BROTHERTON stayed a week at the White House—to the great mortification of the Pilgrims at Wyburgh, whose guest he had been. Nobody likes to have their visitors interfered with, or that a new acquaintance, whom they have themselves introduced and brought out, so to speak, in society, should desert them for a new circle. The girls and the mother were alike indignant, and the incident even had the effect of quickening the action of the father, and making him more impatient of the delays in respect to old Mr. Joscelyn’s estate. But this had little effect upon the household at the White House, which for the moment was more happy and peaceful than perhaps it had ever been before. It was the beginning of one of those new chapters in life which revive the interest of the old story. Poor Mrs. Joscelyn had lived through many such, but they had been in most cases not of the pleasant, but painful kind. Her blood had been quickened in her veins, her heart driven into wild beating, as one crisis after another occurred in the family life. But now everything was changed. Lydia had become to her another self. She was not sure whether it was not herself again, glorified, elevated, made beautiful by present youth and infinite hope, which was always about her—moving with her step for step, talking, even thinking with her: the same thoughts rising to their lips. Between two sisters such a dual life is sweet; but to a mother it is a recompense for all the pangs of life, which are seldom few or small. She was not sure that it was not herself who spoke, and thought, and smiled in Lydia; but only a self far more firm, erect, and self-supporting than she had ever been. Lydia was not afraid of anything, and of Ralph Joscelyn least of all. This of itself made the strangest difference. It gave a flavour and fragrance to their mingled life. The mother felt herself more brave and more strong in her child; and now romance was arriving to her late in the same way. Ralph Joscelyn’s wooing had been a rough one. During its course the pretty, drooping Lydia of those days had been charmed by its very abruptness, and considered the peremptory passion a double compliment to herself, and to the power of love in subduing the strong. She had liked all the silly similes, the lion enchained, the giant deprived of his strength, and had believed in her foolish heart that her half-savage hero would be always in her toils—however rough to others, yet to herself the gentlest of the gentle. From this foolish dream there had been a summary awakening; and all her long life since had been calculated to convince the romantic woman that romance existed only in her dreams. But now another kind of awakening was coming to her. Youth had come back with its visions, and Arcadia, and love. The young man who was her own kith and kin (which of itself was sweet) was also, as becomes a young man, something of her own kind. He was full of poetry, and sympathy, and enthusiasm: it was not after her old-fashioned mode, but yet it was not the common strain of prose to which she had been accustomed. To see his eyes turn to her Lydia was to Mrs. Joscelyn like the revival of all her own maiden fancies; and the affectionate worship which he gave to herself completed the charm. Perhaps she was happier than Lydia in those early days of wooing. She saw the dawn of admiration and enthusiasm in his eyes, when Lydia herself thought of him only as a sort of advanced playfellow, a something new in his youth and pleasantness. Mrs. Joscelyn saw it all from the beginning; she felt from the beginning that it was written in heaven. It was half like a story which she was reading in snatches, or chapters, a single page at a time, always longing to go on with it, to see what the next step was to be, to anticipate the end.
As for Lydia herself, after the little excitement of the arrival, and the pleasure of bringing this new cousin to her mother—the most delightful present that could be thought—of she subsided sedately into her usual life, and treated him as a new companion, not doubting his interest in her simple occupations. His servant came over from Wyburgh with his baggage, which was a shock to the primitive household; but as the man was rather in charge of the horse than of his master, and that is a point on which princes and grooms may fraternise, the alarm was soon over. Brotherton wanted, it appeared, to find a shooting box, a little place in which he could establish himself for the autumn. He explained that he was not rich enough to aspire to a Scotch moor, and modestly permitted it to be understood that the Duke’s youngest son was his intimate friend, and that it was chiefly to be near him, and share his shootings, that he had chosen this part of the world. With the hospitality of primitive regions, Ralph Joscelyn would have taken him in permanently, and allowed him to be an inmate of the White House; but his wife retained enough of her old breeding to see that this expedient was undesirable, even though her heart stirred faintly with a hope that in that case the Duchess might have called, which is the chief sign of belonging to the aristocracy in these countries. The Duchess had never given her this sign of recognition, which had been a life-long smart to the poor lady. What did she care about such distinctions now? but yet for the sake of Liddy, she said to herself. To have her Lydia asked to a ball at the Castle would indeed be something to reward her for living, to make her feel that now she could die in peace. Mrs. Joscelyn did not say anything about this hope—for the disappointment, if nothing came of it, would have been very severe she felt, too great a trial to expose her child to: but she cherished it in her heart of hearts. And in the meantime they made every effort they could to find for this new relation the lodging he wanted. It was Lydia at last who suggested the old Birrenshead, the house which had been Uncle Harry’s, but which had not been inhabited by anybody but Isaac Oliver in the memory of man.
“It is a very tumble-down old place,” she said, deprecating, “but it is only two miles from here.”
“Oh, if it is only two miles from here—!” cried the young man, eagerly. This was one of those elliptical forms of speech which he had begun to employ unawares, and which only Mrs. Joscelyn understood. She smiled within herself, but she said nothing; and it was agreed that he should walk there next day and see what accommodation the place possessed. The name of it threw a little tremor over Mrs. Joscelyn, although she had smiled. And next morning, when with great simplicity, and without any thought of harm, Lydia set out with the stranger to show him the way, she told him the circumstances in which the family stood, as she had before revealed to him the fact of her brother’s disappearance. It did not occur either to Lydia or to her mother that there was anything wrong, anything out of the common, in showing young Brotherton the way to Birrenshead. It seemed indeed of all things the simplest and most natural. She walked by his side as seriously as if the young man had been her own grandfather, with all the dignity of a princess in her own country. Nor did anyone in the village think it strange. They saw her pass, and wondered who it was who accompanied her over the bridge; but that was all.
“This is part of the property,” she said gravely, “which was left to my poor brother whom I told you of. That is what made my mother look so serious. She does not like to hear about Uncle Henry’s property. If we do not hear something of Harry soon, it will have to be divided, they say.”
“And that is a grief to her?” Brotherton said, sympathetically.
“Oh, Mr. Brotherton, think! to be the heir of your own child—do you wonder that she cannot bear it? They say we should all have our share, father and mother too. He does not say much, but he thinks more than he says, and I am sure he would rather die than touch it. But my brothers,” said Lydia, with a sigh, “my other brothers, don’t think so. They want us to yield and consent that Harry is dead. But that is what I will never do.”
Brotherton looked at her animated face with admiring interest. “You must have been very fond of this brother,” he said.
“I scarcely remember him; but I am sure I should find him,” cried Lydia. “You will say that is nonsense; but then I have been my mother’s only companion all these years, and she will never be happy till she has seen Harry again. She has not had a very happy life; perhaps she has not always understood—and then no one has understood her. I must, I must get her some happiness before she dies!”
There was a glow of tender enthusiasm about the girl which touched her companion deeply. “I think,” he said, “she is happy in you. It would be strange if she were not,” he added, half under his breath.
This brought a wave of colour over Lydia’s face. “She is a little more happy in me; but she will not be really happy till she sees Harry.”
“And if——”
“Don’t say so, Mr. Brotherton, please! Don’t think so even. Do you imagine if he had been —— that mother would not know? If I could only go abroad I know I should find him. Here is old Isaac Oliver, old Uncle Henry’s man. He will let you see the place; and if he is cross you will not mind? He has been here so long that he thinks it is his own.”
They were walking along the edge of a field of corn, on a little footpath so narrow that here and there they had to walk singly. The wind, which swept the tall rustling crop in waves like breath coming and going, blew the pale yellow heads against them as they went along in pleasant contact with this wealth and freshness of nature. The corn was still pale in tint, ripening slowly under the northern sun, with a glimmer of red poppies under the surface like the woven under-ground of some rich Indian stuff. As Lydia spoke, an old man became visible between the corn and the hedgerow, pushing his stooping shoulders along before him with a sidelong movement like a crab. His head was bent to one side, his footsteps shuffling. Ten years had told upon Isaac. He did not take off his hat when he saw Liddy approaching, such a ceremonial being scarcely necessary to the familiar intercourse of the country, but he nodded amiably, and made signs of welcome with his hand. As, however, the path widened a little just at that moment, and young Brotherton, making a quicker step, appeared suddenly at Lydia’s side, Isaac, who had not seen him before, was greatly startled. He stopped short in his crab-like course to stare at the new comer. He fell back a step or two and screwed his stooping head aloft in a sidelong attitude. Then he gave vent to a shrill, prolonged “E-eh!” which penetrated the air like a skewer. “So he’s coomed back,” the old man said.
“Who has come back?” said Lydia, startled and eager.
“Lord, Master, give us a grip o’ your hand. You’re no Master Harry now, you’re master’s sel’. T’ ould Master left it all to ye, as I said he would if you’d let him be; but you never would listen, nor think on——” When he had got so far, old Isaac paused. His head had sunk a little from its first energy of motion, but he kept one eye screwed up and shining, and his mouth twisted upward at one corner. Here, however, he paused, and a cloud came over his face. “Miss Liddy,” he said, reproachfully, “you might have tellt me it wasn’t him.”
“Who did you think it was, Isaac? It is Mr. Brotherton, a——distant cousin. Did you think——? Oh, tell me, is he like, is he like——?”
The old man recovered himself gradually. He gave a grin which seemed to twist upwards from his mouth to his little twinkling eyes.
“Not a feature in his face,” he said, with a growl of angry laughter, “not a bit, no more nor I’m like. I’m just an old fool. I take anyone for him. Ne’er a soul comes down t’ Fells but I say, it’s him, as if he was coming from t’ skies. A fine joke that; and him t’ prodigal son, a good joke; to look for him from t’ skies! He should come from t’ other place, Miss Liddy, up from t’ ground.”
“But he was no prodigal,” said Liddy, indignantly. “He did not go away for any harm, Isaac, you know that!”
“I know a’ about it, a’ about it,” said the old man. “Step forward, Sir, into the light. If you keep there dangling behind her—Lord! but I’ll think it’s you after a’.”
“You must be like Harry,” cried Lydia, turning round quickly upon her companion. “When she saw you first, my mother started too.”
“He’s about the same age,” said old Isaac, “and tallness—no more, not a hair. Don’t you speak to me, Miss Liddy. If I dunnot know him, who does? I brought him up, though you wouldn’t think it. I put him on a pony the first time. I gied him most of his lessons, out of t’ school. But this isn’t him,” the old man said indignantly, “it’s not him, I tell ye. Don’t you think to impose on me.”
“Isaac,” said Lydia, “will you let Mr. Brotherton see the house? He wants to live here for a little. Mother thinks you might put in a little furniture, and make him comfortable.”
“Com—fortable!” said the old man, prolonging the word with a half-laughing, half-angry cry; “and it was your mother said it? If he likes t’ bide with the bats and the rats, he may be com—fortable. There’s been nobody else there as long’s I mind. Do you mean,” he added, suddenly screwing up his eye into a little spark of red fire, “that she’s consented, and Miss Joan, and you? I’ll not b’lieve it; and who,” he asked fiercely, “is to get this share?”
“You must not speak so to me. We have not consented, and I never will consent. But this gentleman does not understand what we are talking about,” said Lydia; “take him into the house and show him what rooms there are, and I will go and see your wife.”
“Oh, ay,” said Isaac, “speak to t’ missis, you’ll find her in a fine way. If she hadna gotten t’ meekest man, next to Job, that was ever in this ill world—a pictur and a pattern. But you’ll see for yourself, Miss Liddy; you can drop a word about t’ gentleman to soothen her down. Come this way round, come this way round, it’s the best way.”
Old Isaac had turned in front of them, and was creeping along by the side of the path scarcely so high as the corn, his battered old hat about the same height as the yellow ears. When the cornfield ended they came out abruptly upon a grey old house, surrounded by a small rough square of grass, in which were some fine trees. The house looked as if it had been forgotten there, like an old plough. It had a square, respectable portico, with a pediment above it, and rows of windows chiefly broken, the lower ones closed with shutters which were falling to pieces. A huge elm-tree stood up at one corner, throwing its shadow over half the house; behind it were traces of the trees of an orchard; but the fields all round had encroached on the place, potatoes were growing within a stone’s throw of the great door, and everything bearing witness of its deposition and reduction from a human centre of life to a mere wreck and encumbrance on the earth.
“Ay, ay,” said old Isaac, shaking his head, “they’d just like to pull it down and no leave one stone on another, like Jerusalem in t’ Bible; but the walls is good, and the woodwork’s good, and it would last his time and mine—and far more if Mr. Harry would come home, as he ought.”
“Then you think he’ll come home,” said young Brotherton, not knowing what to say.
“Wha said he wasna coming home, why should he no come home?” said Isaac, screwing up his eye once more into a red spark of angry light. “Them that say so know nothing about it, I can tell you that, Master. Them that are of that opinion have nothing to found it on. Who understands Master Harry like me, unless, maybe, it was his mother? Well, his mother and me, we’re both expecting him. That should be an answer, except to them that arguys just for the sake of arguyment,” the old man said, fiercely. “Will you come in and see the house?”
To Brotherton it had begun to seem, by this time, as if the house and all about it, the very skies overhead, had darkened. He did not quite know at first what was the cause. It was some cloud that had come over the sun; or was there some obscurity about the house, some shadow of fate, which darkened the skies at midday? It seemed to him suddenly that nothing could be more dreary than the aspect of the place altogether, though before Lydia disappeared round the broken bit of garden-wall, it had seemed so inviting and desirable. But he did not ask himself if Lydia’s disappearance had anything to do with this sudden change: all he said to himself was, “it is only two miles from the White House,” and, strengthened by this reminder, he went on with courage into the dark portal. It was, as Liddy had said, a very tumble-down house. There was a dirty and ragged carpet on the floor, sometimes moving in waves when the windows were opened; a table stood in the centre of the largest sitting-room, and the chairs were put round, as if some sober party had just risen from them. This was on the first floor, in the drawing-room of the house; behind it were some bed-rooms scarcely more inviting; the dust rose in clouds when the air was admitted, the furniture seemed dropping to pieces. Brotherton stood at the door of one room after another, with a blank stare at them. They had but one quality; they were within two miles of the White House.
“And do you think they will suit you?” Lydia asked, coming back to him when his inspection was over.
She had not been in dusty places like those which he had just left, but came round the corner of the garden wall, looking so fresh and bright, that somehow that cloud over the sun disappeared in a moment, and the whole landscape brightened, and the dust went out of his throat. He had been feeling half choked, but he felt so no more. He had thought that they would not do at all; but now a sort of heavenly suitability seemed to come to them all at once, and it appeared to him in a moment that, if he could have the choice of all sorts of lodgings, these dreary rooms were those which would suit him best.
“They will do beautifully,” he said, with much cheerfulness. “So far as I can see they are the very thing I want; and then so near the White House! What is two miles? I shall be able to walk over constantly—if you will let me,” he added, in a softer tone.
“Of course we will let you,” said Lydia, sedately. “We shall miss you so much that we shall be very happy to have you whenever you like. But were they not in very bad order? the furniture dreadful? and everything dropping to pieces?”
“I did not see it,” said young Brotherton, stoutly. “They were, I daresay, a little dusty; when a place has been uninhabited for a long time—I suppose nobody has lived there lately?”
“Nobody has lived there since I can remember—oh, and not for a long time before. Even Uncle Henry never lived there. I think I must have been silly to bring you, for it can’t be fit to live in now I think of it; and while matters are undecided about poor Harry they will not do anything. Oh, I am afraid mother and I were hasty in thinking it would do.”
“On the contrary,” said young Brotherton, feeling in the enthusiasm of the moment as if it had been a palace which he had just quitted, “it is everything I require. Perhaps,” he added, modestly, as if by an afterthought, “they would not mind—sweeping it out.”
“I spoke to Jane, that is Isaac’s wife. Isaac is a very funny old man, but he is frightened for his wife. She keeps him right. And she will scrub it, and sweep it, and dust it, and make it as clean as a new pin. Oh, you may be quite sure of that. And then, at first, you can take your meals with us, the White House is so near—only two miles, what is that?”
“Nothing,” said Brotherton, with enthusiasm. Then he added, “I must not tire you out. I shall do very well. I can get everything I want here.”
“Oh, no; until you get used to Jane, and accustomed to the cooking, and all that—I know these things are of consequence to gentlemen,” Lydia said, with a soft smile of feminine superiority, “you must come and take your meals at the White House. But Jane Oliver is quite a good cook,” she added, encouragingly. Brotherton’s heart had sunk within him at the mention of Jane’s cookery. The cookery could not but be a terrible necessity in such a place. But he scorned to show any such weakness.
“I am sure she is,” he said, cheerfully. “I feel certain that I shall be in the best of quarters. Is there a ghost?”
“A ghost! why should there be a ghost?” cried Lydia, in surprise. Then she added, with a little dignity, “There was never anybody injured or betrayed in a house that belonged to the Joscelyns. So there can’t be any ghosts.”
“You reprove me justly,” he said, feeling his little joke very small indeed in the presence of Lydia’s youthful dignity. “It was a vulgar, slangy sort of suggestion. I see the folly of it now.”
“No folly,” said Lydia, from her pedestal; “you did not know.”
And then they went on together, once more very sedately, as if they had been a sober, middle-aged couple, the corn rustling and nodding towards them, the soft wind sweeping over it, bowing its yellow plumes in soft successions of movement, the whole air full of a happy rustle and sweep of sound, the sound of the atmosphere, the subdued hum of summer happiness common to all the world. He made up his mind that the landscape, all full of young trees and northern colours, and the moment, in which there was no positive bliss indeed, but only a dreary, dusty lodging, and the prospect of being cared for by a ploughman’s wife—were perfect, and that life could not hold anything sweeter. Lydia went on talking of the chance that perhaps Mr. Pilgrim, the executor, would “do something” when he heard of a tenant, until it gradually began to appear to the young man as if she were talking of improving heaven. What could be equal in all the world to a place which was within reach of the White House? “But if your brother were to come home suddenly,” he said, “what would become of me? Should I be turned out?”
“Harry!” cried Lydia, with glistening eyes; and then she said, turning to him (he was behind her for the moment, the path was so narrow), “Harry! Oh, how kind you are! To speak like that is to give one courage; for you really, really think, Mr. Brotherton, don’t you, now you have heard all about him, that he must come home?”