would infallibly have done so. Shall I write to George Gould, or will you, mother?"
"Oh dear," sighed Caroline, "I think Mr. Wakefield is the fittest person, if it signifies enough to have it done at all."
"Signifies!" cried Jock. "To have that rascal loafing about! I wouldn't be trampled upon while the life is in me!"
"I don't like worrying Mr. Gould. It is not his fault, except for having married such a wife, poor man."
"Having been married by her, you mean," said Bobus. "Mark me, she means to get that fellow married to that poor child, as sure as fate."
"Impossible, Bobus! His age!"
"He is a good deal younger than his sister, and a prodigious swell."
"Besides, he is her uncle," said Jock.
"No, no, only her uncle's wife's brother."
"That's just the same."
"I wish it were!" But Jock would not be satisfied without getting a Prayer-book, to look at the table of degrees.
"He is really her third cousin, I believe," said his mother, "and I'm afraid that is not prohibited."
"Is he a ship's steward?" said Jock, looking at the card with infinite disgust.
"A paymaster's assistant, I believe."
"That would be too much. Besides, there's the Scot!"
"I don't think much of that," said Jock. "The mother and sister are keen for it, but Clanmacnalty is in no haste to marry, and by all accounts the Elf carries on promiscuously with three or four at once."
"And she has no fine instinct for a gentleman," added Bobus. "It is who will spread the butter thickest!"
"A bad look out for Belforest," said Jock.
"It can't be much worse than it has been with me," said his mother.
"That's what that little ass, Armine, has been presuming to din into your ears," said Bobus; "as if the old women didn't prefer beef and blankets to your coming poking piety at the poor old parties."
"By the bye," cried Caroline, starting, "those children have never come home, and see how it rains!"
Jock volunteered to take the pony carriage and fetch them, but he had not long emerged from the park in the gathering twilight before he overtook two figures under one umbrella, and would have passed them had he not been hailed.
"You demented children! Jump in this instant."
"Don't turn!" called Armine. "We must take this," showing a parcel which he had been sheltering more carefully than himself or his sister. "It is cord and tassels for the banner. They sent wrong ones," said Barbara, "and we had to go and match it. They would not let me go alone."
"Get in, I say," cried Jock, who was making demonstrations with the "national weapon" much as if he would have liked to lay it about their shoulders.
"Then we must drive onto the Parsonage," stipulated Armine.
"Not a bit of it, you drenched and foolish morsel of humanity. You are going straight home to bed. Hand us the parcel. What will you give me not to tie this cord round the Reverend Petronella's neck?"
"Thank you, Jock, I'm so glad," said Babie, referring probably to the earlier part of his speech. "We would have come home for the pony carriage, but we thought it would be out."
"Take care of the drip," was Armine's parting cry, as Babie turned the pony's head, and Jock strode down the lane. He meant merely to have given in the parcel at the door, but Miss Parsons darted out, and not distinguishing him in the dark began, "Thank you, dear Armine; I'm so sorry, but it is in the good cause and you won't regret it. Where's your sister? Gone home? But you'll come and have a cup of tea and stay to evensong?"
"My brother and sister are gone home, thank you," said Jock, with impressive formality, and a manly voice that made her start.
"Oh, indeed. Thank you, Mr. Brownlow. I was so sorry to let them go; but it had not begun to rain, and it is such a joy to dear Armine to be employed in the service."
"Yes, he is mad enough to run any risk," said Jock.
"Oh, Mr. Brownlow, if I could only persuade you to enter into the joy of self-devotion, you would see that I could not forbid him! Won't you come in and have a cup of tea?"
"Thank you, no. Good night." And Miss Parsons was left rejoicing at having said a few words of reproof to that cynical Mr. Robert Brownlow, while Jock tramped away, grinning a sardonic smile at the lady's notions of the joys of self-sacrifice.
He came home only just in time for dinner, and found Armine enduring, with a touching resignation learnt in Miss Parsons's school, the sarcasm of Bobus for having omitted to prepare his studies. The boy could neither eat nor entirely conceal the chills that were running over him; and though he tried to silence his brother's objurgations by bringing out his books afterwards, his cheeks burnt, he emitted little grunting coughs, and at last his head went down on the lexicon, and his breath came quick and short.