CHAPTER X
A Truant

 
Since for your pleasure you came here,
You shall go back for mine.
 

—COWPER

“How like Dunstone you have made this room!” said Raymond, entering his wife’s apartment with a compliment that he knew would be appreciated.

Cecil turned round from her piano, to smile and say, “I wish papa could see it.”

“I hope he will next spring; but he will hardly bring Mrs. Charnock home this winter.  I am afraid you are a good deal alone here, Cecil.  Is there no one you would like to ask?”

“The Venns,” suggested Cecil; “only we do not like them to leave home when we are away; but perhaps they would come.”

Raymond could not look as if the proposal were a very pleasing one.  “Have you no young-lady friends?” he asked.

“We never thought it expedient to have intimacies in the neighbourhood,” said Cecil.

“Well, we shall have Jenny Bowater here in a week or two.”

“I thought she was your mother’s friend.”

“So she is.  She is quite young enough to be yours.”

“I do not see anything remarkable about her.”

“No, I suppose there is not; but she is a very sensible superior person.”

“Indeed!  In that commonplace family.”

“Poor Jenny has had an episode that removes her from the commonplace.  Did you ever hear of poor Archie Douglas?”

“Was not he a good-for-nothing relation of your mother?”

“Not that exactly.  He was the son of a good-for-nothing, I grant, whom a favourite cousin had unfortunately married, but he was an excellent fellow himself; and when his father died, she had Mrs. Douglas to live in that cottage by the Rectory, and sent the boy to school with us; then she got him into Proudfoot’s office—the solicitor at Backsworth, agent for everybody’s estates hereabouts.  Well, there arose an attachment between him and Jenny; the Bowaters did not much like it, of course; but they are kind-hearted and good-natured, and gave consent, provided Archie got on in his profession.  It was just at the time when poor Tom Vivian was exercising a great deal more influence than was good among the young men in the neighbourhood; and George Proudfoot was rather a joke for imitating him in every respect—from the colour of his dog-cart to the curl of his dog’s tail.  I remember his laying a wager, and winning it too, that if he rode a donkey with his face to the tail, Proudfoot would do the same; but then, Vivian did everything with a grace and originality.”

“Like his sister.”

“And doubly dangerous.  Every one liked him, and we were all more together than was prudent.  At last, two thousand pounds of my mother’s money, which was passing through the Proudfoots’ hands, disappeared; and at the same time poor Archie fled.  No one who knew him could have any reasonable doubt that he did but bear the blame of some one else’s guilt, most likely that of George Proudfoot; but he died a year or two back without a word, and no proof has ever been found; and alas! the week after Archie sailed, we saw his name in the list of sufferers in a vessel that was burnt.  His mother happily had died before all this, but there were plenty to grieve bitterly for him; and poor Jenny has been the more like one of ourselves in consequence.  He had left a note for Jenny, and she always trusted him; and we all of us believe that he was innocent.”

“I can’t think how a person can go about as usual, or ever get over such a thing as that.”

“Perhaps she hasn’t,” said Raymond, with a little colour on his brown cheek.  “But I’m afraid I can’t make those visits with you to-day.  I am wanted to see the plans for the new town-hall at Wil’sbro’.  Will you pick me up there?”

“There would be sure to be a dreadful long waiting, so I will luncheon at Sirenwood instead; Lady Tyrrell asked me to come over any day.”

“Alone?  I think you had better wait for me.”

“I can take Frank.”

“I should prefer a regular invitation to us both.”

“She did not mean to make a formal affair.”

“Forms are a protection, and I do not wish for an intimacy there, especially on Frank’s account.”

“It would be an excellent match for Frank.”

“Indeed, no; the estate is terribly involved, and there are three daughters; besides which, the family would despise a younger son.  An attachment could only lead to unhappiness now, besides the positive harm of unsettling him.  His tutor tells me that as it is he is very uneasy about his examination—his mind is evidently preoccupied.  No, no, Cecil, don’t make the intercourse unnecessarily close.  The Vivians have not behaved well to my mother, and it is not desirable to begin a renewal.  But you shall not lose your ride, Cecil; I’ll ask one of the boys to go with you to the Beeches, and perhaps I shall meet you there.”

“He talks of my lonely life,” said Cecil, to herself, “and yet he wants to keep me from the only person who really understands me, all for some rancorous old prejudice of Mrs. Poynsett’s.  It is very hard.  There’s no one in the house to make a friend of—Rosamond, a mere garrison belle; and Anne, bornée and half a dissenter; and as soon as I try to make a friend, I am tyrannized over, and this Miss Bowater thrust on me.”

She was pounding these sentiments into a sonata with great energy, when her door re-opened, and Raymond again appeared.  “I am looking for two books of Mudie’s.  Do you know where they can be?  I can’t make up the number.”

“They are here,” said Cecil; “Lanfrey’s Vie de Napoleon; but I have not finished them.”

“The box should have gone ten days ago.  My mother has nothing to read, and has been waiting all this time for the next part of Middlemarch,” said Raymond.

“She said there was no hurry,” murmured Cecil.

“No doubt she did; but we must not take advantage of her consideration.  Reading is her one great resource, and we must so contrive that your studies shall not interfere with it.”

He waited for some word of regret, but none came; and he was obliged to add, “I must deprive you of the books for the present, for she must not be kept waiting any longer; but I will see about getting them for you in some other way.  I must take the box to the station in the dog-cart.”  He went without a word from her.  It was an entirely new light to her that her self-improvement could possibly be otherwise than the first object with everyone.  At home, father and mother told one another complacently what Cecil was reading, and never dreamt of obstructing the virtuous action.  Were her studies to be sacrificed to an old woman’s taste for novels?

Cecil had that pertinacity of nature that is stimulated to resistance by opposition; and she thought of the Egyptian campaign, and her desire to understand the siege of Acre.  Then she recollected that Miss Vivian had spoken of reading the book, and this decided her.  “I’ll go to Sirenwood, look at it, and order it.  No one can expect me to submit to have no friends abroad nor books at home.  Besides, it is all some foolish old family feud; and what a noble thing it will be for my resolution and independence to force the two parties to heal the breach, and bridge it over by giving Miss Vivian to Frank.”

In this mood she rang the bell, and ordered her horses; not however till she had reason to believe the dog-cart on the way down the avenue.  As she came down in her habit, she was met by Frank, returning from his tutor.

“Have I made a mistake, Cecil!  I thought we were to go out together this afternoon!”

“Yes; but Raymond was wanted at Willansborough, and I am going to lunch at Sirenwood.  I want to borrow a book.”

“Oh, very well, I’ll come, if you don’t mind.  Sir Harry asked me to drop in and look at his dogs.”

This was irresistible; and Frank decided on riding the groom’s horse, and leaving him to conduct Anne to the rendezvous in the afternoon—for Charlie had been at Sandhurst for the last week—running in first to impart the change of scheme to her, as she was performing her daily task of reading to his mother.

He did so thus: “I say, Anne, Cecil wants to go to Sirenwood first to get a book, so Lee will bring you to meet us at the Beeches at 2.30.”

“Are you going to luncheon at Sirenwood?” asked Mrs. Poynsett.

“Yes; Cecil wants to go,” said the dutiful younger brother.

“I wish you would ask Cecil to come in.  Raymond put himself into such a state of mind at finding me reading Madame de Sévigné, that I am afraid he carried off her books summarily, though I told him I was glad of a little space for my old favourites.”

Cecil was, however, mounted by the time Frank came out, and they cantered away together, reaching the portico of Sirenwood in about twenty minutes.

Cecil had never been in the house before, having only left her card, though she had often met the sisters.  She found herself in a carpeted hall, like a supplementary sitting-room, where two gentlemen had been leaning over the wide hearth.  One, a handsome benignant-looking old man, with a ruddy face and abundant white whiskers, came forward with a hearty greeting.  “Ah! young Mrs. Poynsett!  Delighted to see you!—Frank Charnock, you’re come in good time; we are just going down to see the puppies before luncheon.  Only I’ll take Mrs. Poynsett to the ladies first.  Duncombe, you don’t know Mrs. Raymond Poynsett—one must not say senior bride, but the senior’s bride.  Is that right?”

“No papa,” said a bright voice from the stairs, “you haven’t it at all right; Mrs. Charnock Poynsett, if you please—isn’t it?”

“I believe so,” replied Cecil.  “Charnock always seems my right name.”

“And you have all the right to retain it that Mrs. Poynsett had to keep hers,” said Lady Tyrrell, as they went up-stairs to her bedroom.  “How is she?”

“As usual, thank you; always on the sofa.”

“But managing everything from it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Never was there such a set of devoted sons, models for the neighbourhood.”

Cecil felt a sense of something chiming in with her sources of vexation, but she only answered, “They are passionately fond of her.”

“Talk of despotism!  Commend me to an invalid!  Ah! how delightfully you contrive to keep your hair in order!  I am always scolding Lenore for coming in dishevelled, and you look so fresh and compact!  Here is my sanctum.  You’ll find Mrs. Duncombe there.  She drove over in the drag with her husband on their way to Backsworth.  I am so glad you came, there is so much to talk over.”

“If our gentlemen will give us time,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “but I am afraid your senator will not be as much absorbed in the dogs as my captain.”

“I did not come with my husband,” said Cecil; “he is gone to Willansborough to meet the architect.”

“Ah, about the new buildings.  I do hope and trust the opportunity will not be wasted, and that the drainage will be provided for.”

“You are longing to have a voice there,” said Lady Tyrrell, laughing.

“I am.  It is pre-eminently a woman’s question, and this is a great opportunity.  I shall talk to every one.  Little Pettitt, the hair-dresser, has some ground there, and he is the most intelligent of the tradesmen.  I gave him one of those excellent little hand-bills, put forth by the Social Science Committee, on sanitary arrangements.  I thought of asking you to join us in ordering some down, and never letting a woman leave our work-room without one.”

“You couldn’t do better, I am sure,” said Lady Tyrrell; “only, what’s the use of preaching to the poor creatures to live in good houses, when their landlords won’t build them, and they must live somewhere?”

“Make them coerce the landlords,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “that’s the only way.  Upheave the masses from beneath.”

“But that’s an earthquake,” said Cecil.

“Earthquakes are sometimes wholesome.”

“But the process is not so agreeable that we had not rather avert it,” said Lady Tyrrell.

“All ours at Dunstone are model cottages,” said Cecil; “it is my father’s great hobby.”

“Squires’ hobbies are generally like the silver trough the lady gave her sow,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “they come before the poor are prepared, and with a spice of the autocrat.”

“Come, I won’t have you shock Mrs. Charnock Poynsett,” said Lady Tyrrell.  “You illogical woman!  The poor are to demand better houses, and the squires are not to build them!”

“The poor are to be fitly housed, as a matter of right, and from their own sense of self-respect,” returned Mrs. Duncombe; “not a few favourites, who will endure dictation, picked out for the model cottage.  It is the hobby system against which I protest.”