CHAPTER IV. Shades In Sunshine
My friends would be angered,
My minnie be mad.-Scots Song
"Whom do you think we met, mother?" said Julius, coming into her room, so soon as he had made his evening toilette, and finding there only his two younger brothers. "No other than Miss Vivian."
"Ah! then," broke in Charlie, "you saw what Jenkins calls the perfect picture of a woman."
"She is very handsome," soberly returned Julius. "Rose is quite delighted with her. Do you know anything of her?"
"Jenny Bowater was very fond of poor Emily," rejoined the mother. "I believe that she had a very good governess, but I wish she were in better hands now."
"I cannot think why there should be a universal prejudice for the sake of one early offence!" exclaimed Frank.
"Oh, indeed!" said Julius, amazed at such a tone to his mother.
"I only meant-mother, I beg your pardon-but you are only going by hearsay," answered Frank, in some confusion.
"Then you have not seen her?" said Julius.
"I! I'm the last person she is likely to seek, if you mean Camilla."
"She inquired a great deal after you, mother," interposed Frank, "and said she longed to call, only she did not know if you could see her. I do hope you will, when she calls on Cecil. I am sure you would think differently. Promise me, mother!"
"If she asks for me, I will, my boy," said Mrs. Poynsett, "but let me look! You aren't dressed for dinner! What will Mistress Cecil say to you! Ah! it is time you had ladies about the house again."
The two youths retreated; and Julius remained, looking anxiously and expressively at his mother.
"I am afraid so," she said; "but I had almost rather he were honestly smitten with the young one than that he believed in Camilla."
"I should think no one could long do that," said Julius.
"I don't know. He met them when he was nursing that poor young Scotsman at Rockpier, and got fascinated. He has never been quite the same since that time!" said the mother anxiously. "I don't blame him, poor fellow!" she added eagerly, "or mean that he has been a bit less satisfactory-oh no! Indeed, it may be my fault for expressing my objection too' plainly; he has always been reserved with me since, and I never lost the confidence of one of my boys before!"
That Julius knew full well, for he-as the next eldest at home-had been the recipient of all his mother's perplexities at the time of Raymond's courtship. Mrs. Poynsett had not been a woman of intimate female friends. Her sons had served the purpose, and this was perhaps one great element in her almost unbounded influence with them. Julius was deeply concerned to see her eyes glistening with tears as she spoke of the cloud that had risen between her and Frank.
"There is great hope that this younger one may be worthy," he said. "She has had a very different bringing up from her sister, and I did not tell you what I found her doing. She was teaching a little pig-herd boy to draw."
"Ah! I heard Lady Tyrrell was taking to the education of the people line."
"I want to know who the boy is," said Julius. "He called himself Reynolds, and said he lived with granny, but was not a son of Daniel's or Timothy's. He seemed about ten years old."
"Reynolds? Then I know who he must be. Don't you remember a pretty-looking girl we had in the nursery in Charlie's time? His 'Fan-fan' he used to call her."
"Ah, yes, I remember; she was a Reynolds, for both the little boys could be excited to fury if we assumed that she was a fox. You don't mean that she went wrong?"
"Not till after she had left us, and seemed to be doing well in another place; but unfortunately she was allowed to have a holiday in the race week, and a day at the course seems to have done the mischief. Susan can tell you all about it, if you want to know. She was as broken-hearted as if Fanny had been her own child-much more than the old mother herself, I fear."
"What has become of the girl?"
"Gone from bad to worse. Alas! I heard a report that she had been seen with some of the people who appear on the race-course with those gambling shooting-galleries, or something of that sort."
"Ah! those miserable races! They are the bane of the country. I wish no one would go near them."
"They are a very pleasant county gathering."
"To you, mother, and such as you; but you could have your county meeting without doing quite so much harm. If Raymond would only withdraw his subscription."
"It would be as much as his seat is worth! Those races are the one great event of Wil'sbro' and Backsworth, the harvest of all the tradespeople. Besides, you know what is said of their expedience as far as horses are concerned."
"I would sacrifice the breed of horses to prevent the evils," said Julius.
"You would, but-My boy, I suppose this is the right view for a clergyman, but it will never do to force it here. You will lose all influence if you are over-strained."
"Was St. Chrysostom over-strained about the hippodrome?" said Julius, thoughtfully.
Mrs. Poynsett looked at him as he leant upon the chimney-piece. Here was another son gone, in a different way, beyond her reach. She had seen comparatively little of him since his University days; and though always a good and conscientious person, there had been nothing to draw her out of secular modes of thought; nor had she any connection with the clerical world, so that she had not, as it were, gone along with the tone of mind that she had perceived in him.
He did not return to the subject, and they were soon joined by his elder brother. At the first opportunity after dinner, Frank got Rosamond up into a corner with a would-be indifferent "So you met Miss Vivian. What did you think of her?"
Rosamond's intuition saw what she was required to think, and being experienced in raving brothers, she praised the fine face and figure so as to find the way to his heart.
"I am so glad you met her in that way. Even Julius must be convinced. Was not he delighted?"
"I think she grew upon him."
"And now neither of you will be warped. It is so very strange in my mother, generally the kindest, most open-hearted woman in the world, to distrust and bear a grudge against them all for the son's dissipation-just as if that affected the ladies of a family!"
"I did not think it was entirely on his account," said Rosamond.
"Old stories of flirtation!" said Frank, scornfully; "but what are they to be cast up against a woman in her widowhood? It is so utterly unlike mother, I can't understand it."
"Would not the natural conclusion be that she knew more, and had her reasons?"
"I tell you, Rosamond, I know them infinitely better than she does. She never saw them since Lady Tyrrell's marriage, when Eleonora was a mere child; now I saw a great deal of them at Rockpier last year. There was poor Jamie Armstrong sent down to spend the winter on the south coast; and as none of his own people could be with him, we- his Oxford friends, I mean-took turns to come to him; and as I had just gone up for my degree, I had the most time. The Vivians had been living there ever since they went on poor Emily's account. They did not like to leave the place where she died you see; and Lady Tyrrell had joined them after her husband's death. Such a pleasant house! no regular gaieties, of course, but a few friends in a quiet way-music and charades, and so forth. Every one knew everybody there; not a bit of our stiff county ways, but meeting all day long in the most sociable manner."