CHAPTER III
Parish Explorations

 
A cry more tuneable
Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
Judge, when you hear.—But, soft; what nymphs are these?
Midsummer Night’s Dream
 

It was quite true that Cecil Charnock Poynsett was a very intelligent industrious creature, very carefully brought up—nay, if possible, a little too much so.  “A little wholesome neglect” had been lacking.

The only child of her parents who had lived to see a second birthday was sure to be the centre of solicitude.  She had not been spoilt in the usual acceptation of the word, for she had no liberty, fewer indulgences and luxuries than many children, and never was permitted to be naughty; but then she was quite aware that each dainty or each pleasure was granted or withheld from a careful consideration of her welfare, and that nothing came by chance with her.  And on her rare ebullitions of self-will, mamma, governess, nurse, nay even papa, were all in sorrowful commotion till their princess had been brought to a sense of the enormity of her fault.

She lost her mother at fourteen, but the same anxious training was carried on by her father; and after three years he married her mother’s most intimate friend, avowedly that the perfect system might be continued.  Cecil’s gaieties as a come-out young lady were selected on the same judicious principles as her childish diversions; and if ever the Dunstone family favoured an entertainment not to their taste, it was after a debate on the need of condescension and good-nature.  She had, however, never had a season in London—a place her father hated; but she was taken abroad as soon as she was deemed old enough thoroughly to appreciate what she was to see there; and in Switzerland her Cousin Raymond, who had at different times visited Dunstone, overtook the party, and ere long made his proposals.  He was the very man to whom two or three centuries ago Mr. Charnock would have betrothed the heiress in her infancy; and Cecil had never liked any one so well, feeling that her destiny came to a proper culmination in bestowing her hand on the most eligible Charnock, an M.P., and just a step above her father in rank and influence.

Her step-mother was under orders to spend the winter in Italy and the wedding had therefore taken place in Venice, so that Cecil might finish her journey as a wife.  She had been very happy and fully occupied; Raymond, being younger and stronger than her parents, was more competent to escort her to every height or depth to which she wished to go, hunted up information for her, and was her most obedient servant, only resisting any prolongation of the journey beyond the legitimate four weeks; nor indeed had Cecil been desirous of deferring her introduction to her new sphere.

There she stood, her hair and pretty Parisian winter dress arranged to perfection, contemplating with approval the sitting-room that had been appropriated to her, the October sunshine lighting up the many-tinted trees around the smooth-shaven dewy lawn, and a bright fire on the hearth, shelves and chiffoniers awaiting her property, and piles of parcels, suggestive of wedding presents, awaiting her hand.  She was standing at the table, turning out her travelling-bag with the comfortable sensation that it was not to be immediately re-packed, and had just disinterred a whole library of note-books, when her husband opened the door.  “I believe Jenkins is waiting for your appearance to bring in the urn, my dear.”

“I’m coming; but surely there ought to be a bell or gong to assemble the family.”

“It might disturb my mother.  What sleep she gets is in the morning.  I never go to her till eleven o’clock, unless I am going out for the day.”

“And what will she want me to do for her?” asked Cecil, glancing at her empty shelves.

“A woman’s tact will soon find out.  All I wish is that she should be your first object.”

It was a much larger all than could be realized by the son whose happiest moments had been spent in devotion to her, and who thought the motherless girl must rejoice doubly in such a mother.

“But I am free till eleven,” said Cecil.

“Free always, I hope,” he returned, with a shade of vexation.  Therewith they descended the broad stairs into the panelled hall, where a great fire was blazing on the hearth, and Rosamond and the two young brothers were standing chatting merrily before it.

Julius, she said, had his primary sermon heavy on his mind, and had risen before day to attack it; and she sped away to summon him from Mrs. Poynsett’s beautiful old dressing-room, where he sat writing amid all the old associations.  Anne was discovered hanging over the dining-room fire, looking whiter and more exhausted than the night before, having indeed been the first to come down-stairs.  She was rebuked for fatiguing herself, and again murmured something about family worship.

“We must begin to-morrow,” said Raymond.  “We have got a chaplain now.”

Julius, however, on entering excused himself, saying that after Sunday he should be at Matins at nine o’clock; whereupon Anne looked at him in mute astonishment.

Raymond, feeling that he ought to cultivate the solitary sister-in-law, began asking about Miles; but unlike the typical colonist, she was very silent, and her replies were monosyllabic, till Rosamond created a diversion by talking to Frank; and then Raymond elicited that Glen Fraser was far up the country—King Williamstown nearer than any other town.  They had sent thither for a doctor for Miles, and he stayed one night, but said that mother’s treatment was quite right; and as it was thirty miles off he did not come again.  Thirty miles! what sort of roads?  Not bad for wagons.  It only took two days to get there if the river was not in flood.  Had she not been married there?  Yes, they all rode in thither for the purpose.  Was it the nearest church, then?  There was one only nine miles off, to which papa went when there was service—one Sunday in three, “for he is an Episcopalian, you know.”

“And not your mother?” asked Cecil.

“I don’t think she was at home,” said Anne.

“Then had you a Presbyterian Kirk?” asked Cecil, remembering that in Scotland gentle blood and Anglicanism did not go together as uniformly as she believed them to do in England.

“There was one at Schneyder’s Kloof, but that was Dutch.”

“Then did you go nowhere?” asked Cecil.

“There was Mr. Pilgrim’s.”

“A clergyman?”

“No, a settler.  He used to pray and expound every Sunday.”

“What does he call himself?” said Cecil, growing more severe.

“I don’t know,” said Anne.  “He gathers together a little flock of all denominations, who only care to hear the word.”

“Such a voice in the wilderness as often does good service,” said Julius, with a perception that the side with which he least agreed best deserved support.

He and Rosamond were bent on a tour of parochial inspection, as were Raymond and Cecil on a more domestic one, beginning with the gardens.

Cecil was the first lady down-stairs, all in claret colour trimmed with gray fur, with a little fur and velvet cap upon her head.

“There! it is a clear morning, and you can see the view,” said Raymond, opening the hall door.

“Very prettily undulating ground,” she said, standing on the steps, and looking over a somewhat rapid slope scattered with trees to the opposite side of the valley, where a park with a red mansion in the midst gleamed out among woods of green, red, orange, and brown tints.  “How you are shut in!  That great Spanish chestnut must be a perfect block when its leaves are out.  My father would never let it stand so near the house.”

“It is too near, but it was planted at the birth of my mother’s brother.”

“Who died?”

“Yes, at seven years old.  It was her first grief.”

“Then it would vex her if you cut it.”

Raymond laughed.  “It is hers, not mine.”

“I forgot.”  There was a good deal in the tone; but she added, “What is that place opposite?”

“Sirenwood.  It belongs to Sir Harry Vivian; but he does not live there.”

“Yes, he does,” said Cecil.  “Your brothers say he has come back with his two daughters.”

“There is only one unmarried.”

“There is a widow come to keep house for him—Lady Tyrrell.”

“Very likely,” said Raymond; “my mother only writes with difficulty, so I hear little when I am from home.”

“Is it true that they are horrid people, very dissipated, and not fit for me to associate with?”

“That is putting it strongly,” said Raymond, quietly.  “They are not likely to be very desirable acquaintances for you, but there is no reason you should not associate with them on ordinary terms of courtesy.”

“Ah!  I understand—as member’s wife.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” said Raymond.  “Ah!  Rosamond!” as she came down in a Galway cloak over her black velveteen, “on the way to view your domain?”

“Yes, and yours,” she said, nodding to Cecil.  “You appreciate such English apple-pie order.  It looks as if you never suffered a stray leaf to dance without an old woman to hunt it down.  And what’s that red house smiling across the valley?”

“Sirenwood,” repeated Raymond; then to Julius he said, “Did you know it was inhabited again?”

“Frank said so,” answered Julius, without further remark, giving his arm to his wife, who clasped both hands on it; while the other couple looked on as if doubtful whether this were a trying duty incumbent on them.

“What is it all about?” said Rosamond, as they walked down the avenue of walnuts leading to the iron gates in the opposite direction from Sirenwood.  “Which of you was that woman’s victim?  Was it a sailor love of Miles’s?  I hope not!  That poor little African might not stand a gay ghost cropping up again.”

“Miles is far removed from the conventional sailor.”

“Then it is reduced to the grave Raymond.”

“I wish I had betrayed nothing.”

“Now you may as well proceed to betray the rest, instead of leaving me to exercise my fancy.”

“It is no secret, only such things are best not brought up again.  Camilla Vivian was poor Raymond’s grande passion, and you may imagine what a grief that was to my mother, especially as the poor brother was then living—one of the most fascinating, dangerous men I ever saw; and the whole tone of the place was ultra gay and thoughtless, the most reckless extravagance.  However, he was set upon it, and my mother was forced to consent to the engagement.  She seemed equally devoted to him, till she met Lord Tyrrell at some country house, and then a quarrel was picked, either by her mother or herself, about my mother retaining the headship of her own house.  It was a palpable excuse, but it served to break the affair off, and Raymond was cruelly cut up.  My mother made herself everything to him from that moment, gave up all her former habits to be with him, sent the little boys to school, and fairly dragged him through the trouble!”

“How long ago was it?”

“Ten years—yes, ten years.  So far as ceasing to care a straw for a heartless woman like that, he has got over it, no doubt; but it has made a graver man of him for life, and I doubt whether, but for my mother’s accident, he ever would have married.”

“Did you marry for your mother’s sake, Julius, or only tell her so?”

“For shame, my Lady Mischief!”

“And do you think the fair Camilla returned with plans that she finds disconcerted?”

“How can I tell?  I have not seen her since I was a lad of eighteen.—Ah! how d’ye do, Betty?” in a tone of relief; “you’ve not seen my wife.”

This was the first of a long series of introductions.  Compton Poynsett was a straggling village, with the church, schools, and Rectory, ten minutes’ walk from the park gates.  It had not been neglected, so that Julius had not the doubtful satisfaction of coming like a missionary or reformer.  The church, though not exactly as with his present lights he would have made it, was in respectable order, and contained hardly anything obnoxious to his taste; the schools were well built, properly officered, and the children under such discipline that Rosamond declared she could no more meddle with them than with her father’s regiment.

The Rectory was at that moment level with the ground, and Julius explaining the plans, when up came the senior curate.  Mr. Bindon, whom she, as well as Julius, greeted as an old friend, was the typical modern priest, full of his work, and caring for nothing besides, except a Swiss mountain once a year; a slight, spare, small, sallow man, but with an enormous power of untiring energy.

Scarcely had Rosamond shaken hands with him, standing where her drawing-room rug was to be in future days, when a merry whistle came near, and over the wall from the churchyard leapt first a black retriever, secondly a Skye terrier, thirdly a bull ditto, fourthly a young man, or rather an enormous boy, who for a moment stood amazed and disconcerted at the unexpectedly worshipful society into which he had jumped!

“Ha!  Herbert! is that you?” laughed Julius.